I was recently looking through some of the images and movies of one of our visits to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, and contemplating the above, when I came across a set of video clips we took while we were driving around Chiang Mai Province and city in Northern Thailand. We just rented a few small motorbikes with our mates from Amsterdam, got a map and set off into the mountains. Looking at those images and videos sure brought it all back. The smells, the Temples, the fantastic food made by friendly locals in little road side eateries, the great views, etc, etc….

I decided to do a little video compilation of our drives, using a sound track made by one of our mates that was with us on those drives. I hope you enjoy it:

The video footage and photographs of our trips by motorbike up Doi Suthep and drving the Mae Sa Valley loop. The video was mostly taken with a small compact camera from the back of my bike. The musical theme is set by Sunset Dub. Produced by one of our mates also driving along in the video.

The Mae sa Valley Loop

Doi Suthep

Stoned wallabies make crop circles

Hope it makes you all laugh as much as it made me…

Cheers

Hope everyone had a great weekend. We ended up doing some more exploring making use of a sunny Saturday in Melbourne recently. I was in a camera picture shooting mood and decided to give you some insights into our day over here through my shots.

We started our day off late morning with a good old belly bustin Irish breaky and made a fresh fruit juice on the side for balance:

After our breakfast we headed out to town. Vourneen had wanted to visit a shop that sells home made magazines in the CBD (Central Business District – Or city Centre for us Europeans) called The sticky institute. We just missed the tram and decided to walk for a while. The route to the city centre would take us all the way through Brunswick street – which is full of hyped/gritty city buzz and has plenty of graffiti and characters to keep the senses occupied. 15 minutes or so down the street we wandered into a side street that was lined with some examples of the graffiti art that can be found all over the area:

Further down the street we found the Rose street market. A little local market, part indoor part open air stalls, with a little cafe on the side. On first glance it reminded me of some of the social initiatives in Dublin and Amsterdam. Only this market also had more upmarket stalls in it and what felt like a fifty fifty mix of socialites and more upper class characters. One thing  that struck us was that ubnlike most European markets there was little ethnic diversity to be found, although this could of course just have been just a coincidence.

The walk back to Brunswick street revealed another particularly great graffiti tribute to BDP (AKA Boogie Down Productions) A New York Label that is of monumental influence to the Hip hop/rap scene of the late 80s/early 90s:

We walked on to Brunswick street and hopped on a tram. After a slow traffic jammed 6ish stops we hopped off between the towering high rise of Melbournes Central Business District. The magazine shop is located in a subway and it took us a while to find its entrance. While looking for the staircase leading down to his passage way, we came across an alleyway that shuts out most of the daylight due to the high rise blocks that line its narrow pavement, but gets lighter towards the end where a well lit entrance continues into a shopping complex. The sides are lined with a range of cafes and foody places. The Neon signs and the gloomy light fall had a dark yet welcoming quality to it:

We stumbled upon the staircase leading to the subway where the stencil magazine shop is and wandered in. The small shop has custom made photocopied paper lining every bit of vertical space along its walls and front window. most of the floor area is covered by a large table that can be used to stick/staple and cut paper to duplicate your custom magazine. The people behind the counter seemed very relaxed and were playing some underground music to further establish the informal tone:

After a bit of reading and browsing of the complete mishmash of writing, we walked back up to the street level and went in search for coffee. We headed down the dark alleyway (called centre place) with all the neon that I had photographed earlier and to our surprise discovered a short side lane with a dead end, just before the entrance to the shopping complex. It was completely covered in all kinds of graffiti and was lit various ways by all the different light sources. The almost surreal bombardment of colors in this unexpected space caused many people that were passing by to stop and look up in Wonder. We decided to stick around for a short while and take some shots of the scene:

We then returned to our search for coffee.We ended up enjoying coffee, of the high quality that I have come to expect after a couple of months in Australia, at a cafe/bar called the thousand pound bend. If I would have to nickname the quality and strength of the average coffee over here, I would call it something like “Gourmet rocket fuel”. Caffeine levels topped up, we decided to wander loosely in the direction of home and just walk for a while.. We turned some corners and walked into an alleyway. Another dead end alleyway appeared to our right with 3 story high graffiti art on it.

