#3343: December 26, 2024: Chiang Mai at Christmas

Post 3343

- 13 years and 360 days since I started this blog -

Travel Journal

(written December 25-7, 2024)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): 

I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 14 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a Type-2 Diabetes diagnosis, and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to a loss of 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since. I started adding commentary after a while, but recently it has returned to a food journal only. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling (except for food shots when I've eaten something interesting or pretty). I write about my experiences, and use it as a photo dump. And that's where we find ourselves now.

- - - - - - - 

Chiang Mai weather has settled in to the usual: Sunny skies, high temps in the upper seventies. I've been loving it. The evenings have been gorgeous.

One thing that is very different this year: No municipal Christmas decorations. In every past year, the Thapae Gate has been turned into a Christmas-New Year's walk-through electric park, similar to the annual Lights on the Lake drive-through back home.

This year, nothing. At least so far.

Maybe they're just skipping the Christmas part (the new, year-old government is very conservative, and, since Christianity has very little presence in Thailand (95% Buddhist, with the next biggest minority Muslim), maybe they felt it was an unnecessary expense. (Edit: I just found out they moved last year's big do to a park in the North suburbs).

Christmas is different here. It is a tourist holiday. Among Thais, it is 'celebrated' by anyone with less than three degrees of separation from the tourist industry. Restaurants are festooned with red and green. Thai sales clerks and wait staff wear Santa hats, antlers, Christmas trees on their heads. And elf costumes.

At breakfast on Christmas day, my cuppa joe came with a little off-white snowman. Served by a waitress in a red dress and wearing foam antlers on her head. Finding she spoke a little English, I asked her what it was. "Christmas snack," she said.

But what was it? I asked. She couldn't answer. I said, "It is a snow man." She gave me a big smile, and shook her head, yes.

"What is snow in Thai?" I asked.

A big smile, then a shrug of I-don't know..

No reason why she should know. I wonder if there's a word for snow in the Thai language. I don't think there is any snow in Thailand, whose highest mountain is about six thousand feet (highest peak, which is near Chiang Mai, is 8,000 feet, but it is a couple of thousand feet higher than the surrounding mountains), and typically lower than that.

Chiang Mai is only 18º North of the Equator, with an elevation of a thousand feet above sea-level. The mountains that surround it are three-to-five thousand feet high. There's no snow here, ever.

With this beautiful weather, I've gotten back to my while-here normal walking routine. I had my longest walk since last year's time in Cuenca. On Christmas day I walked for about two hours without stopping. I haven't been able to walk that long (without pain) for a while, thanks to chronic knee and leg problems that I exacerbated by climbing a mountain the day before I left Cuenca. I was doing alright with that until my fall at the Syracuse airport on my way here. After a couple of weeks here, I'm pretty much recovered from that.

It means a lot to me to be able to walk without pain. I'm funny that way.

I've been getting some good playing time in, but, thanks to the demise of most of the good open mics around town, I don't know how much playing I'll be doing in the next three weeks (which is how much time I have left here). 

Chiang Mai continues to delight. The warmth of the people, the beauty of the culture, the pleasant weather, making new friends, finding the small surprises that always show up when you stay open to them. And the food!

And, of course, my friends. I have the best friends. And, there are even still some around from my very first time here at the end of 2017. 

Good times.

On to the photos:

People Pics

Happily, I've been getting some good playing time. Less happily, a couple of weeks ago two of my favorite open mics shut down, leaving only one of my old regular places left. I did find a good new one (the three color photos above), and I've made some new friends, thanks to that.

The first time I went to the open mic at Lecker's, I had finished playing, finished my Jameson's, and I was out front smoking a joint while the open mic continued inside. An outside speaker let me hear the goings-on inside perfectly. I liked hearing this cool cat singing jazz over a prepared backing track. Well, I almost fell over when I heard the first few notes of the piano introduction to 'Gimme That Wine' (Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross). That was one of my favorite cuts in one of my all-time favorite albums -  which was the first record I ever bought with my own money: "Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, The Hottest New Group In Jazz". He did a great job with it, and I ran in to buy him a drink. I made a new friend, Rychy (his spelling). This is us after dinner a couple of nights later.

Dee Band (l-r: Oliver (guitar vocals), Boy (trombone), Jim (drums), Mark (sax, vocals), Roddy (trumpet, vocals), David (bass)) is Roddy Lorimer's new band. This is at their first gig, at Paapuu House. This band is solid. Every player a seasoned pro, with Roddy and Mark being international recording and touring vets (stars, in Roddy's case). The rhythm section, with friends Jim and David, are solid, and I've never heard Ollie play better. But with Roddy writing the arrangements, the horn section is the star of the show. Every member is a great soloist, and their ensemble playing is so good, I, as a lover of horn bands, get excited.

The Troubador Band (with the Dee Band horn section, led by Sebastien, with Thomas and Jim as the rhythm section). This is something different: A country blues band with a horn section. All I can say is, it works, and it works very well.

Selfie Section

About a year-and-a-half ago, the Thai government did a complete reversal of their stance on cannabis, making it legal to grow, buy, sell and use pot recreationally. They sent agricultural experts out to the farmers to give them seeds and tell them how to cultivate it. When I arrived that winter, there were hundreds of weed stores in Chiang Mai - they were almost as common as massage parlors. Six months ago, a new Thai election was won by a party who rescinded the legalization for recreational weed. When I heard, I called my friend Dave there. He said the new rules wouldn't go into effect until December, But he guessed, given the economic impact of these new rules, that nothing would change. He was wrong. Every weed store wrote "Medical" on a sheet of paper and put it in the window. That's what changed. I've never found it difficult to get and smoke weed here (or anywhere, for that matter), no matter the legal status. Last year, I got my weed at the legal stores, and it was better, but expensive. This year, I've found the best weed I've smoked in Thailand at an "illegal" weed store (Medical!). Still expensive, but not as much.

Chiang Mai, Thailand's old city (where I stay) is surrounded by a square walled moat. Each side is a mile long. Not all of the 700-year old wall is still standing, but the gates on each side are well-maintained. For my last four visits (this is my sixth), I have stayed near the Tha Phae Gate. This Gate, and the large court outside it, is one of Chiang Mai's biggest tourist attraction, and not just for foreigners. Thais come here. From morning to night, it is crowded, crowded, crowded, and throngs of Thai wait for a chance to get their photo taken in front of the wall plaque behind me here. I took this photo at around one in the morning. In all my visits, I had never seen the Gate so empty of people (although there are actually people on both sides and in front of me). So I got my pic. I know, the lighting is weird, but...

Wandering

Came across this weed shop growing the crop in the window. That's a very good price for weed here, but but weed is still the only expensive thing in Chiang Mai.

Food Comment

Coquilles St. Jacques from Chez Marco.

Overnight Oats from Kati Breakfast and Brunch. This is my new favorite oatmeal. Really a fruit salad with oatmeal, it has everything, and everything done right. 

Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on a croissant. My Christmas Eve breakfast, complete with ugly seasonal-appropriate table cloth. From Mellowry Café.

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