the view behind the shade: August 2009

Finally! i finished up loading the pics from my trip to Chiang mai. since the semester starts, its been quite a shotgun of a semester. quite fast. busy with mini project mostly and also assignments. after finishing the anolog assignment, feel like there are a big weight taken off from my shoulders, no the road is still far, with finals, mini P final report and presentation, electronics assignments, midterm, but NO. not this weekend. this weekend i should put a pause on all that and have a liltle breath.

this trip is kinda afforable. seriously. book an early ticket from air asia, and a hotel with a suitable location right at the heart of the town. and hiring a van that could fit 8 person comfortable with an LCD tv inside. probably will be around rm 250- rm 300 per person. ( exclude the shopping)

Chiang Mai located in the northen region of Thailand second largest city in Thailand which also served as a cross border trade between Laos and Myanmar. it have a lot of french influence to it too, and there a lot of used books sold here, and like other thai city, the street market and street food.

this is the Gallery. an art gallery cum restaurant.Located by the river, its an awesome place. with a band playing some traditional chinese string instruments, and also electric guitar. brings a cozy feel to it. even if its not a cold country naturally, due to its location, it can be quite cold here too, about 15-20 degrees at night, during summer. and can be lower during the winter.

the outdooor theme of the restaurant certainly a different twist, wish they could have this in KL. if you are one of the corny sucker, for sure, this is on of the place for you to go for the romantic date.other than the good embience, the food rocks too. being colonise, there are some western influence in the menu, but being in Thailand, there are no question but to go to the thai food, and no, it never fail to delight my tastebud. its not one of those fancy restaurant that have great setting but upsetting food, this place have both the food and the embience.

my highlight is, that Hillary have visited the place during bill was still in the house, yes hillary of the clinton visited the place before during a thai festival.

not far from my hotel in Th Changklan street, by not far i mean, a 25m walk from the lobby, is where the daily street market is. by night, you can see the market being set up. one of the thing that caught my attention is the art.

one of the many artise here

the paiting here looks so alive. and they do paint you too upon request at a fee. maybe around rm 100 till rm XXX depends on the size of the painting, and they will deliver to you house via postal.

for the second night, we went to a Khantok culture show, dinner.it suppose to show how the royal ppl live last time.the van from the restaurant pick us from the lobby. one funny thing is there are this white man with his 'partner'. well, she kinda dress up like cinderalla. but putting the equation togather, thailand+ mat man+ partner. well you make you conclusion.

we were greeted with this lady playing er hu, its like a carnival, with latern, and few other vans coming, bringing the guests to the place. it cost around rm 30-rm 4o per person for the show.

once registed, we were ushered into the dinner place. its a big hall and have a stage for the performer. while they serve us the food, the show started. although its hard to understand whats the story,i can see the fine dance move by the dancer. don get me wrong, the show have english subtitles, just perhaps its too abstract for me personally.

after dinner, we were invited outside to see performance by the tribe members. there are quite a few tribe members that perform.

the show is done by these few girls..

one more fact about Chiang mai is that its the hometown for yes, the reds. no not liverpool, but to Thanksin.thus he have quite a strong supporter here. talk to everyone, they support the ex president. My eagerness wanted to purchase one of the red shirt that they wore during the protest, but i did not manage to find the store because of the massive street market.

During the trip i was fortune enough to visit uncle taksin's place.

with politics aside,the shinawat, own this silk shop. and its one of the biggest in the thai silk industry. we are greeted in such a grand manner by the workers here. and we are bought to a grand tour of the place.

here they show us how they produce silk from the silk worm to the the end product of the silk.

fancy shirt and tie are not that cheap, but there is not much to complain since its a high end silk product

one of the cheapest item in the shop, it cost around Rm80, even the silk boxer cost that much. oh well, i guess i kinda expected it with the grand reception we got and a tour.

the Chang or elephant is one national animal of the country. here at maese elephant camp, is one of the elephant santuary, about 20 minutes drive from the hotel, the elephant satuary offer a ray of activites and show.

for Rm2, its not so bad for such an ammout of banana and sugar cane

we can feed the elephant, for a banana or sugar cane it can perform a trick like this

ever seen how elephant pee?

maybe Real Madrid want to buy this

it can score goal

elephant drawing, starting from Rm 200. even an elephant can draw better than me

seriously, they draw.

the boss

the sister

i was a bit disappointed that my dad n brother are against stopping at the shooting range, i was kinda looking forward to try how to fire a gun. and if you watch amazing race, the tiger santuary is also here.

another highlight of my trip is the visit to the tribe village. if you watch ripley's i think you would heard of the Long Neck Karen tribe. the chain is almost 5 kilos. imagine that, on your neck since you are small..

being able to visit does put things in perspective here. well, things in the village and their standard of living might not be ideal to urban folks, and there are some of them, the young ones leave the village to find job in the city. words cant describe it, but i guess its kinda of a humbling experience for me personally and its one of those things that you should experience it by yourself.

big ear tribe

this is our tour guide, seriously. she doesn't speak. but she just lead the way for us.

this is some of their source of income, selling the tribe product.

on the way to the golden triangle and Chiang Rai, we stopped at the hot spring. not privallaged enough and being lucky enough, to go to Sungkai's hot spring. this is my first time at a hot spring, excluding the time at Lake Toba, well i was kinda small that time.

its not bad actually. at the hot spring. here they sell the chicken and quil egg, where we can boil it for a few minutes and it tasted like, well... egg.

even its not in the plan, but never strike me that we would go to the Golden Triangle ( thailand, Laos, myanmar) famous for the drugs trade.

its erm... maybe not the safest place to go, but its quite an experience to be here. a lot of imitation things that are sold here, and you can get ANYTHING here. from fake ciggarate, and people come to you and sell you viagra and porn.

the great Mekong. learn it in geography class, never cross my mind either that i would be here. and never that i expect my dad would agree to seat in such boat. well, he is not the most advanterous person and easily paranoid for safety, but he just being a parent.