Nan we went to see ‘family’. At last got to see the murals in Wat Phumin, a thing I have been trying to do for 10 years. They are odd! I know they are not La Dance Macabre at La Chaise Dieu, but for Thailand they are 'unusual'!... mThey tell the story of the Sihanada Jataka…...mainly about Orphans..they were painted about 1893…so they are not that old, but they were created at an important moment in history when the French took control of Laos..hence the unusual pictures of Westerners!
We went to see the river near Ban Pasingh, which is where Elodie’s grandfather came from. The river Nan lovely as ever and we walked out into it on wooden platforms and fed tumultuous fish. E went splish-splosh which cheered her up.
We went up to the Thai Lao border but absolutely nothing going on there, though we did see a flock of Asian Fairy Bluebirds.. Irena puella .... which was at once astonishing and beautiful in the middle of nowhere!
And then went up to Chiang Kong and Chiang Saen. The Mekong full of threatening rocks and not much water. We stayed outside Chiang Saen by the river and watched Great Egrets- Casmerodius albus tiptoeing around in the shallows, while large parties of Chinese New Year revellers downed vast quantities of food and made away with bottles of Black Label. Everyone lit paper lanterns and floated them off over the river..better than the boat trips on offer at The Golden Triangle, which has become a funfair. It was freezing at night and not enough bed clothes!! We thought about going on a boat to Luang Prabang...but a trip for the future!
In the morning we went up to Mae Sai and bought some jewelery which no doubt further enriched the moguls of the mines of Mogok..a name which surely would have been invented by Tolkien if it had not already existed! I wanted to buy a Lapis Lazuli bracelet, but none to fit. Wanted to buy K a beautiful white and faintly green Jade bracelet at B6000-ie £85 probably £400 in London, but she having none of it! Bought a little one for E instead at £1 which is, I hope, plastic!
Tried to buy an exotic pair of cheap Chinese Binoculars but my little Olympus ones still better. Then we went right up to Doi Mae Salong..awash with Chinese travellers buying tea and no doubt visiting auntie. Hard to think that this little enclave of China was once the redoubt of what was left of Chiang Kai Shek’s forces preparing to re-take China from Mao!
Back to Chiang Mai and to the peculiar world within a world that is the Galare Guest House by the river. No Thais here!
5 days on the road enough so we pootled around CNX for a couple of days and bought clothes and yogurt, sweets and toys.
On the way home we stopped in Lamphun for E to ride on an elephant.
Much taken with this, but enjoyed feeding sugar cane and bananas to them much more. The camp here is much nicer than those up north..cannot think why anyone goes to those! E much enamoured of 9 month old elephant calf playing with a ball in a pond!
Messages from the Road
Elodie speaks a lot. Thais: Why does she speak so well? Ooh, she speaks two languages! Shock!
Most of Thailand looks the same, never mind the lowlands and uplands. The trees change…but every village is Ban Anywhere.
And all those huge tracts of land, relatively uninhabited with everyone struggling to live on the main road. In Doi Mae Salong the Chinese industrious and prosperous, The Hill people in straw huts and selling trinkets!
A profusion of signs to waterfalls and dams, forest parks and wats…getting there to find pretty well nothing. The roads empty of cars..no-one going about to have fun.
Chiang Mai like another planet with tourists and shops, hotels and restaurants. But 10 miles out of town..the dry wastes.
We went out of town to sit by the lake and eat SomTam. E went more splish-splosh, but then got grumpy..tired I should say!
It still has not rained again..so that is six hours rain in five months. If it was Provence or LA the whole place would have been on fire for ever, while here you pass blackened plantations but they will rise again when the rainy season comes. Of all the Thai rivers I think the Nan is the most beautiful. More so than the Ping and Yom and the Chao Phraya, though that holds pride of place. One day I will read Steve van Beek’s Slithering South..but not yet. I bought E some Japanese story books and In The Night Kitchen as well as Rainbow Fish..she likes the Octopus!
B writes to inquire about ‘The Behrends’..I think I have said all I want to about RS and his Anglophilia!
We are very much in two minds about whether to go back to the UK at all. I want to see R and I think, on balance, it would be better if K had her ‘RTR’ visa…. though quite what the point is if we are not going to live there, we are not sure. As time goes by, being here is pretty satisfying…yes broadband would be good…yes a good bookshop….and as to schools!!..that will still be the crunch…we think she will learn to read and write Thai pretty quickly..once that is done I think no reason for her to stay here for a while.
I have been reading Adam Phillips..more…that is...my favourite shrink!!...( I see he is being canonised in The Observer!) While I do not revise my opinion of RS and MEE, (as parents!) nonetheless I cannot deny I did get from their life a degree of ‘happiness’ that I do not see in many others. Phillips’ concept of ‘Restless Boredom’ seems to sum up my childhood and adolescent years and my three principles probably add up to ‘The Ability To Be’ … all things that we would wish for E and have taken me years to acquire.
We still need more ££ and never sure we have negotiated the pitfalls of relationships to a peaceful solution..though here the possible and the practical seem to have coalesced..but too far from R.
But we have a ‘Good Life’! Made possible by TPA money and books, by the existence of R and E, by K without whom life would be worse even when it is not good!.
And the ‘Restlessness’ seems capable of being channelled into ‘constructive restlessness’ when the ideas come, but without any great sense that it is necessary to launch empires or fortunes!
It is Valentine’s Day 2005!! I gather in Thailand it is traditionally the day to open virgins!!
Blush for Us!
