Slow start to the day with jealousy pancakes for breakfast. Jealous cause that was what Pauline was making and I wanted some. Mine were a little dry but with bananas and honey.

Hung around my room google reading and packing then checked out around 10.30, leaving my big bag at the hotel. I had to get my small backpack fixed as the straps were about to come off and was directed down the road by the staff at the hotel. All I found was a laundry that was closed, so I figured I’d check back later to see if they were open.

Next stop was the Chiang Mai Culture and Arts Centre which was essentially a museum about Chiang Mai. It covered it’s creation, how it was chosen because there were some albino deer there who chased away pack of dogs meaning the area could be defended. But mostly they picked it cause it was unlikely to flood and there was a river there.

It didn’t really go in to much detail about how the old wall was built and why it was built which was what I was hoping to learn about. There weren’t many treasures there either. It did have a lot of multimedia and was very modern with buttons for narration. Wa funny though when I was listening to the English recording. The American paused over a lot of the names, corrected one of the kings number he got wrong and then at one point he said “this isn’t finished” because it hadn’t been completely translated. Suspect it needs some editing. I think I enjoyed the Vientiane one more for content but this one had more money invested in it. Cost 90 baht to visit ($3 AUD)

Afterwards I went in search of the bag fixer. The laundry was still closed so went to a tailor who told me there was a lady standing in the street with a seeing machine. Got to the Thae Pae Gate without seeing her so asked another tailor. She sent me to the market which was another fail. So tracked back the way I came going in to each market area. Finally I asked a lady at a stall by miming and she made a horizontal cross sign using her forearms to indicate the next cross street. Still couldn’t find the place so walked in to an information centre. They sent me down the road to a pink umbrella, but it turned out to be the next pink umbrella! More miming with the bag and she fixed my straps in 5 minutes. It had only taken me an hour and a half to find her. She asked for 70 baht, I gave her 100 and walked away happy.

Across the road from my guesthouse was a Wat that I hadn’t visited so took the time in my last hour to visit. Behind the formidable gold temple was an incredibly huge and old pagoda with 4 buddhas and elephants surrounding them. It was very old and reminded me of something from the Aztecs (even though I know it’s not). A lot of the elephants had been removed and there were only about 6.5 left. It was an awesome sight and I was glad to have seen it.

Ate lunch at the guesthouse, collected my bags and caught an 80 baht tuk tuk to the train station. Had an hour and a half to kill there, so bought some food for the journey, watched some Thai boxing on tv with a monk and settled myself on the waiting train.

The seats were huge for one person and not in little rooms like I expected. Hope there are no snorers.

Accommodation: 4.30pm Train to Bangkok

Tweets of the Day:

2010-02-07 01:47:55
amyob: Bit cold in Chiang Mai this morning. First sign of a winter I’ve seen in Thailand in the 3 weeks I’ve been here.

For more photos, check out the Flickr set.

[flickrset id=”72157623616551908″ thumbnail=”square”]

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