Michael Caine

A friend told me the Thai of Chiang Mai are considered arrogant and distant. I have not found this to be the case. Rather, they mind their own business, which is fine by me. To a tourist, Bangkok is a gauntlet of pestering scum. Here you walk, and although there are endless places who'd like your money, they let you walk, mostly without calling out to you or forcing you to say an apologetic "no" fifty times a day. And the mark of good business, which they all exhibit, is that they're nice even if you don't buy - in Bangkok nowadays they curse your eyes. (When I told one Bangkok street hawker I didn't have any money, she told me to get the fuck out of Thailand. I believe she meant it.) Except for the tuktuk drivers and cabbies, who are shit anywhere, there are only a few whore enclaves in Chiang Mai where you get solicited, but even those do it mildly and kindly. Chiang Mai, in short, is a thousand thousand times better than Bangkok. It's Bangkok without the bad parts.

Walking Chiang Mai brings back memories. I had a time here back in the day. Many buildings and street corners are little life markers to me. Mostly pleasant and gentle ones, as is the city. Walking also brings up a question: what does it mean to visit a place? You take Chiang Mai. It's got shopping opportunities to no end, set up for tourists. Restaurants and bars, for tourists. Cool activities - pet a tiger, ride an elephant, be a gibbon (a jungle zipline package) - all created for the tourists. But those are all addenda, tacked on to the place because it draws a crowd. If you strip them away, what is this "Chiang Mai" that you visited?

I think that in Chiang Mai's case, and in the case of most cities, the truth of the place is in walking it. Just walking, not necessarily around the tourist draws, and absorbing whatever you happen to see. The actual life and lineaments of the place. Chiang Mai is good for that. An old city surrounded by a perfectly square moat, tons of little alleyways, buildings that tend to be low and light. I've had several nice days here, spent walking a whole lot. My feet and back hurt a bit. I eat light and walk. I meet people.

At a live music bar, I jammed after the show with a harmonica playing Englishman who looks precisely like Michael Caine 20 years ago. Same smile, same teeth, same jollity. It was uncanny. And it turns out he dated Michael Caine's wife's cousin. He blew a mean harp, too. Late last night I stumbled onto a movie set at a public square lit brilliantly by a standing display of a pagoda made of fabric and lights. I asked one guy what sort of film it was - comedy? drama? I bet anything that he could not have a basic English conversation, as is true of most Thais, but he gave me as precise an answer as could be: "kahming off aytch." A coming of age film, that is. 

I see the dogs, too. They're strange. They're all over Chiang Mai, mangy street dogs that never bark. They're strangely quiet and un-aggressive, perhaps (no, definitely) having taken on the character of the city and society around them. Even they do not pester you at all, and mind their own business. Only once did I see one break out in excited wagging, as my own dog Stanley does every single moment of his life. The rest of the time, they just walk around - not run - and go about their quiet lives.

Here are pictures of a beef noodle restaurant. Click to enlarge.