Chapter 4 Chiang Mai

In bed that night I slipped into an alcoholic coma, waking late and heading to Khao San Road for recovery food.  Choosing a quiet blue walled restaurant I sat at a table with a view of the floor, a Western guy playing pool with his stunning Thai girlfriend.  Red cheerleader shorts and long brown legs extended across the table she looked like such pleasant company, playing pool at three o’clock in the afternoon with a guy she’d probably met the night before.  I didn’t know how much he’d be paying but it looked well worth it. 

Four Police taking the opposite table I admired the tight uniforms clinging to their wiry frames.  It looked good on the Thai physique, sandy trousers, dark brown shirts decorated by row of insignias.  They reminded me of the cops you’d see in Italy, style before justice.  The two facing me female I was captivated by the prettiest; mid-thirties, dark hair tied back in a ponytail, she looked sensuous as she gently smoked a cigarette.  Bringing her gaze to mine I held it, she was pretty and I was looking.

My food arriving I took my notebook and etched thoughts as I shovelled curry with a fork, mulling over what I’d read in Bangkok 8 and wondering what the cops were doing, simply stopping off for lunch or collecting protection money like I’d read about, waiting for a waiter to slide a brown envelope under the table, taking the cut which was going to pay for their kids next school uniform.

Returning to my guesthouse I sat watching Saving Private Ryan as I waited for my coach.  A few other guests for company it seemed sad how we travelled so far only to watch movies from home, as if we took our little pleasures from home and stretched them to fill our days.  Everyone still visited the temples and the floating markets but outside sightseeing watching T.V. was near the top of our activity lists.  There were the traveller conversations too but I found them so wearing, like a constant procession of one night stands.  Getting to know one another, asking whether they’d been to the places you’d been, telling them about the places they hadn’t been. 

“Anyone for coach,” I looked up to see a track suited Thai bound into reception.

“Where you go?” She asked as I stood.

“Chiangmai.”

Slapping a sticker on my chest I straggled down the street after her, half a dozen modern looking coaches waiting on the expressway I stood as she showed the others their coaches. 

“You, oh yeah, you, this one,” she said banging the side of the coach in front of me.

Handing my bag to the driver I shuffled into a window seat and closed my eyes, conversations beginning to rat, tat across the isle in Hebrew.  They were noisy buggers the Israeli’s, fresh out of the military, smoking and drinking to oblivion.  The surroundings didn’t seem important, as long as it wasn’t home, as long as there was sunshine, it was O.K.

Extending my feet to the leg rest I stuffed my bag to the small of my back and watched as we crawled from the city, columns of red and yellow lights snaking through the night.  Concrete giving way to fields we drifted past nothing for hours, only occasional rivers and non-descript villages breaking the monotony, signboards for Pepsi and Coke battling for supremacy. I liked the sense of distance you got from road travel, enough time to feel the size of the place, but not enough to get bored.

With jet lag still in my bones I hadn’t slept as we pulled into the services near midnight.  Walking to a cubicle I relieved myself against an American Standard and moved to wash my hands, ‘Not bad looking are you?’ I said to as I looked in the mirror. Dark hair, a nicely shaped face, my eyes were the key.  When I was younger a girl in the fish and chip shop had told me she wished she’d had eyes like mine.  It was the shape rather than the colour, slinky, almost feminine.  The only thing holding me back was my physique, but not for long, soon I’d be perfect, every ounce of excess shed, like a butterfly in my cocoon, every perfection already present and only waiting to be revealed. 

Outside women in puffy hats stood guard over bowls deep sloppy curry, flies buzzing overhead as if trying to work out what to order.  I exchanged my bus ticket for a bottle of water and paid extra for a banana, re-boarding as clouds of moths swarmed against the windows. I felt uneasy watching them, instinctively reaching for the light, beating their wings against the glass. I wondered how long they’d have stayed there.

The doors closing I stowed the banana and swigged my water as we accelerated back to the highway at some point drifting off to sleep waking to the hum of the engine. It was a little after five, enough light to make a gentle cloud of mist creeping back towards the jungle.  Pulling out my guidebook I looked up places to stay.  A guesthouse by the river sounded nice ‘Traditional wooden chalets, sizeable rooms, well kept garden’ too early to make a decision I re-stowed the book as an Israeli girl began to rat, tat at full volume.

