Thursday, January 20, 2022
8:00 a.m. Room 2
Chan and Cees
Chiang Dao, Thailand
Strange things are happening here in Chiang Dao. For one thing, the rain has settled in to stay. I really screwed up from that point of view. The weather was great on my first day in Chiang Dao. The sun was out. The skies were clear. The mountain was clear and sharp in the crisp air. But instead of exploring the region with my cameras, I turned the day into a day of errands and reconnaissance. I was actually really tired and feeling out of it. I didn’t have any energy for firing up a GoPro and going to the cave and the temple and the other local sights. I just wasn’t in the mood. My original idea was to do all of that on the first day. And then the second day, I was going to try again to get the scooter washed and tuned up. But I was so tired that I decided to reverse the days. And that first day became my errand day. Once the scooter was ready and I had made all my plans for returning to Mae Sot, then I would go to the cave and see what Chiang Dao had to offer. But that was a mistake because on the second day, it started to rain, and the rain hasn’t stopped since. The rain has kept me largely indoors, and I have done nothing here in Chiang Dao except for errands and organizing. I never went to the cave. I didn’t go to the temple. And after the brief views that first day, I never saw the mountain again. It went behind thick clouds and it stayed there. So I really screwed up.
And in a way, my new plan for returning to Mae Sot also screwed me up. This new plan, as I talked about before, is to go back to Mae Sot the long way via the entire Mae Hong Son Loop, essentially riding the Loop a second time. And that means taking four days for the journey as opposed to three or even two days. And that meant having even less time in Chiang Dao. I have to steal two days from Chiang Dao and add them to the return journey.
Looking back, I should have worked harder and smarter to maximize my time in Chiang Dao. I stayed one extra day in Pai to rest and get organized. And I spent another day here in Chiang Dao doing the same. And I decided to use up one or two more days for my return journey. And that ended up occupying three or four days that I could have spent enjoying Chiang Dao. But at that time, I didn’t know how nice the scenery and the setting was up here. Had I known, I would have planned to be here longer.
On my first day here when the sun was still shining, I became much fonder of Chiang Dao. The main street is a bit unpleasant. It’s a busy and chaotic road, much like any main commercial road in Thailand. When you ride up and down that road, you start to wonder what the big deal is about Chiang Dao. It seems to offer nothing special. But once you leave the main road and start to ride toward the mountain, everything changes. Then the true beauty of the region quickly becomes apparent. And it becomes apparent just how much the local people have taken advantage of that to build things of interest to tourists. I suddenly started to see nice guest houses and resorts and coffee shops everywhere. The region is thick with them. And with a bit of planning, I think you could have a wonderful experience here at a type of farm homestay or really nice resort in a natural setting. I am very pleased with Chan and Cees, and I have no regrets about staying here, but I had no idea that there was such a wide variety of amazing places to stay. I read that this region is known for the large number of bird species, and I can believe that. Even here at Chan and Cees, I hear all manner of beautiful birdsong in the morning. I was amusing myself this morning by listening to the beautiful birdsong, and then it would be interrupted by a throaty and raspy and horrible crowing of a rooster. I started to think that there is a good Disney or Pixar story buried in there somewhere. It could be the story of a young rooster that dreams of having a beautiful song to sing in the morning. But whenever he opens his mouth, that horrible rasping rooster crowing comes out. You don’t know how awful it really sounds until you hear it right beside the incredible clear sounds coming out of the mouths of six other songbirds in the morning. I’m not sure what direction the story would take. I guess the little rooster would eventually have to learn to appreciate the role that the crowing of a rooster plays in this world and stop wishing he could be like other birds. Perhaps he would get so depressed that he would stop crowing. And then the farmer and his family sleep in and no work gets done and the farm falls apart. And the songbirds stop singing in the morning because they usually rely on the rooster’s horrible noise to wake them up. And the young rooster realizes how important he really is, and he throws himself into the early-morning crowing once again. Now that I think about it, it seems like a wonderful story, and perhaps an obvious one. I wonder if someone has already written that story.
You’d have to have the farmer’s family as characters, since they would start sleeping late and forget to feed the animals and milk the cows and tend to the crops. The animals would start to suffer, the crops would fail, and the farm would lose money and be on the brink of closing.
Of course, there would have to be bully songbirds at the start of the story who tease the young rooster for his horrible voice and make him feel bad. And at the end of the story, they would be nice to him and see he has value.
There could be an old rooster. And this old rooster is wise and has been running the farm for a long time. He understands how important his job is, but the young rooster won’t listen. He hates his voice and wants to be a songbird. And then the old rooster dies and the young rooster has to take over the job.
