the side of Chiang Mai I hadn't foreseen

Whilst I have spent time sitting around reading, watching videos, and catching up with emails, I have also walked around Chiang Mai - to many of the Buddhist temples as well as a few quieter corners that I've managed to find.

The temples are so over-the-top.  So much gold paint everywhere, crazy guardian creatures outside of the meeting halls - many dragons, but also strange mixtures of dragon, elephant, peacock, deer and other creatures - and some very realistic-looking waxwork monks in some temples, like this guy to the right.  Some days I can get 'templed out', but then when I go wandering the next day I find myself exploring more of them.

Thailand is another of those countries that has turned the philosophy of the Buddha into a religion (which I find irritating), and has fully incorporated the Hindu deity Ganesh, I suppose because elephants are such a big 'thing' in the Thai culture.  I'm not sure where the gold fits into their beliefs, but perhaps this sign, which I saw in the grounds of one Buddhist temple (Wat Pa Pao), helps to explain it, but I really don't think that the Buddha would have approved of such a sentiment!

I have also been out to the countryside a little, partly thanks to a fellow guest at my first hostel, who persuaded me to sit on the back of his motorbike whilst he drove us up into the hills to some of the more distant temples, to some viewpoints, through small coffee plantations, and also to stop in some of the villages we passed.  We saw some villagers pounding rice into sticky rice and wandered over to watch, and were interested to see that it was a Hmong village (one of the hilltribes in this part of northern Thailand).

& I tried one long walk out of the city by myself, but had only gone some twenty minutes when a motorcyclist stopped and enquired as to whether he could give me a lift anywhere.  I explained where I was going (which wasn't in the direction he had been heading) and he told me to hop on, and kindly drove me to my destination.  That is one example of how safe it feels here, as I would never CONSIDER jumping on the back of a stranger's motorbike in most parts of the world!

It is also safe to walk alone through the city, for thirty minutes from a bar to my hostel, at 2am as I did last night.

Early in my time here I'd taken up an invitation from another visitor in one of the many Chiang Mai facebook groups to meet at a bar which had live music playing.  Although American country/blues music is not something I've listened to much, the band was very good, and we went back there a week later to see the same band ... and the week after.  Whilst other bands played there on other nights, it turned out that the singer and rhythm guitarist from this band was the owner of the club, and last week he told me that I should come to see a different band playing this Friday night as it was his birthday as well as that of the other band's singer, and it would be a bit of a 'do'.  So I went along - this time on my own as the guy who first invited me there has since left Thailand - and it was a great night.  Free food and great music with many different people joining in with what became a giant jam session.

Everyone there was very friendly, and chatting to the Scottish guy sitting to my left I discovered he was a trumpet player, who later got up to jam on a few tracks - this is him on the left of the photo, with the drummer and trombone player from the band I'd been watching each week.  But he wasn't just any old trumpet player - this is Roddy Lorimer, who has played with everyone from the Rolling Stones, the Who and Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart and Chris Rea, Blur, the Pretenders and Public Image Limited, and Baaba Maal (plus many others)!!  He retired some six months ago, but enjoyed joining in last night!

What had more of an impact on me than his history, however, was what he and a couple of other expats there told me - and what I observed - of what an amazing community they have here, of mostly older people who spend anything from three to ten months of the year (none of them stay through burning season) in Chiang Mai, people from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and from all over Europe and SE Asia, who share a love of music and of the lifestyle they can have in this warm, safe, laid-back city, interacting with like-minded expats who are, apparently, open, friendly and non-judgemental.

I'm wondering if I might end up spending a few winters here in the future!