As the road widened buildings began to appear and five minutes later we pulling into a service station, another athletic looking Thai bounding onto the bus. 

“O.K., you in Chiangmai now but government regulation stop us entering the city,  you take minibus from here,” she said.

I stepped off standing with the other travellers as we took turns to load our bags.

 “Israeli’s, any Israeli’s?” she called.  “Anyone not from Israel, this your bus.”

I turned to the guy standing next to me.

“Hey, I hope the Israeli’s are going to be O.K.", I chirped to a companion. 
 

Clamouring inside it was like minibuses everywhere in Asia, six rows deep, seats which bought you to close to the company beside you.  I clamped my legs together as the hostess climbed to the passenger seat.

“Israeli’s have to stay in different hotel,” she explained, “cause too much trouble, no place want them.”

I knew what she was talking about, it had been the same in India, up in the mountains, a part of the town I stayed in had been set aside for them; their food, their countrymen, drugs. 

Staring from the window as we entered the city I could see a few taller buildings but everything else suggested a sleepy backwater ‘Have I got it right?’ I wondered, I didn’t want to be anywhere as traffic chocked as Bangkok but I liked the idea life was somewhere close by.

Continuing through winding streets we came out alongside an ancient red wall, a moat warding off invaders and Thai flags fluttering on its ramparts. I craned my neck to get a full view and in the same moment felt the bus pulling us back into the narrow streets, winding for a few hundred metres before we stopped outside a  two storey white building.

“O.K., we here now, please come to reception, we have tea and coffee shortly,” our athletic Thai instructed.

Following inside posters were pealing from the walls, a low coffee table at the centre with piles of well read magazines.  It had the air of somewhere unloved, perhaps a reflection of the clientele. I looked at the travellers in their un-ironed t-shirts and holy shorts.  They rarely looked healthy, excess without exercise leaving them either fleshy or gaunt depending on their constitutions. I remembered back to the day on Kho Samui when I’d realized I couldn’t just travel.  It was so unnatural, the body suddenly stricken from its routine, carted to the other side of the world.     

“O.K., who want coffee? Hands up,” our girl chirped as an attentive male counted orders.

Picking up a book from the table I thumbed through pictures of sunburned Westerners riding elephants. ‘Thank you for making our stay in Chiangmai so insightful, without you we would have missed so much, xx Lilly and Pete, Chester, U.K.’. 

“We have many tours,” our girl began, “can go for three or five days will see long neck hill tribes and meet local peoples.  Don’t need to take food, we can provide everything.  Very interesting this type of people, only live in north, can meet and talk with them, always pleased to see foreigner.”

Giving ten minutes to sip our drinks she took names for the tours and moved upstairs to show us the rooms.

“You want?” she said as I looked over a dim musty space.

“Actually, I’m here to box Muay Thai, I was looking for somewhere with a pool.”

I planned to stay in town a couple of days, a bit of pampering before the hard work began.  She returned me to the minivan, giving the driver instructions and then we were moving again, returning to follow the red rampart and stopping just before it ended.

“Good place, you can see,” the driver chirped enthusiastically as he led me to reception. Lai Thai guesthouse, it was a traditional wooden building entered through an arch, the room overlooking a pleasant pool, teak flooring, bright windows, it seemed to fit my bill.  Cautious about being ripped off I spent an hour checking other places and returned, led to my room by a pretty maid.  'Would she make herself available?' I wondered running my eyes over her uniform.  It was the type you’d see in Spain, blue and white stripes tied at the back with a ribbon.

I made a brief excursion to buy a newspaper from across the moat and spent the afternoon reading and lounging by the pool.  Eating dinner at the in-house restaurant that night I found myself surrounded by older Western men with younger Thai girls.  I guessed the men were paying a daily rate and thought back to a documentary I’d watched with Louis Thoreau.  He’d visited an agency in Bangkok offering wives, a smart office downtown, the English manager sporting a Hawiian shirt as he explained how it worked.

“Well, we have a menu if you like,” he’d said handing Louis an album, “you choose one you like and then we contact her to come for an interview.  You spend an hour asking questions, if you want to take it further we can arrange for you to spend a day together.”

