Oh my Chiang Mai. Yesterday was my full first day in Chiang Mai and I hijacked the taxi driver who brought me from the airport the night before and had him take me around all day. First and most important stop: Tiger Kingdom. Here you buy tickets to pet various sizes of tigers including smallest, small, medium, and big. Hardest choice of my life. I played with the smallest tigers who are still blind and crawl all over you, then lay down with four enormous tigers. You approach them from behind and spoon them. There's no better bed mate than a big tiger. The brochure had a section of FAQs and one was , "are the tigers drugged? Why are they so calm?" Tiger Kingdom assures its visitors that the tigers are lazy, not drugged. Sure.
Next stop was the forest temple Wat Phra That Doi Suthep where you climb 306 steps to visit the golden city at the top. Everything is gilded. Buddhas, stupas, chedis, lamps, tiles, bells. Gold everywhere you look. They tell you to pray to the Buddha and make a donation and a wish. When you return home, you might not remember the wish, but the Buddha will and it will come true. Around the temple eree is a huge veranda with amazing views and monks selling amulets and other trinkets. Eveeryone here wears birthday amulets with a different Buddha for the day of the week on which you we ere born. They have a book of every year going back many decades with the days of the week so you can find out when you were born. Who knew I was born on a Monday! On Monday the Buddha hold one hand up, bent at the elbow, palm facing out. I bought a few jade pieces foam one monk, only to go inside and find some kid selling the same thing for half price!I got ripped off by a monk!
Aftere the temple wwe drover back down the mountain, stopping at scenic overviews and food markets. I asked the driver (mr. Nikon - like the camera) if he knew where I could see may Thai boxing and he said he would arrange it for me.
Went for a drnk with gridthiya's friend Krit and a bar his friend runs in the chiang Mai equivalent of Williamsburg, and then mr. Nikorn brought me muya Thai tickets and brout me to the stadium. Well, stadium is not quite right, a blocked off parking lot with plastic shares set up around a ring is more like it. They start pith young boys, 25 kilos who beat the shit out of each other. Then they move on to the 80 kilo fighters, who beat the shit out of each other even harder. Their faces are so calm and concentrated as they do it and they giver their opponent a little nod every time they get a shot in. They also do this amazing dance as they're sizing their opponent out and seeing how they move. I'll have to demonstrate in person.
Today was busy busy (same same as every day). I met Krit back at the bar in the morning and he took me to see his friend's gallery the See Scape Gallery. Amazing. It's open air and concrete at the same time and he built the entire thing himself down to the bricks. He actually fired the bricks himself! The gallery includes a one room artist residency where he provides a Japanese-like mini room where aritsts can stay for one month and work and exhibit. Sounds standard but the founder Torlap Larpjaroensook has an amazing eye and easy going attitude about the whole thing, which he funded by selling his art work. He showed me pictures of his house that appeared in a magazine. He desiged and built it all himself and it's a very particular style of modern Thai architecture, all concrete and corrugated tin with beautiful hand made furniture and bright colors. No sharp corners.
Krit them took me to the 31st Century Museum, which is really a couplle of open ended railroad cars out in the forest, started by an artist named Kamin Lertchaiprasert who is the founder of the Land Foundation. The museum is next to his studio and one of his houses (Krit tells me he is part of a group of four or so artists of that generation who have done extremely well for themselves) and he invited Rikrit Tiravanija to live next door to him. krit took me to meet Kamin and snoop around his studio and house, which was really excellent.
Last stop with Krit was a stupa in the forest, one if the oldest so i'll have to ask him the name of it. It included a tunnel dug underneath the stupa where three separate corridors lead to secret buddhas. Very cool. And very beautiful. He dropped me back off in Chiang Mai proper and I spent the late afternoon visiting the major wats of the city and walking around the old town talking to monks and eating street food. And now I'm finally back home, exhausted, and unable to communicate all the details of what I've done and seen but I can assure you that I'm considering a move...
Everyone in thailand is so nice and helpful and gracious and generous. I thick it will take some adjustment to get back into the groove on New York!
Tomorrow: elephant riding. Stay tuned.
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