Impressed, we walked up for a closer look and found the entrance of a bar called Sister Bella. We decided it was our duty to test out this well hidden place where drink was served. A couple of minutes later we were propped up at one of its tables, and had our first taste of Melbourne bitter – served straight from half liter cans. It tasted alright. Curiosity satisfied we wandered on in what we hoped was the direction of our neighbourhood. After some minutes we arrived at the start of china town which was busy with traffic and pedestrians – as people were arriving for dinner at the many eateries:

Walking down the street we found another entryway displaying some cool graffiti art:

Another small alleyway led off it with what seemed to be only some garbage, the open door of a restaurant kitchen and a lot more graffiti. As every alleyway so far had offered up interesting surprises, we decided to see where this one would lead. Another corner and some more artwork and bins followed. And low and behold – another entry to a hidden bar called The Croft institute…

unfortunately the bar had not yet opened for the evening, so we decided to head on home for the day as we were getting quite tired and hungry after all the walking. Still, it had been a great day of discovery.

I hope everyone enjoys this update as much as we enjoyed our day.

Just a short one to let you know how things are going. We’re still living in Melbourne in the same funky neighbourhood. The person who’s place we are living in keeps extending her time away which is great for us. I have made good progress on the job front and should be able to start soon. We have been working on some of our web projects in the mean time and are learning lots and making good progress. I’m currently helping some of our mates in Amsterdam launch a drum and bass music label on-line (www.easternpromiseaudio.com)  and we have 3 other websites to work on, so no shortage of things to do.

Apart from from that, we are enjoying ourselves. We are getting further acquainted with our neighbourhood and other funky suburbs of Melbourne. I enjoy walking to the Library most days (about 40 mins) where I usually use the internet and resources in the afternoons. We often also walk back home from the city centre in the evenings and explore various suburbs at the weekends, sampling more of the great café’s and cheap eats that dot the streets.. The grittiness and abundance of quality graffiti around our area  ( Melbourne inner suburb called Fitzroy) also makes for some great shots. I recently picked up a great lens for our camera at a garage sale and am enjoying it to the fullest with all the cool things to photograph around our area.

ABOVE:Graffiti wall in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Graffiti of this size is actually quite common around the neighbourhood.

BELOW: One mouth watering sandwich at Babida last weekend. One of the many great bars and café’s in Fitzroy, Melbourne.

We also did a coach surf a few weeks back at the  start of the great ocean road which was a great experience. Very nice host, great food and cliff walks on the coast of south east Australia. So everything is moving on nicely, except for the fact that the winter has hit here  (damn you southern hemisphere!) . Things could be worse though, with temperatures at the level of your average Irish summers day…

I have added a good few photos that we took over the last view months roaming around. You can have a look through them below. Enjoy:

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We spent our last night in Sydney in Kings Cross red light district which was a great laugh and also the cheapest night out we had. We arrived in Brisbane the next day. I didn’t really like Brisbane at first. The people where nice but there was not much going on around town. Everything was just as expensive as Sydney but I felt like you didn’t get much back for it. The flashbacks of eerily deserted streets between skyscrapers down town on a Thursday night still haunt my dreams! After a couple of days we discovered the south bank. A very nicely landscaped area along the river, just across from its central business district (CBD). We ended up walking in to the celebration of Buddha’s birthday which was one great feast of Asian markets and performance. We also wandered into a gallery, one of many museums in the south-bank area, which was housed in a very nice building and showed aboriginal as well as colonial works. All in all however we were happy to leave Brisbane for our next destination.

We hopped on the greyhound to Byron bay and had a look for accommodation. We ended up in a run down but cheap backpackers hideout and spent a couple of days wandering along the beaches – watching the surfers and drinking wine. Our next stop was to be an unpronounceable place called Murwillumbah where old friends of Vou’s family had just moved.

