I'll take Who does Max and 99 battle? for 200 please Alex.

Monday morning follows Sunday night and that can only mean one thing. Yep I am now a veteran of the famous Chiang Mai Sunday Market.

Wow what a zoo.

The Sunday market is just one of many markets in Chiang Mai and is considered to be the largest. Being staged inside the old city I was told that it was just a short walk from my place. So at about seven last night I headed out. Walking through the back alleyways I slowly made my way towards the market. At first I wasn’t sure if I was headed in the right direction but after about ten minutes or so I noticed all these scooters parked on the side of the road.  There had to be a couple hundred of them at this one intersection. All of them parked beside and around one another. Now the size of this market is a bit hard to estimate but I would hazard a guess at ten city blocks square. The streets are closed to vehicular traffic for the day and night as the vendors set up their stalls on the sidewalks and down the center of the road to hawk their wares.  Now where they get all their wares from I have no idea but my goodness there is everything you can imagine here. 

Mixed in with all the vendors are the musicians, magicians, masseuses and a multitude of actors all vying for your attention, well actually your cash.  Now I know that this all sounds like a spectacular spectacle and it is. Only, now I hesitate to use the word problem but the only problem is that the Sunday Market isn’t a very well-kept secret.  Seems like the web site that directed me to the market was also visited by some 100 000 other people.  To be honest not all of those people showed up at the market last night. But what those seven other people were up to last night I'll never know.

Chaos can be found all around us. Chaos and conflict are a part life.  That is a fact that cannot be changed.  However how we deal with it can be changed or rather directed.  The Sunday market can be viewed as complete and utter chaos.  The throngs of people in constant motion, the glaring lights, the smells from all the food vendors and the noise. Oh so much noise.  There were the singers, most of them blind, sitting in the middle of the street, with their microphone and a small speaker. Singing songs I couldn’t understand while on lookers dropped coins into their small tin box.  Then there were small groups of people playing instruments I’ve never seen nor heard before, instruments that emitted strange almost annoying sounds. Then there were the large groups of students waving placards while shouting out looking for donations for what I have no idea. All this was coming together at once. Insanity being multiplied by chaos inside my head. Then I remembered to take a deep breath and relax and as if by magic it all seemed to slow down. It all started to make sense. The singer’s song, though still not understood, was soft, siren and made me pause to listen. The groups with the annoying instruments now had tempo and rhythm and the music moved me. The groups of students still made no sense but that was OK too because they, for some unknown reason, belonged here. They were integral to the big picture and they made me smile.

 I think if one were to view the market from afar that they would see 99 994 people, plus all the vendors musicians magicians and actors, moving as one. Flawless, graceful, moving together with purpose and harmony. BUT when you are like I was last night, a market neophyte dropped into the middle of it all, let me just say that took a while for me to see it for what it is. And once I did I found myself no longer walking against the flow but with it. I saw not a bunch of individuals pushing, shoving, shouting and trying to part me from my money. But instead I saw a community.  This is a community of sellers and buyers, of hawkers and gawkers, each needing the other. Each richer from being involved in the amazement called the Chiang Mai Sunday Market.

If glutoney is a sin then call me a sinner.

I was going begin this post with something like; For dinner last night ... But saying dinner may imply to some that it was my third meal or last meal of the day and either of those thoughts would be incorrect. So how's this for an opening line?
I love food!
There I was just killing some time before a fitting when I thought hey I could use a bite to eat. And lo and behold there was this restaurant right before me. Coincidence? I think not. OK I'll be honest here. I do have the, hey lets have a bite to eat, thought quite often and there is absolutely no shortage of restaurants here in Chiangmai. OK enough with the honesty lets get back to the important issue here. Food.
So anyhow I walk into this restaurant and I am prompltly shown to a seat at a bar like counter. Now please keep in mind I don't know very much and am simply along for the ride. So I sit down and the waiter says a bunch of words I don't understand and a few words I did. Basically it sounded like this,  "Blah blah blah Tom Yum blah". I look at him and nod my head yes. He leaves and I begin to survey the place. I glance at the other diners trying to figure out what they are doing. But before I can figure out what is going on the waiter comes back with a steel pot which he places into the hole in the counter before me. Next he reaches under the counter, turns on a switch and leaves. I look inside the pot, lean forward and take a sniff. Tom Yum soup and its beginning to come to a boil right before me. OK I'm figuring it out now. This is a hot pot style dinner. Now I have failed to mention that behind the counter is a conveyor belt of sorts and on it are all these different plates. Different coloured  plates each with a small portion of a variety of different foods. Now this is something I've seen before. You take a plate from the conveyor. Place the food into the hot pot. Cook your food and enjoy. Like I said I have seen this before. The plates are colour co-ordinated to a price list and at the end of your meal the server will add up all the different coloured plates and viola you have your bill. This I understand. Silly me. The first inclination my "understanding" is beginning to crumble (mmm blueberry crumble stop it FOCUS) is when the waiter takes away my first few plates. Normally the plates are left there in front of you to be tallied up later. OK, no worries they must be keeping a record of what I am eating somewhere. This thought had not yet vacated my cranium when this fellow places before me what looks like to be my bill. I take a closer look and yep sure enough it's my bill alright. Now back to the honesty bit. I honestly thought is was a bit steep for what little I had eaten and what the hell I didn't come in here for what two plates and some Tom Yum soup. But what do I know. I am merely a student on this trip. Then I notice on the bill a start time and a finish time. Thinking. Thinking.  OH MY GOODNESS. This place charges by the hour. Actually be the hour and fifteen minutes. Ten dollars for an hour and fifteen minutes. Now how does that song go...I'm in Heaven.  Oh wait. Oh shite.I have a fitting in thirty five minutes. Eat boy Eat. And eat I did. What an amazing place. What an amazing concept. What a belly I am going to have. I think perhaps I'll tell the tailor to make the suits a little on the loose side.

