Eventful weekend for me here in Chiang Mai! As you read in my last blog post, I went to my first Must Thai fight on Thursday night. Then Friday kicked off the nationwide celebration of Loi Krathong. That continued to Saturday, and then Sunday I made a 15km ride, one way, up a mountain to visit the temple Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. Before that I was helping some of the people from church paint the new house they we’re moving into.
Loi Krathong is essential, at least in my experience, a celebration where pretty much everyone in Thailand, tourists included, go out at night and light candles, laterns, and these special floating candles as well. There are fireworks and people throwing firecrackers in the streets. It’s a real hoot.
Originally, however, the celebration was mainly focused around making these decorated “baskets” that would then be floated down the river. Thai culture also isn’t the only culture to celebrate the festival. There are many smaller tribes of people who celebrate including people from Laos. The event takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. That just so happened to be November 3rd and 4th this year. Today, the festival is less traditional to some as you can see by the Hello Kitty later pictured above.
In all honesty, the event seems really dangerous. The Thai government shut down all airports during the festivities because of the laterns potential to interfer with flights. Not only that, scenes like in the pictures above we’re very frequent. While I was in the thick of latern launching territory I witnessed probably 3 or 4 laterns hit power lines and then proceed to burn themselves up dropping the flaming candle, fuel, and burning frame onto a crowd of people. I was only there for 30 minutes! There was police and firefighters on hand, but I was a little horrified to see so many laterns take a direct route into buildings and trees. Also, it’s hard to imagine where all these laterns end up falling once they run out of fuel.
Even after the fun of Friday and Saturday I decided to take a little bike trip after church. Before, however, I helped paint a house that some of the church’s members were moving into. There’s not a lot I wouldn’t do when offered free food, but it was fun to help out! We had a nice meal of pizza and potato salad. It was good to have some Western food for a change. I must have eaten a whole pizza by myself, which isn’t saying to much when the large size here is equivalent to an American small. They oddly came in a dessert looking box. Either way the food was much appreciated!
After spending a few hours painting it was time for me to take to my bicycling adventure, and it truly was an adventure. I may have underestimated the journey I was about to undertake. I left around 4:30pm thinking I could get to the top by 5:30pm and watch the sun go down, explore the temples, and then cruise home. But by 6pm, after sun down, I still hadn’t made it to the top of the mountain. It ended up being a 15km journey from painting to the top of the mountain, 11km of which was practically, what seemed to me, straight up. Along the way I did get to see some waterfalls and some stunning views over the city and surrounding nature. I knew I want making good time so I didn’t stop for as many pictures as I would have liked!
At the top I still had some stairs to climb to get to the top of the temple. At this point I began to feel discontempt for the free bike I had received from church. My butt was so store and now I had to do all this walking. But they say it’s about the journey, not the destination. It it wasn’t for that I don’t think I would have appreciated the sights and views nearly as much as I did, even though by this pointing traveling temples are nothing special to me anymore.
I wandered around for a short time and really didn’t spend a lot of time there because I knew I had a 11km down hill journey on a bicycle with questionable breaks in the dark with no lights. I did spend my most time looking over the city. So far I have spent a little over two weeks here, but to me if feels much more like a couple months. It’s very weird to think how somewhere so different can start to become so familiar and almost be a home, at least for the time being.
The bike journey down was honestly terrifying. All I could think was if my mom knew what I was doing she would say I’m an idiot. But I was an idiot… I had no helmet, no lights, and the brakes on this bike barely worked. I was speeding down this mountain, wind in my hair, knowing I could seriously injury myself, but I was so happy and felt so free. It was complete trust in my night adjusted eyes and in my ability to control the squeaking brakes. It’s small little moments like this traveling that I will always remember. I can already see myself looking back saying something like, “I remember when I was 21. I was in Thailand, riding a bike down a mountain, at night, wind in my hair. Never thought about getting hurt, because when you’re young you think you’re invinsible.” That’s how I feel a lot of the time, but I have to remember to listen to my mom’s voice in my head, “Sam, don’t be an idiot.” If I listen to that half the time I think I’ll turn out alright. I have to much back home not to come back to anyways!
That’s a wrap on my weekend! Above is a random picture of a monk I saw at the mall. I thought it was interested and thought I’d share.
After this week of Muay Thai training I’ll be headed to Myanmar for a quick border run to get a new stamp since I’ve already been in Thailand close to a month by this point! Time sure flys! I miss home, but I’ll be back soon enough!