After being shocked at the greyhound price for this short journey of 2 hours and finding a waaay better and cheaper coach company we met up with the family of five. They had just moved in to a nice house in the area with 360 mountain views form their front porch. We spent the next few days enjoying their great company and hospitality playing with the kids and going for drives around the beautiful surroundings.

It was now time to get back to Melbourne and to the reality of an ever slinking budget – finding a house a job and so on. Vou’s family  kindly had us over for our first night back at their house and cooked us a really nice meal. We then found a lovely backpackers that had friendly people staying and hospitable staff looking after the place. Within the first week we got lucky with a temporary rent in Brunswick street . Which happens to be one of the most buzzing streets in Melbourne. We live on the church grounds of the Hungarian Christian community for now. Hopefully the holy grounds work out for us. Unfortunately I got temporarily distracted from my job hunting due to a death in the family but Vou is already employed at a university to do marketing research and I am back on the hunt now. Lets see how this will turn out.

Cheers from down under.

• – Was greeted by Immigration with “how ye mate?”
• – felt robbed by the bill at the supermarket
• – Met up with a friend from Ireland
• – Saw a sunset at St Kilda pier
• – Spent a couple of hours in hospital (To fix the damage Vourneen did to herself in Thailand by falling over).
• – Drank about 0.7 litres of vodka, 1 bottle of cheap but nice Aussie wine and a variety of beers
• – Tried to fix the damage with several coffees.
• – Saw a Wombat up a tree – (updated 09-04) Who a farmer later on pointed out to be a Possum.. Ahem

Conclusion:
This place is weird but I’m getting to like it.

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In all our laziness we didn’t realize the time and ended up asking for food at the guest house after the kitchen was closed. The staff recommended us the food court at the night bazaar in town. The night bazaar was quite touristy, with the usual Chinese made silk bed sheets, woodwork and so on, but the night bazaar food court was a pleasant surprise. Over 50 small food shops and a couple of different drink shops, each with their own small selection of specialities, lined both sides of a rectangular square. The whole square was covered in tables and chairs with a stage at the far end, where performances were held. There were many groups of Thai people of all ages scattered about with a nice sprinkling of foreigners dispersed between and relaxing chatter drifted through the air. The food on offer was excellent and dirt cheap. In a great mood from the food and atmosphere we set on our walk home and retired for the night with a few beers.

After a nice nights sleep we got up early afternoon and set out to rent a motorbike. By the time we had rented it and had breakfast it was already quite late in the afternoon. We decided to go for a drive towards the west where waterfalls and hill tribe villages dotted the jungle clad hills. Our first stop was Chiang Rai beach, just outside the city limits a stretch of sand lines the Kok river bank. Many stilted platforms are erected along the rivers high watermark to provide shade. For each couple of huts, a food and drink vendor tends with local foods/snacks and assorted beverages. Across the river a stone cliff rises impressively over the landscape. It is a popular spot for people living in Chiang Rai to relax. And the atmosphere was very nice indeed. Families sat chatting away under the thatched shade while teens were lazing about the park area.  We spent a bit of time wandering around the shore and taking it all in. We then decided to drive a bit further on towards the waterfall which was near some hill-tribe villages about 25 kilometres further on. As we drove on the road took as through hills, across rice fields and it occasionally rejoined the river. The views were quite spectacular and the surrounds were warmed up further by the golden glow of the setting sun. The roads got progressively worse but at least they were still sort of paved. To avoid driving back on the bad parts in the dark we decided to turn around just before arriving at the fall. We got a bit lost on the outskirts of town but arrived back in one piece. We had our curry at the Guest house and decided to go for another drive the next day.