They’d followed an elderly chain smoker from Norwich, orange hair and sailor tattoos on his arms.

“I’m a good man,” he’d started as they sat for dinner. “You understand this? Good man. In England I have a house near the sea. I don’t have a lot of money, but you can have a good life.”

A good life I’d thought, a girl seeing out her youth as a sex slave in Norfolk. As I continued to eat I couldn’t shake the feeling they all looked so happy, gazing into one another’s eyes, small talk and occasional outbreaks of laughter.  Perhaps it was just a professional happiness, smiles practiced until you couldn’t frown, the knowledge that you were onto a good thing keeping you sharp, but it didn’t look that way.

 

Taking an evening stroll I joined the road leading to the Night Bizarre, quiet earlier in the day it was jumping now, bars either side sparkling in neon, girls in tight outfits spilling to the street. 

“Hey honey, come talk to me,” they called.

I Looked ahead, occasionally glancing inside.

“Hey handsome man.”

Reaching the Night Bizarre I found a street lined with market stalls in place of the dusty trading post I’d anticipated. No frankincense or myrrh, no camels, just crowds of tourists making their way up and down buying mini Buddhas and rip-off brands. 

Navigating across the river I found a couple of bars recommended for live music and listened from outside circling back to a bar where the men outnumbered the women.  Diagnosing it safe I took my seat and listened to a Thai band performing Western hits chatting to a couple of American girls who told me they’d come on holiday and decided to stay.

“I love this place,” the larger of the two began, “it’s so relaxed, I teach English fifteen hours a week and every night I come to places like this.” 

“Where do you live?”

“The old city, I share a house with some friends.”

A few minutes later the band invited her up to sing and she wasn’t bad.  I settled back appreciating my surroundings and thinking about my plan. I was glad I wasn’t teaching English, for a while I’d thought it would do it until I worked out what I really wanted to do, but it was treading water, my current plan having an immediacy which settled my nerves.  Finishing her song I watched a drunken Brit climb on stage. 

“O.K., I can play, hey slippy, give me a go,” he slurred.

The Thai’s handing him a guitar, they did there best to keep up, but I’d heard enough.

The next day I rose at six jogging a circuit of the moat. It was further than I’d anticipated, each wall stretching almost two kilometres, as I neared the end of the first I cut into the old city, dogs milling in the street and eyeing me as I passed. I prayed for them not to chase me but glancing behind a stocky bitch had already taken chase.  Deciding a race between man and dog would be a perfect test for my fitness I rose to balls of my feet, upping my pace until I was sprinting.  Lungs keeping time with my limbs I was surprised by my speed, looking behind to see the dog trotting disconsolately. I thought back to my time working at the office, a wintry morning when I’d decide on a fitness binge and jogged less than a kilometre before my legs had given out.  I’d been scared that day, twenty three and hardly able to run a block.

Returning to my room I performed my upper body exercises and ate a breakfast at the in-house restaurant, spending the rest of my morning in the pool.  Sculling in the water and looking into the blue sky my thoughts turned to home, ‘If only the lads could see this’ I said to myself.  I was referring to the gang I’d grown up with. I’d known them all since school, but unlike me none of them had left the place we grew up.  Half living at home, the others had their own houses, a couple married. I wondered what got them up in the morning, the same jobs, the same routines, but perhaps it was the routine.  As long as you told yourself that was all there was you could do it. Once you’d set your boundaries you could just keep on moving. 

I always used to think my life was better than theirs, better because I’d fulfilled my dreams to see the world and found ways of making money without the office job, but I’d found happiness didn’t really work like that.  It tended to settle around a baseline, temporarily lifted by a good night or seeing something new and then returning to its resting place.  The day I’d left the office not knowing what made me happy anymore I’d expected to find some kind of formula but it didn’t work like that.  It was similar to quietening the mind in Buddhist meditation, by the time you knew you had it, it had already gone.  Now I reckoned the only way to find it was to set your life up as best you could and accept it when it came.  A joke shared with friends, a date with a girl you’d never seen coming, a gap toothed smile from a flight attendant.  

Arranging a taxi to the camp that afternoon the receptionist was surprised to hear of my plans to box, “You do Muay Thai?” she said. “Very hard, when you finish come back and see me.” I didn’t know why she wanted to see me but I agreed.