Damn I like this place.

Well here I am day 3 in Thailand and my first attempt to post something.  Why has it taken me this long to get around to writing something down?  Well that’s easy to answer; I have been busy. Between eating and napping there really isn’t a lot of free time. Lets take today for example I awoke at 5am and began to walk around the old city of Chiangmai. It was a cool 25C at that time of day and the hustle and bustle of the day had not yet begun. Truth be told this day’s activities first had to wait for yesterday’s revellers to finish.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I would find open at that time of day but I was awake and there being no coffee maker in my room, ya I know WTF is up with that, I simply had to fend for myself. The quiet of the lane my guesthouse is located on soon changed as I reached the main road that runs along the inside of the moat that surrounds the old city. The staccato sounds of a scooter broke into my muddled morning thoughts long before I saw it. I didn’t see it right away not because it was a great distance away. No the reason I couldn’t see the scooter in the pre-dawn darkness was that this particular scooter was loaded down with…well I don’t know what exactly. Whatever it was it completely surrounded the driver and the scooter including the head lamp and the tail light. At least I thought it covered the up the lights. As the morning progressed, and more Thais began their day, I came to realize that lights on your vehicle here seemed to be optional.

OK so back to my coffee and the transition of Chiangmai from night into day.

Once on the main road I walked along marvelling at the remnants of the fortress walls. Originally built in the thirteenth century, the wall is still in its original position but it is not the original wall. It appears that over the ages different kings had different ideas and the wall has twice been torn down and twice rebuilt. What we see today is a restorative effort and not the entire wall remains. But what does remain is impressive and that is what I was walking beside when I saw it. Yes “it”.

It was a collection of tables under a large roof but open to the outside. I noticed the lights were on and a number of people were seated so I made my way over there. As I arrived a person quickly came over and showed me to a table and gave me a menu. Perfect, I thought, a breakfast joint. Mistake number one.  I mention the mistake here just to let you know that I think that this will be a common theme throughout this trip.

Mistake number two; this wasn’t a breakfast place, this was a bar. A conclusion I quickly came to when I noticed that the table beside me was covered in beer bottles and the people sitting there were being served a bunch more. Big bottles of Chang beer. 

OK so it’s a bar. But bars have coffee and bars have food. Right? Damn right they do. Now this place wasn’t a mistake. The coffee was some kickin strong brew and the food, well the food was delicious. I’m not sure what I ordered, or ate, but it was good. Very good.

As I ate my breakfast and drank my coffee I watched as the joint began to close up and its patrons began to leave. Staggering and weaving the Thais made their way to their scooters and roared off into the day. And as I watched the transition from night into day in Chiangmai I thought to myself; Damn I like this place!

I give myself to the universe.

OK I probably shouldn't be doing this right now. Typing that is.  But I need a break. I'm still repacking, meaning I can not make up my mind how to finish. I feel like I have over-packed but really everything is so necessary. Except for maybe one or two things.So I remove them and put back them back where they belong IE: not in my pack. Problem with this is when I'm walking around putting this and that back where they belong I see that and this. So I pick that and this up and take these new items over to my backpack. Does anyone else see the problem here?
So after having attempted to place almost every item in my house into my pack. And after deciding that 99.378% of those items are really not needed. I have come to the conclusion that I will call it a night. No I haven't figured out what is eventually going to go into my pack. I will fit that decision into the 45 minutes I have in the morning. You know that time between awakening and the moment my ride to the airport arrives.
The adventure has begun. Where I go and how I get there has about as much forethought as the route a golf ball has while bouncing down a highway.