Adventures in Guangzhou!

We walked down the main street by our hostel towards the old city center and got a feel for the lay of the land. First and foremost, I was incredibly struck by the number of tourists in town, something that is decidedly absent in my China life. And why not? The city was beautiful. There were cool wats on every corner, clear blue skies, smiles from every Thai person, and a clean city. I could tell right away why so many people take to the place.

There seemed to be some special activities going on for the weekend--fairs, street vendors, etc.-- and it provided for a very cool atmosphere. After some 10 baht pad thai from a food guy in the street, Tricia and I decided to educate ourselves by going to the Chiang Mai Culture & Arts Museum. I think we both learned quite a bit and the museum was pretty well done. The basics: Chiang Mai was started back in 1296 by a King of the Lanna kingdom and prospered as a cultural and religious center (with Buddhist connections to Luang Prabang), it was occupied by Burma for a while in the 18th c., and it didn't become an official province of Thailand until 1932.

My favorite part of the museum was actually one of the temporary exhibitions featuring watercolors of the city. The artist was there and I chatted with him for a while. He grew up outside of Chiang Mai in a small village but excelled in math and engineering enough to go to college and major in architecture. After working in that field for about twenty years, he decided to quit in favor of pursuing art. He now teaches painting at both universities in the city and even has a school for kids in which he never turns anyone away, regardless of their financial situation. He was a pretty cool guy and I was happy to buy one of his smaller works.

After the museum we walked through the Sunday market and admired some of the artwork and trinkets for sale. There were also a fair number of street musicians as well as students approaching foreigners to practice their English. It was very cute. And, me being me, I decided it was time for another meal. We consulted the handy dandy Lonely Planet and decided on some pizza which was spectacular.

Tricia and I then went back to the hostel to see if Kelly had recovered. She hadn't. We carried her down the street to get her some soup at the incredibly hip Art Cafe and then put her back to bed for the second time that day. It was sad. I decided that I would take it upon myself to eat for both of us and had my fifth meal of the day. I'm a martyr, what can I say?

Tricia being Tricia, she decided we should inspect the night bazaar, supposedly a shopper's paradise. I can't say I was thrilled, but I was happy to go along. After a pleasant evening stroll we found the area and started to peruse. It basically reminded me a lot of Shenzhen with tons of fake designer clothes/bags, pirated DVDs, watches, and lots of other things that my mother would refer to as chazerei. It was obvious that superior bargaining skills were essential.

After that we wandered into a little building with a kickboxing ring surrounded by some bars. Seemed like fun so we sat for a drink. Unfortunately the fight was obviously staged and the two guys were basically just playing around. Couple that with the fact that we quickly realized we were surrounded by prostitutes either looking for or accompanying older white guys, and we were out of there pretty quickly. It definitely an aspect of Thai culture that is unfortunate yet virtually unavoidable. We headed back and went to bed hoping that would be our last experience with the Thai sex-tourism industry.

We woke up the next day and Kelly was rejuvenated enough to head out on the town. Having done the museum the day before, we decided to see some of the more famous wats and went directly to Wat Pra Singh, perhaps the city's best. On the way we literally walked right into one of Kelly's friend's from high school that she hadn't seen in years. What a small world! After making plans for the next day, we continued on.

The temple had a handful of amazing buildings and peaceful gardens but to me there was something missing. I guess after seeing the wats in Luang Prabang, hardly anything compares. The Chiang Mai temples seemed somehow... less holy. I can't put my finger on anything in particular, but it was missing something. It was nice to walk around though. I also encountered a huge spider that was fun to watch for a few minutes.

We went from Wat Pra Singh to a small restaurant for lunch and I burnt off a few taste buds on the spicy papaya salad (yum!). After that it was off to the day market for some more shopping. I suppose I would have been really interested in the foods and goods available if I hadn't been living in China for two years, but it seemed relatively tame compared to some Chinese markets I've been to. That said, it was an area of the city lacking a lot of tourists which was pretty cool.

Eventually we met up with Nell, current PiA-er in the city who filled us in on her experience thus far. I always enjoy meeting PiAers in situ because you can really get a feel for what their life is like. It seems like a pretty amazing post and it was great to hear tell teaching stories as well as random anecdotes of the other fellows. All in all, a very relaxing day.