The taxi arriving at one thirty I caught my first glimpse of the mountain as we made our way from the city.  Covered in dense forest I could see a golden temple glinting at its peak, it seemed almost too perfect, like if I'd been God it was exactly how I’d have made it; ancient city, mountain, the weather, the temple.

“Can go shopping here,” the driver said pointing to a mall on our left.  I was surprised to see Marks & Spencer’s, KFC was standard but Marks was something very British and given recent difficulties in Europe it seemed strange to see them so far a field, perhaps an experiment in expansionism before the market crash, more busy executives looking for market growth in emerging markets.  

The concept of economic growth seemed insane to me, companies having to grow continually to be considered successful.  I’d thought about McDonald’s, how they’d just about covered the globe and were now considering themselves a failure because they’d nowhere left to go.  I wondered what was wrong with stopping, saying ‘The world has enough McDonald’s, we’ll just maintain them, concentrate on improving the quality of our food, the ascetics of our stores’. At some point, didn’t you have enough?

“When I younger I do Muay Thai,” the driver resumed tapping a hand against his shin. “Hit, hit, hit, with bamboo, you know bamboo?”

I nodded, I wasn’t worried about the training, from what I’d read plenty of Westerners had done it, and physical exercise had always been something I could do, there was the small matter of seven years inactivity, but if there was a place I could be fit again it was here. 

When the driver began to look for the camp on the outskirts of town I was disappointed. I’d imagined winding into the mountains, a camp on the slopes, running through the jungle and sleeping in grass roofed huts.  We were in a shanty town, people cooking meat on barbeques and chatting to one another as they milled in the street. 

The driver stopping to ask directions, we performed a u-turn and pulled into a driveway alongside a mini-mart.  On my left a high corrugated roof covered a concrete floor, two boxing rings standing alongside a dozen bags, a pair of large full length mirrors against the wall. The driver disappearing to a small chalet he re-emerged with a Thai I judged in her late forties. 

“You want boxing?” she said “My name Mali, I take you meet Andy.”

Leading me to a large house hidden at the back of the gym I watched as she removed her shoes and did the same, following down a corridor and entering an office come bedroom. 

“Andy, have new person come to training,” Mali announced as a large figure sat behind a monitor.

“Alright, I’m Andy,” he said rising to offer an outstretched hand.  He looked super fit, chiselled jawbone, sleeveless training vest revealing thick veins running from wrist to chest.

“Paul, I spoke to you on the phone.”

I Explained I’d never done it before and planned to stay three months.  He looked riley at my mention of three months and I got the impression plenty of people had turned up making similar claims and hadn't lasted the distance.

“Are you the manager here?” I continued.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“No, nothing, just had this whole idea that I’d be surrounded by Thai’s.”

“Well, all the trainers are Thai and I’ve got a stable of Thai boys fighting out of the camp but most of the guys you’ll be training with are farang.”

“farang?”

“Westerners,” he replied taking a moment to size me up. ”Did you do any training before you came out?”

“Running, yeah, ran around the moat this morning.”

“Well, that’s about eight kilometres, that’s a good start.”

“I’m just going to watch today.”

He looked at me with a glint, “Just do whatever you feel like?”

Leading me to a small equipment room he pulled out a black log book and I signed in paying my first months training in advance. 

“O.K., training’s at four, Mali can find you a room. I don’t think we’ve got any space in the camp right now but there’s a couple of places up the street.  Flora house is more up-market if you’re looking for some comfort.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of cheap and simple.”

“Well, we’ve got that too.”

As I walked through gym another new arrival introduced himself as Jay from Canada, telling me he telling me he could do a hundred and fifty press ups and had trained with a well known trainer I’d never heard of.  Mali calling me I joined her on her scooter and we rode around the corner passing through a gate to stop outside a four storey white building. 

“Very cheap,” she said, “2,500 baht one month”.

“Looks nice,” I said as I looked out over a well manicured lawn.

Signing in with a girl who didn’t speak much English she led me to my room on the second floor.  It was just what I needed; two single beds, study desk, shower en-suite and a view to the mountain obscured by a tree.  No distractions, no clutter, just a space where I could sleep and read.