We woke up late as usual and went into town for brunch before setting off. We had breakfast at a place called Doi Chaang coffee as it looked promising, boasting award winning hill tribe coffee. We weren’t the disappointed. The sandwiches were very tasty and the coffee was pretty much the best I have ever tasted. Revitalized from the breakfast we went on to have a look around the white temple. This temple complex and surrounding art gallery are build by an artist who also build the Chiang Rai clock tower. The Buddhist artist aims to display the Buddhist teachings in a more contemporary way. The huge white temple building looked like it had just jumped out of a fairytale as it blinded you in the sunlight. Around there are several ponds and fountains and amazing sculptures are abound. As you enter the temple you cross a circle of sculpted hands that rice up in a menacing way from the earth as if to pull you in to the depths. Temple itself has contemporary almost anime style drawings with almost infinite detail on the inside. After we walked around and into the building we had a look at the art gallery of the paintings and other art work of the artist and his disciples which we very impressive as-well. They were drawn/painted and sculpted using many different techniques and the subjects ranged anywhere from the classical scenes of English cityscapes to futuristic renditions of the masculinity of man, etc. We spent a lot of the day here as there was so much to see. After that we went for a drive towards the north west of the town and crossed the river to get to the opposite side of Chiang Rai beach. There we found a very big Buddha cave, where several Buddha statues stood at a big whole in the cliff. Inside there were several altars and lots of relics were scattered around. There was no one else around and the place had a very mystical feel to it. We spent some time here quietly taking it all in and drove back to town through quiet villages and beauty-full countryside with the setting sun on our backs.

We had planned to stay overnight in an Akha hill-tribe village the next day but unfortunately I was hit by a bit of stomach bug and had to spend the rest 2 days partly and bed and always close to a toilet. This was no major punishment however because our comfortable room friendly staff and relaxing surroundings were great for book reading and chilling out. We also took the opportunity to go to the hill-tribe museum which was hard to find but quite well laid out and very informative about the traditions of the many different hill tribes. It also highlighted issues with their integration into Thai society etc. It gave us a bit of background before going into the hill-tribe village and was quite enjoyable with many hill-tribe hunting and domestic tools and costumes on display.

When I was back in good enough shape, I hired a motorbike again and went off to the Hill-tribe village which was close to the Huai Kaeo waterfall. The drive was quite doable until we got to the turn off at the last 5 kilometres. From there on the paved surfaces became unpredictable with large potholes. Sometimes the road surface would vanish into mud track altogether and the climbs and descents got even more tricky. After a couple of kilometres of inching along through deep valleys and over high hills, just as we had started to believe we had taken a wrong turn we saw a sign for Akha hill house pointing to an even worse rocky track. At the end of the track a small paved road shot up at what was at least a 45 degree angle towards the village. I had to leave Vourneen to walk up while I tortured the motorbikes first gear up the hill. At the top behind of a sign saying akha hill house sat several woman knitting away. They gave us a short stare and seemed generally unimpressed by our arrival or ascent. We got ourselves settled into our bungalow and took in the breathtaking view from our porch. After a walk around the village and some of the jungle tracks further up the hill we settled for a nice dinner at the hill house restaurant and took in the beauty of the setting sun and the valley below us. The next morning we had our breakfast and Vou got an Akha massage.

We then went to visit the lower Huai Kaeo falls before heading back to Chiang Rai. The waterfalls setting is very beauty full as you first walk up a jungle track lined with dense vegetation and towering bamboo which after about 5 to 10 minutes opens up into the waterfall. Vou went for a dip while I took in the surrounds and took some pictures. There was nobody else there until we left and it really made us feel like we walked straight into Jungle book. On our way back we played with the child of a hill-tribe woman who was selling some handicraft at the parking area for the falls and then headed towards Chiang Rai. We opted to take a different road back as we expected this must be better than the road on the way up. Unfortunately we were very wrong. We spent about 45 minutes to drive the first 7 kilometres before hitting the tarmac of the slightly better provincial road. The views and villages we past to though were well worth the effort though. We arrived back to Chiang Rai without any trouble and collected our backs from the Akha River house that the staff had kindly transferred back to us from the village. Our next stop would be Chiang Mai – to drive on to the remote town of Pai through the mountains.

Find a selection of pictures from our visit to Chiang Rai, Thailand below. You can also visit the gallery page for a slideshow of these pictures.

