What happens in Thailand, stays in Thailand
By Cydney Cappello, BTS Editor
February 14, 2007 | 3:56 p.m.
From Nov. 26 until Dec. 14, Ohio University's Global Leadership Center traveled to Thailand to work on a joint consulting project with the students of the English department of Chiang Mai University.
Because of the length of the trip and the multitude of experiences I had every day, it's hard to summarize what happened, beyond the actual project work, so I want this article to help you experience the sights, sounds and smells of Chiang Mai, Thailand through what a day of our trip would be like.
I wake up every morning at about 9 a.m. in a room that is much like an OU dorm room. There are two beds, two desks, a mini fridge (filled with Thai Coke, Sprite and beer) and a bathroom with a shower. We're staying in Chiang Mai University's International Center (IC), a nice youth hostel of sorts.
So, I get ready for the day, without all of the messy details, although, just for reference, the humidity is so high that there isn't much else I can do with my hair but put gel in it and let nature curl and dry it. My roommate and I then head downstairs to eat a "Thai breakfast" in The Lemontree, a nice restaurant located in our hostel. The breakfast consists of fried rice with chicken and vegetables, as well as sliced cucumbers as garnish.
After breakfast, we grab our purses, made of Thai silk and purchased at the night market the previous evening, and head out for Nimmanhaeminda Rd. to catch a Thai taxis called a "rot dang," literally, "red car," which is not even a car at all; it's a covered, red Nissan truck that has benches along the sides of the truck bed. We wave one down and attempt to tell the driver where we want to go. When he finally recognizes the location, he gives a ridiculously high price because we're foreign and bargain him down with our very small knowledge of Thai numbers.
Riding on the rot dang is one of the best ways to view the city of Chiang Mai. You get to pass all of the neat shops and restaurants and also smell all of the food, which may not always be a good thing. In Chiang Mai, you could always smell peanut oil frying some sort of poultry or pork; it was slightly sickening after the first week. Another smell that you get a lot of, while riding on the back of a rot dang, is the exhaust from the dense traffic all around you. Traffic is ridiculous in Chiang Mai. Everywhere you go you see people on motorcycles, motor-scooters and models of Hondas that we don't get in the states.
The motorcycles are the best though. Everyday you will see at least ten Thai women side-saddling the back of their boyfriend's motorcycle, very well-dressed and ready to go out and most of the time their not even holding on, just sitting there with their perfect posture, balancing their 20-some pounds on the back. While winding through town, we notice a temple, or wat, that we'd like to visit, so we reach for the buzzer on the ceiling of the rot dang and jump out to pay the driver. He charges us 15 baht (not quite $0.50), which is typical for in-town driving.
We stop in front of the wat and realize that both of us are wearing shorts. Exposing your legs at a wat is very disrespectful, especially for women, so we decided not to enter, but took a few pictures of the outside before we left. Because we couldn't go in, we decided to indulge our senses a different way, by going to a Thai spa. Spas are everywhere and in every price range. We decide that we only want to spend 250 baht, which is about $6. Eventually, we find a nice, small spa and get a head, shoulder and neck massage for an hour.
By this time, it's going on noon and we're starving. And since we had Thai for dinner last night and breakfast, we decide to splurge on some good ole American food; McDonald's. Going to McDonald's in Chiang Mai was so much fun. At the counter they ask, "Sawasdee ka, may I take your order?" So we order two Big Macs, drinks and fries, then take our trays to sit by the smiling, Buddhist Ronald McDonald, with his hands together as if to be praying.
Feeling adventurous, we leave McDonald's to hitch another ride on the rot dang to go to a butterfly and orchid farm that we had read about. The ride takes us out of the city and up into Doi Suthep, the mountain range above the city of Chiang Mai. We wind quickly around and around the mountain. We feel the lurch of our fast food bouncing in our stomachs with every lurch of the rot dang. Suddenly, we're slowing down and before I can think to whip out my camera, I see that a truck has crashed into the guardrail and is now amongst the trees. The difference with this accident is that there are two elephants on the back with looks of confusion and shock on their faces. As soon as we passed the accident, we were full-speed again, so I have no chance to focus my camera.
After a blur of trees and rock walls, we arrive at our destination. We communicate with our driver to stay and he parks the rot dang on the side of the road. My roommate and I walk up to the counter to purchase tickets for the butterfly and orchid farm, which is double the price for foreigners as it's made very obvious on the sign in front of us.
Walking in reminds me of the plant section of Lowes. There are sporadic pots of beautiful orchids hanging from the ceiling with a couple of arrangements on the ground. I see a lot of green and a lot of wilted leaves. It seems as though we may have arrived out of season, but there are enough orchids to keep me satisfied. Then, after taking about 30 pictures of flower close-ups, we wander over to the butterfly exhibit, where we find a case full of tightly closed cocoons, also in hibernation.
We leave the cocoons to venture over into the shop. There, we find tons of encased dead butterflies for sale and cheap jewelry claiming to have been orchid petals dipped in gold. We each grab an ice cream bar, to fight of the heat, and head back to the rot dang. We ask the driver to return us to the IC, where we plan to meet up with the rest of the group for an evening much like any other weekend at OU, only we're in Thailand.
We endure the rocking and swerving trip on the rot dang for about an hour before we're safely back at the IC, sweaty, exhausted and ready to party. Sadly, I have to leave you there because whatever happens in Thailand stays in Thailand. Well at least whatever happens after 6 p.m. in Thailand stays in Thailand.