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Other entries in Chiang Mai

Running on empty...

Over the hills and far away was where I was heading as I left the town behind and shops and houses were replaced by trees and mountains. It was a pleasure to be on the open road as it was wide, empty and crucially different to the other places I had moto'd in as the surface was in excellent condition. I followed the road as it dipped and curved and imagined myself to be a speedway star albeit on 125cc machine with little driving ability and the finesse of a drunken elephant. Higher and higher the road snaked around the mountainside until I reached my first stop, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep.

Having parked my moped nonchalantly on the other side of the road after a nifty dismount I smiled cooly to a female backpacker and walked to the Wat. Around the base of the site of the Wat there was a smattering of shops selling souvenirs and refreshments as you stepped through the grandiose archway. The temple itself was situated at a much higher position and as with so many of these buildings of worship there were a lot of steps leading up to it.

After some huffing and puffing I was rewarded with a serene courtyard with the main temple set a little back from the top of the stairs. I could have taken the cable car up but I was not Japanese, rich or willing to admit that I was close to a heart attack. I took my time looking about the place partially because it was quite beautiful and partially so I could get my breath back.

On one side there was an array of ceremonial bells which had all but lost their sanctity as scores of "hilarious" tourists took turns in ringing them ceaselessly. The inner areas of the temple were adorned with alternating gold and then jade buddhas and the chedi was resplendently covered in a thin layer of gold leaf. Monkeys. cats and dogs lazed out in the sun as I admired the view looking down from the temple to the settlements below.

Then it was time to carry on to the Buphing Palace as I skipped past the Japanese tourists still sitting down near the temple entrance on way down. I saddled up again, put the pedal to the metal and sped off upwards and onwards. The 2nd Royal residence was only partly open as some work was being done on certain buildings but I spent a good while wandering the blooming gardens and walking up the steepish path to the top of the enclosure. The royal family used the palace as a summer retreat and it showed as the although luxurious and spacious it was not as impressive as their permanent residence in Bangkok.

As I wandered, I wondered what the real feeling was in Thailand after the tsunami and the death of the King's grandson in the deluge. In Bangladesh I had read about it on the internet but in hindsight I knew I hadn't fully been aware of the real impact of this natural event. It was only in Bangkok that I had truly understood the enormity and scale of the disaster whilst I stayed in Kao San Road.

But this wasn't due to any major change in feeling around the backpacker area which aside from being a little subdued and having a temporary stand set up for donations seemed to be unaffected. Although, in honesty whenever you talked to anyone about anything it was hard to talk for more than 5 minutes before someone mentioned the tsunami or someone who they knew who had been caught up in it. What really brought it home to me was the non-stop coverage from CNN which blanket ran the tsunami 24 hours a day for several days.

I remember sitting in a cafe off Kao San watching with morbid fascination and a kind of weltschmerz as the tragedy unfolded. Seeing the first hand amateur video footage and verbal accounts whilst the tickertape banner along the bottom of the screen kept relaying the rising death toll was a unsettling experience. But what made this more real, more visceral was the fact that I was in Thailand and I had been to the places reported on the segments.

When 9/11 happened I was sitting in a friend's bedroom playing PS2 and his flatmate came running in to tell us about it. We were glued to the TV for a few hours but soon enough the sadness and shock over the atrocity passed because it just seemed unreal, disconnected. It was horrible, yes, but it didn't immediately effect me nor had I been there to experience it and so it did not hold my attention further.

I was desensitised to the horror and my mind did not comprehend the loss of life. After all is the loss of one life not as important as the loss of a hundred? a thousand? a million? It is. But as the numbers rise they become meaningless, they are just numbers as they cease being people... but what does mean something is a connection to the event.

When I went to NYC in 2003/04 for New Year's I saw where the twin towers had been and then I understood a little of how New Yorkers had felt that fateful day. The visual impact of NOT seeing the towers and knowing how they had overshadowed all in downtown Manhattan made me stop and think. When I went to the Toul Sleng school Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia I saw and read about what had happened to all those people in the very building in which I was standing. It touched me also.

As I mentioned, following the events as I did in Bangkok had made a big impression on me and of course many other people I had met. But life had seemingly carried on regardless in the face of such adversity and in fact this surprised me a little. I remember making a donation at the stall in Kao San Rd and saying to the woman attending it how sad it was that the King's grandson had passed away. I had said this out of politeness and respect for the Thai people as I know they revere their royal family. She nodded and agreed with me and then I went on to ask if there would be a national day of mourning for him. She looked at me oddly and then said firmly, "No", as if I had asked a stupid question.

Similarly, it seemed a bit distasteful that life was carrying on quite so normally. In Chiang Mai it was as if nothing had happened and there were no formal indicators at the Buphing palace to mark the death of the prince. But was I seeing the real mood of the nation? After all, I was a tourist and I was staying in tourist areas nowhere near the involved parts of the country. Maybe my connection to the incident was not as tangible as I believed?

I don't know because at the same time I know some of my friends were part of a clear-up operation on Koh Phi Phi. Other people I met were visibly traumatised by what had happened and of course there were the awful emails that went around asking if anyone had seen the person in the picture attached, as the last time they had been heard of was in a tsunami-hit area.

But life does go on... and I was a part of those people who partied in Koh Pha-Ngan although I was down for my own reasons. It was time to get going and after an ice-cream at the height of the Buphing Palace gardens I headed back to my moped and thought about what to do next. I had ridden about town for an hour or so and seen most of the good stuff and there was still a decent portion of the afternoon left so what to do?

I finally opted to ride on past the Buphing and head for the next town or village and make full use of my moped for the day. After about 10-15 minutes, I gazed down at the petrol gauge for no good reason and my brain registered a distressing fact... the tank was almost empty and I was about 30 minutes outside of town and the nearest gas station!!!!

SHIT!

What was I going to do now? I was about to turn off the engine to have a think when I thought about how much fuel is used in starting the moped again as opposed to leaving it on. But I didn't know what to do immediately as my brain was also running on empty... aaargh! What to do? What to do? WHAT TO DO?!?!?!

It struck me that I was in actuality wasting a lot of fuel and brain cells not knowing what to do and so I parked the moped and switched it off to give myself a chance to think. So my choices were... keep going forward and hope for a petrol station where I could refill but actually run out of gas or go back where I knew there was a gas station and not make it and run out of gas. Nice! I was quite worried as I was some 20-30 minutes from my hostel and I didn't relish the thought of having to push my bike all the way back home... but fortunately a jolt of logic managed to free me of my panicked concern.

Dammit! I was at the top of a steep hill/mountain and so it would be the same as if I was on a bicycle... I could stick the moped in neutral and then freewheel it all the way back to town only using the engine was I had run out of momentum. What a result as kinetic energy and the force of gravity had come to my rescue! I lifted the stand and hopped on beaming to myself that I had been so clever and resourceful (when I now realise that I was actually just being NOT stupid!). Turning the key so that it was in the ignition setting I tapped the footpedal forward until I was in neutral.and away I went.

I was so pleased with myself that I managed to work out a solution to get back home that I didn't notice that my speed was beginning to creep up fast. I only realised how fast I was going when I almost lost control of the moped and totalled it whilst taking a corner. With a prudent use of the brake I was able to freewheel at my leisure back into the flats of town and then engage the engine again until I reached a gas station. I filled up again and rewarded myself with a chocolate milk for my ingenuity.

As I mounted my bike for the short ride home I looked back at the mountain and grinned...

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