I woke up.
So far so good, I thought, although the sharp pain behind my eyes was giving me some consternation. Actually the gut wrenching sickness in my stomach was now making me readdress my initial feeling regarding the 'goodness' of the morning's start. This was going to be a horrible morning.
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| I got the gist of it |
My favourite author, Douglas Adams, wrote on the importance of a hitchhiker always knowing where his towel is. And I could see my towel. So by deduction I assumed that everything was going to be alright. Although I had a few more questions to answer, chief on my agenda was: "Where the Hell is my camera...?". As rapidly I could, in my current, particularly delicate, state, I tore across, what I was slowly deducing to be, my hotel room. After a thorough search I discovered my camera to be hidden behind the rooms TV, in a bag, without any memory cards. Ah... Investigation Required.
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| Thai Boxer |
In fact, I discovered my memory cards stacked neatly on top of my wallet and Passport. Next to an unlocked and slightly open hotel door. Everything seemed to be there. Lucky escape there then! Maybe I took photo's that would jog my memory about the events of last night...
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| Hustled |
Yes, Yes I did. Chiang Mai is hailed at the Thai "Cultural Capital of the North" but in truth, this title has had an unfortunate effect. Tourists. Tourists like me, and tens of thousands of others, who flock to this ancient walled city, and get waylaid by the tourist traps past the hours of darkness. The City is one of Thai Boxing Rings, seedy bars and would you believe it? Yet more ladyboys.
Having met a fellow Brit and a couple of Germans, we'd set off into the nightlife, played pool for free as long as you keep ordering drinks, which is quite frankly a genius gimmick, because games of pool take rather a long time once both parties a drunk. We went to a fighting ring, where the fighters were parading around trying to get money for photos with the tourists. And we went to another, slightly odd bar where ladyboys hustled you out of drinks with challenging you to various household games. One particular ladyboy walked away having beaten the 4 of us 8-0 at Connect 4. Which maybe the oddest way that I've ever lost drinks on a bet.
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Still unsure as to why they translated
it into English |
Whilst nature of rowdy tourists is almost an inevitability, by daybreak a sense of resentment is always present in the air of Chiang Mai. Those not directly benefiting from the money coming in are clearly unhappy with the invading swarms of riotous tourists. It is an area of great piety and one which has been transformed into a honey-trap at the detriment to the local area. Chiang Mai is isolated in the forested, holy northern borderlands of Thailand, it has religious and social history seeping from every pore, but has been given the feel of a Bangkok suburb.
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| Tourist Trap |