The old rooster couldn’t be explicit about why the rooster’s job is so important. He probably doesn’t even fully understand it himself. He just carries along the tradition of the rooster. He doesn’t know where the tradition came from. He would be mysterious and wise and vague about it: “Be first. That’s the important thing. You sing first.” But he didn’t tell him why he had to be first. Or “Before you see the sun. That’s when you crow. Remember: before the sun shows its face.”
But when the old, wise rooster dies, the young rooster hates waking up so early himself to crow. It’s so dark. It’s lonely. It’s cold. He just wants to stay in bed. Maybe the sidekick is the mechanism by which the rooster does his job at the beginning. The sidekick pushes him out of bed. Jumps on his head. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Time to crow!” This sidekick can be nocturnal. And the last thing it does before it goes to sleep for the day is wake up the rooster to take over the night shift.
Maybe this sidekick marches around at night and monitors the place.
There would be lines like these:
“I don’t want to crow. I want to sing.”
“Roosters don’t sing. They crow. That’s just how things are.”
“But listen to how it sounds.” (He crows.) “It’s so awful.”
Of course at some point, the young rooster takes singing lessons from a friendly songbird. That would be funny.
But back to the troubles in my life, I had trouble at the beginning of the day with my errands as I looked for a place that could wash my scooter. I rode up and down the main street and scanned all the places around me. You’d think that there would be a lot of places that wash scooters and motorcycles. And you’d think that they’d be easy to spot. You just have to look for someone washing a scooter. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happening anywhere in Thailand.
As I rode, I ran right into the regular Tuesday Morning Market. I’d read about that market in a travel article, but I had forgotten that it was a Tuesday. But there it was. In another mood and on another day, I’d have explored the market with my GoPro. But I’d decided this wasn’t a GoPro day. When I couldn’t find a place to wash my scooter, I decided to simply ride towards the mountain and the cave. The idea was to simply get the lay of the land. I wasn’t going to go into the cave. I just wanted to see where it was and what the place looked like and how you might go about visiting the place. The ride there was gorgeous, and the mountain was clear and sharp ahead of me. I also passed a number of coffee shops and guest houses. More and more I started to think that I should have carved out more time to be here. I could easily spend a week or two here.
I found the cave and I rode around the area for a bit to get a feel for it. There is a large temple there as well right at the cave. And then there is another temple at the top of some stairs. I didn’t stay or do anything. My plan was to return the next day for my Chiang Dao Cave experience. So, I rode back downtown, and I looked with some determination for a place to have my scooter washed AND have it tuned up. To my surprise, I found a place that was a modern car wash. I happily pulled in, but I couldn’t get anyone to understand me. I didn’t work that hard at communicating, I have to admit. I didn’t pull out Google Translate or anything like that. But I didn’t think I had to. This was a place where they washed vehicles. That’s all they did. There could be no confusion about why I was there. I just needed to know if they washed scooters as well as cars and trucks and SUVs. I rode up and parked my scooter, and then with sign language, I indicated that I would like them to wash it. Is that possible? And the staff there just stood around and stared at me like I had four heads. There was no response at all. Everyone seemed to think one older man was the senior guy and I should talk to him. So I turned to him and did my sign language thing. But if I was hoping for a warm smile and understanding and an attempt at meeting me halfway, I was disappointed. I got the all-too-common response here in Thailand of a blank stare and nothing else. This older man eventually just got on his scooter and rode away. He didn’t even look at me or do anything when he left. Not even a shrug of the shoulders or any indication that he was aware that I existed. He just left. I hadn’t eaten anything all morning, and I guess all my frustrations with trying to do things in Chiang Dao had built up into a steady beat of irritation, and I was ready to blow up at these guys. I was irritable and on the edge of losing my temper. And this old man simply ignoring me and cutting me dead almost put me over the edge. I was really close to losing it. But I held back and just got on my scooter and rode away. I contented myself with just looking back at the young guys, making eye contact and then shaking my head at them to indicate how displeased I was. I honestly don’t understand how the tourism capital of Southeast Asia has such difficulty when it comes to communicating with simple sign language and common sense. All I get most of the time is a blank stare. Not even a smile.
I kept riding around town until I came across another place that looked somewhat promising. It was a bit of a junkyard, to be honest, but they had a kind of ramp where they could drive up a vehicle and work on it. And I saw a bunch of hoses and buckets and soaps and scrubbers. So I decided to take a chance and pull in. At first, I ran into the usual difficulties. For one thing, there seemed to be no staff doing any work. No one greeted me. No one came up to me to see what I wanted as a customer. I saw three or four women sitting in a kind of junk pile toward the back, and they looked up at me when I arrived and then went back to their conversation and ignored me.
