10:00 and it was milling with people. Another Western couple was there
initially, but inexplicably left and missed the bus. The rest of the
people were a mix of young people going to Pai for the weekend and
hill tribe villagers in traditional dress. By traditional dress I mean
bright colors and bold patterns and lots of babies in papoose slings.
Velour featured prominently in many outfits and I wondered where they
got it from. Were they importing it? Surely they weren't making it?
The people watching was pretty good and it helped keep my mind from
worrying about the bus.
We bought a few necessities at the convenience store nearby: 5B water,
chips, a Birdy coffee drink and a drinking yogurt drink. The best part
of the morning was that the bus came! It was full to overflowing with
people, but it came!! As it pulled up, we joined the crowd rushing the
bus. We piled our way on before people could get off even, no one
wanted to be left behind and in fact, no one was. We stood in the
aisle near the open door, but we had at least a two person buffer
between us and the gaping hole - if anyone fell out, it probably
wasn't going to be us!
The ride to Pai took a slow hour and a half, complete with a few
stops: one at a police checkpoint and another at the pass/scenic
overlook. My legs and feet were aching by the time we pulled into Pai.
Robert and I had a plan to grab the two single seats at the very front
of the bus, if those were vacated in Pai. One was, one wasn't. I
dashed for the very front seat, but Robert got stuck in a seat behind
the driver. He had it all to himself until another traveler asked to
share, another broad shouldered man, I might add. It looked like a
squeeze and I very much appreciated Robert pushing me towards the
front seat when it emptied - I got to be co-pilot! I also got to sit
with both of our bags, which was my concession for having a seat to
myself. This, however, left me without legroom of any sort and my legs
were contorted into strange pretzel shapes for most of the trip.
Bus Maintenance
On our way out of town, we stopped at a filling station for gas and to
top off fluids. The bus took over nine liters of water and a healthy
glug of transmission fluid. The real fun came as we were pulling away
from the pumps - the steering wheel stopped controlling the wheels!!!
Being the co-pilot, I noticed this first. The driver just smiled and
yelled back to his real co-pilot to come help. At first one of them
went under the bus and the other wiggled the steering wheel, talking
through a hole in the floor. Then they took the steering wheel off and
whacked something with a giant metal tube. It took a long time for
them to actually turn the motor off - if the motor is still running,
it's not considered a problem. I'm not sure what else they tried or
fixed, but sooner than I thought possible, the steering wheel was back
in place - but there was an extra washer. It's never good to have an
extra piece. The man sitting on the engine cover next to me agreed and
tried to offer them the extra washer, but he was ignored. Both driver
and co-pilot had grease up to their elbows as if they had just
delivered a robot baby, but they never stopped smiling.
I thought it was strange that the woman in the seat behind me had
abandoned her stuff on the bus, but she didn't. She just got left. A
motorbike zoomed past us and dropped the woman off in our path. We
picked her up and continued along. It took about ten minutes for the
wheel to break again. This is not the kind of road where you want to
have a faulty steering column, either. The road zigs and zags like a
caterpillar with traffic zooming past and around our pokey bus. It is
important to be able to control where our wheels go lest we crash or
fly off a mountain! We pull over and the steering wheel is removed yet
again. At this point it is no longer amusing or picture worthy; I go
to sleep. Soon enough we are moving again, this time for good.
My favorite part of the bus ride was the snake-driving. On steep hills
our driver created his own switchbacks! Three turns to the left, three
turns to the right, three turns to the left and some how we crested
the hill. Where there's a will, there's a way.
Another exciting bit was when the driver's door flew open mid-trip and
Robert tried to help jimmy the latch closed. He was unsuccessful
though and the real co-pilot had to come fix it for us. The co-pilot
also was helpful when one of the bolts holding the steering column
came loose. No need to slow down, just call the co-pilot and he will
tighten it right up for you!
As surprising as it may seem, we both made it to Chiang Mai and
enjoyed the adventure. Once the ride settled down, I ate oranges and
listened to podcasts on the Pad. I was horrified when I first reached
into the bag to get the Pad though, it smelled fruity and felt damp! I
don't know who would do such a silly thing like store a liquid/gel in
the main pocket of the bag...hand sanitizer had leaked all inside the
backpack. The alcohol melted the paint off my thumb drive, but it made
everything dry quickly. We stopped at the rest stop that everyone
stops at and since it was a Friday, it was hopping, thick with
mini-buses. Parking was so bad that we had to walk five minutes up the
road just to buy our ice cream cones, chocolate with raspberry
filling.
Chiang Mai
Eventually we got to Chiang Mai and got a tuk-tuk to take us to
Pakinai Guesthouse; this time they had a fan room for us. Drop bags
and laundry and off to find dinner. We went north from our guesthouse
and experienced a completely different Chiang Mai than we had left. We
immediately found a busy Thai-Chinese restaurant with a hidden English
menu. We got three dishes: roasted chicken with basil and spicy sauce,
pad si-ew muu and veggie rat na with fried egg noodles. It was all
excellent. Then we tried the mushrooms stuffed with shrimp, red pork
steam bun and steamed wheat noodle filled with crab. They all came in
steam trays and very quickly. Yum!
Dinner also taught us the word for red in Thai, which is dang. Now we
are ready for Christmas!! We know red (dang) and green (key-ow). Red
pork and green tea (muu dang and chaa key-ow). We have seen some
evidence of Christmas in Chiang Mai, but everywhere else we just see
gold "Happy New Year!" signs. I enjoy the prominence given to my
birthday over here. As for Christmas decorations, there are white
lights strung up on a tall office building in the shape of a tree,
with a Star of David on top - Gord, you should be so proud.
Tomorrow we will run errands in Chaing Mai and the following day we
catch an 8:30 bus to the Lao border, on the day our visa expires no
less!!
3 comments:
My Vietnamese students at Ft. Wolters sent bolts of black velour back to their families to make clothes. While in SEA I don't remember seeing anyone wearing velour but I wasn't exactly uptown either.
I think busses running off the road in the mountains is mostly about the driver. Should I say speeding/sleeping/stupid driver. Get smart drivers.
The velour we've seen here hasn't been uptown either. We saw hill tribe villagers wearing it (think "Native Americans" of Thailand). They are very poor subsistence farmers, but somehow they manage to get all sorts of crazy colors - lime green, baby blue, purple, etc. and it features prominently in their dress.
As for the buses - when it takes two days to catch one bus, we can hardly be picky, but i think our driver was excellent. He was able to fix the steering well enough to get us where we were going and didn't drive us off the mountain - good enough for me!
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