After the trek we've sold out.
Aviva wanted air conditioning or else and so we moved to the Royal Lanna (still in Chang Mai). All plush twenty two floors of it. It is mostly cheap and empty at this time of year, just a few businessmen, as the monsoon is about to start and that is a slow time for tourists. Tourism is Thailands second biggest earner after agriculture. Things briefly changed during the Asia economic boom a while back, but it did not go on long enough for the sky scrapers to appear. As a result there are a lot of half built buildings in Thailand, a fact made abundently clear when you are on the ninth floor. We had one last duty to perform at the trekker's guest house, though. A guide cannot ask for money during a trek as he would lose his license. Jackie had been good to us and it was his birthday and as we could not really give him any money yours truly had to go and buy a present.
After a whip round we had 800 Baht to spend (about 16 quid). I made some enquiries. It turns out that he doesn't drink and doesn't smoke. He only buys quality imports, after working at Reebok he doesn't like the Thai copies, and saves for them. No one knew his shoe size and buying trekking equipment was too risky as we were bound to get something below his standards. I thought I might get a Jackie Chan video. The other guesthouse workers suggested the Central department store, the Chang Mai equivalent of Harrod's, so I set off to buy a gift for someone I hardly knew, with hardly any money and I would not be able to read the labels. I had just over an hour.
After a short walk (50 mins left) I found that videos were on the third floor (45 mins), but I was in the wrong building (40 mins to go). Next door the videos were also on the third floor next to the Mark's and Spencer section (30 mins), but these turned out to be blanks and they don't do prerecorded films (20 mins). Jackie said he liked all sports, but I got nowhere asking for the sports section (15 mins).After wandering about I stumbled on it and it was pronounced "Spoor-ats" section (10 mins). A worrying stream of Thai and an international "bing bong" came out over the tannoy. Tennis rackets were two expensive, but Badminton rackets were ideal (8 mins to go) and grabbed a pair with shuttlecocks (7 mins). I took it to the checkout. It seems that it has to go first to the assisstants walking around. The person who had helped was now busy so they took the money anyway (I was slightly over so part of it had to be dug out of my pockets) and someone else had to be found to wrap it. Overmanning is pretty endemic here. You frequently find your self eating food with three waiters hovering in the wings. Meanwhile people were starting to leave. Some designated wrapping staff were found and both the checkout girl and my original assisstant helped (1 minute to go). The wrapping took ten minutes. It's lucky they don't stick too closely to closing times here.
The Royal Lanna has some advantages over jungle bamboo huts. It has pillows, the room is not on stilts so you are never in fear of a six foot drop after putting your foot through the floor, you don't have to sleep on a twisted floorboard with a drafty gap down the middle and most of all you don't have a rooster screaming at you from four O'clock in the morning. On the other hand, you can't see the stars at night, there are a lot of them, and you have to listen to air conditioning rather than crickets. Being so high, though, you can always find your hotel from a distance as it sticks up above the half built ones and the shanty town that lines the streets. I could see it whilst I was writing the last e-mail. This doesn't work close up though and frustrated trying to find it that other day, I decided to get a taxi for the last few hundred yards.
There was this octaganarian asleep on his cycle rickshaw. I felt sorry for him and woke him up.
Turns out he doesn't speak a word of English, but recognised "Lanna". It actually refers to a style of woodcarving that you can get in the night market. We set off. We were going so slow that this guy pushing a pallette on wheels wanted to overtake. I started to read my copy of "Mr. Nice" (biography of Howard Marks). I saw a few landmarks go by and carried on reading. I saw an internet cafe go by that looked just like the one I had just been in. When I stopped reading we were at a red light about to cross a six lane road. My driver looked exhausted, I did not recognise where we were at all and I was nervous and did not think we were going to make it. We didn't. Scooters, vans and bikes were all mounting the kerb trying to get around us and my driver was shouting at them and waving his hand as assertively as he could. A traffic cop rescued and stopped us. My driver did a runner, if you can call it that, but the cop was too busy sorting out the mess as the lights had changed again. I was glad to be alive, but was getting suspicious. He did a U-turn. We were definitely lost. I started to say "Lanna" a lot and he was pointing at this tall building with "Lanna Palace" hotel on it. I had another argument and got him to agree to the "Royal" part and luckily he turned left. He went to a police desk.
Apart from the bedroom and loo, most buildings in Chang Mai don't have walls on the ground floor. There is no point as it is always hot and it means that your living room is also you garden patio. All very civilised. By extension there is only actually one Police station in Chang Mai. Elsewhere you just have a roofed desk with a couple of cops. The cops were getting baffled as they could not speak English and my driver only spoke Chinese. A passerby offered to help. She was only about fifteen, but seemed perfectly trilingual and as with most Thai's outside the tourist industry, was scupulously polite. My driver caved in and we started back to the Royal Lanna. This time he knew the way and an hour later we were arguing about the fare. He wanted two long journeys worth and I wanted one short. We settled on a long and a short and by this time we had attracted the tourist police. I left him to it. The police must know him really well.
Since being in Chang Mai we have tried every means of transport going. Landrover (back seat has the best view), Elephant (walking eating machines), Moped (the local's favourite), Red cab (Chang Mai only and the best), Tuk tuk (driver's are nutters), train (food and air conditioning in second class!) and have just flown out. Chang Mai was already feeling like home. If the Economy picks up maybe we can expand our business there.
yours, Marcus and Aviva