This time, I was more determined to make myself understood, and I had prepared a couple of sentences in Google Translate. I got off my scooter and removed my helmet, got out my phone, and then I walked back toward the group of women. I made it clear that I wanted to communicate something, and an older woman got up and came toward me. No smile, of course. No greeting. No friendliness or encouragement. Just a blank stare. It felt quite hostile, to be honest. My instinct was to just turn around and leave, as I have done so many times before in Thailand. I honestly don’t understand the reputation Thailand has for being the land of smiles and friendly people. Few people ever smile that I can tell. But I really wanted to get the scooter washed, so I ignored my instincts, and I held up my phone and pushed the button that made Google Translate speak the translation. It was something about washing the scooter. This got a bit of a reaction out of the older woman. She seemed to understand, but she called over to the other women, and a young woman came over. She was clearly a student, and she studied English. And she listened to the Google Translate and read the screen, and she understood and indicated that, yes, they could wash the scooter. After a few more questions with the help of Google, I was told that it would cost 50 baht, and it would take one hour.
I was happy that I’d made some progress, but it still felt a bit weird. Somehow, I guess I was hoping for a strapping young man to show up and get to work cleaning my scooter. But it appeared that this old woman was going to do it. And I felt weird about that. It felt like I was asking my mother or my grandmother to wash my car. I was much younger and stronger and more physically fit than she was. It just seemed wrong for her to wash my scooter. But that appeared to be her job, and I left my scooter there and went in search of a place to have a cup of coffee and wait.
I was very happy when I returned. I was worried that this woman would clean the mirrors and the windshield and the seat and that’s all. I just didn’t see her getting down low and cleaning the wheels and the spokes and the rims and the engine parts. And that’s where all the real dirt was. But she had done a marvelous job. She had cleaned and polished the scooter from top to bottom and it gleamed in the sun like it had just come brand new from the dealer. Success at last.
And now that the scooter was clean and shiny, I felt better about bringing it to a mechanic. And without much trouble, I found a shop. I was quite lucky in this, because this shop was very clean and organized. The mechanic was clearly intelligent and quite meticulous. When he checked the tires, he didn’t just pinch them and add air at random. He got out an actual tire gauge and measured the air pressure and got it just right according to the recommended tire pressure, which he read off the tire’s sidewall. He went over the brakes and checked the brake fluid and changed the oil and did a few other things. It was wonderful.
And, to be honest, that is kind of the last thing that happened in Chiang Dao. The plan was to return to the cave the next day and explore the area with my GoPro. But it started to rain heavily, and it has been raining ever since. The end result is that I have done almost nothing in Chiang Dao. Other than learning what the place has to offer and getting first impressions of the town and region, there was not much point to coming here at all. I rode here, did laundry, had my scooter washed and tuned up, rode around a bit, and that’s it. And now it is time to leave.
The only other task I accomplished was organizing my ride back to Mae Sot. I actually booked a room in advance in Pai, in Mae Hong Son, and in Mae Sariang. They are all somewhat more expensive than I’d like, but I don’t have a choice. That’s just what hotels cost here. A room for 300 baht is the bare minimum. You don’t get much for 300 baht, and those places are usually fully booked anyway. That was the case in Mae Hong Son where I hoped to stay at PLP Guest House again. But it was already fully booked. And I ended up with rooms in all three towns that cost around 500 baht each.
It’s nearly ten o’clock in the morning here in Chiang Dao, and I would normally be well on my way to Pai on my scooter. But I decided to approach this ride differently. Instead of leaving early in the morning when it is still cold and damp, I decided to leave later in the day. I just assumed that I’d be able to ride to Pai in glorious and warm sunshine all afternoon. That’s the only reason I came up with this plan in the first place. So it is somewhat ironic that even that isn’t going to happen. It’s probably going to be cloudy and overcast and rainy anyway, even in the afternoon. So there was no point to my new system. Considering how things turned out, I might as well have just ridden to Chiang Mai as I originally planned and then gone back to Mae Sot by the direct route in two long days. This whole detour to Chiang Dao hasn’t worked out. And now my second ride on the Mae Hong Son Loop could be completely transformed by rain and cloud.
I’m also having trouble figuring out how to take video of my return journey to Mae Sot. I thought I could do something with my second ride on the Mae Hong Son Loop. But I just don’t know what to do. And the mood I was hoping for just isn’t there. I’m not excited about the trip. It just feels like something I have to get over with so that I can get to Mae Sot and go to immigration. I guess I’ve spent so many days riding on the scooter that four more days don’t feel that special. I can’t quite figure out what the hook is for this trip. What’s the point of it? What’s the story? What’s the angle? I don’t know. Maybe my mood will change once I start getting ready, and things will develop naturally.