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The next morning we were rudely awakened by the now familiar noise of progress around these parts of South East Asia, as the building site next door that we had missed the day before rumbled and clanged to life. We grumpily tried to ignore the noise for several hours as it grew more unbearable. As if to taunt us, the noise abruptly stopped at about noon, just after we had given up all hope to any further snoozing. We went downstairs, had breakfast of fresh bread and decent coffee and went for a walk around the less touristy parts of town. There were very enjoyable markets both under cover and scattered along surrounding streets in the market area. The stalls sold anything from clothing to fruits and vegetables that looked so good that they steered our conversation instantly to how fantastic the meals would be that you could cook with this produce…. We then got lost for a bit and then bumped into the local TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) office. We had high expectations after our excellent experience in Phitsanoluk a couple of days earlier, and we were not disappointed. Not only did we come away with a map of Chiang Rai town and lots of info about restaurants and accommodation, we also got a very large free map of the whole of Thailand with separate detailed maps of Chiang Rai province and other parts of the Northern Thailand. Reaffirmed that our aimless wandering seemed to work out well for us we decided to follow a road towards the river flowing through the city. We ended up  on a small side road next to the main bridge stretching over the river. On this road we encountered several very friendly dogs, and then some sheep, before it ended by a grassy patch at the river front. High above us traffic was swooshing past. And when peaking into a small side river below us, a large water buffalo’s head stuck out from the middle of it. On our left on the banks of the side river stood a 2 story mud brown building which appeared to have very spacious comfortable rooms. As we walked back along the road towards the city was saw at the entrance that the place was called the Akha river house and was run by the Akha hill tribe people. Although the place looked enticing we decided that it also looked to expensive and was quite far out of town and walked by without giving it another look.

We went back to town and had our evening dinner at the Surinam place. The owner Karel, originally from the Netherlands  had settled there about a year earlier  and opened this place to make use of his passion for cooking. His brother had been in Thailand for seven years and was teaching an IT  course at a Chiang Rai university. He came a by aswell and as we stuffed ourselves with the great food and had several beers we had great chats about everything from what happened on the Tourist strip to the advantages and disadvantages of living in Thailand, and so on. We also got some great tips on where to go and what to do around Chiang Rai. One tip we followed up immediately was the clock tower show. At the end of the tourist strip this golden clock tower sits with all its kitschy glory in the middle of a main road roundabout. 3 times per day at 7, 8 and 9 O’clock it the lights Dim and then Thai music suddenly sounds around the roundabout. the tower is drenched in different colours of light that are synchronised with the music. Things move around within the tower (a golden flower opens at some stage in a gap in the middle of the tower for instance). The whole thing is pretty cheesy but is very well set up and I have to admit it was quite enjoyable to watch.   Happily fed and light-headed after the beers, we decided to rent a motorbike the next day and head out to follow up on some more of the tips.

Morning came early again as the builders entered the next and even more loud stage of their project. After cursing for some time we had breakfast and decided to spend the day searching for another place to sleep. Another long walk across town and several guest houses later and we simply could not find a suitable alternative place to stay. Lost as to what to do we walked up to the Akha river house place again and had a look in. The place was even nicer than it looked earlier with fresh herb and vegetable gardens surrounding the buildings and lovely staff. The rooms where build with some beautiful hill tribe touches and where excellent value for money, with satelite TV/Wifi/Fridge/large balkony etc.  We decided we would rent a motorbike the next day and move in. With most the day gone we walked back to town and had dinner in a Thai restaurant which served delicious curries at less then halve the price of the touristy bars down the road.

In the next update I will write more about our time in Chiang Rai and our field trips around to the hill tribes and other nice places – Coming soon.

PS: We were lucky enough to leave Chiang Rai Province At the end of February and therefore did not experience the earthquake that rocked Burma and Chaing Rai province recently. Our thoughts go out to people in the region who have shown us the with great kindness during our visit.

Find a selection of pictures from our visit to Chiang Rai, Thailand below. You can also visit the gallery page for a slideshow of these pictures.

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