Saturday, December 30, 2006 After I wrote my last journal entry, I walked down a street in Chiang Mai towards the major temple in the City: Wat Phra Singh. There are other towns with Wats similar in the name as this. I know there is one in Chiang Rai called the same name. This took me around 10 minutes to walk over there. It wasn’t a long stroll because within the inner city, streets are fairly close together. It is when you begin to wander around outside the walls of the old city that things become a little spread out like everything in Thailand. Thus the reason everyone, and I mean everyone, uses motorbikes to get around. So I decided to leave the old city after viewing the temple. I walked outside the large gate to the West and started towards the west. I thought I could try to see where the sister missionaries, such as Rachel Robbins, had stayed when they were in Chiang Mai. I had a general idea of where I was going towards their house. I stopped by a guys on the street cooking meat that looked okay. It was essentially like KFC chicken style. I also ran into a 7-11 and bought some crazy yogurt and water. I really was depressed that this was all I was eating while in Thailand. I walked past what appeared to be a giant hospital complex in Chaing Mai. It might have been associated with the Chaing Mai University because the university was about 5 km (??) down the road. I spotted some houses that looked like a place where people would live but I didn’t venture down the alley. I was walking towards the Chiang Mai University Arts Building. That eventually took around 30 minutes to walk to. I got there and the museum looked dead. I managed to find the security desk and ask if it was open. It was closed! No art for looking at today! I began walking up the street next to the museum. I decided I would attempt to get to the National Museum in Chiang Mai. I walked past many shopping areas. I even patronized a sweet shop called, “Eat Me!” Clearly it was a call to all people American to come in and eat fattening goods. I only bought a small package of cookies because those already cost B50 = $1.50 or so. I ate one and moved on. Those cookies ultimately became something of dinner for me. I got to a giant intersection and like everywhere in Thailand, it didn’t seem to be well marked (or maybe I have a bad map—probably the latter). But after looking and looking, I felt absolutely stumped as to where to go. I had my assumptions but the fact was it was about 2:00 and to walk up there would take another 30 minutes probably and then where would I be at? No where. So I opted to try to go to the bus station and catch a bus up to an apparently spectacular wat up on the hill of Chiang Mai. The views are apparently very good in the last afternoon. The bus station took me a while to find because – surprise! – bad map! As I walked up to the bus station, a man with a motorbike said, “Where you want to go?” And I say, “Wat….” He say, “Wat… Wat…” He talks to his lady friend. “Oh! Wat Doi Suthep! 200 baht!” I’m thinking to myself, yikes, does it cost that much to get up there? So I try to bargain with him to see if he’ll go lower. He doesn’t budge. I walked over to the main bus information to ask about it. I waited for like 5 minutes before I actually went and got somebody at the window. I could see the girl sitting right there the whole time! She said that the only way was by the little red buses called _______ or motorbike. So I went back to the man and agreed to give him 200 baht. I was a little skeptic I admit about taking another motorbike because the first one I had, the man tried to gyp me. The drive was spectacular. The first 10 minutes we had to weave in and out of traffic to get to the incline. When we got there, tons of people were there going up. It was obvious that this was no small temple. There were literally hordes of people going up there whichever way they could. The total distance was about 18 km. I paid the man and walked off. The area was full of little shopping huts, all full of the same types of products: jewelry and blankets of all sorts. It feels like everywhere in Thailand all has the same type of souvenirs. If you miss an opportunity to buy something, you can surely buy it somewhere on your journey. Nothing really seems one-of-a-kind here. The stairs up to the temple are the most significant feature of the temple. There are about 300 steps just up to the temple itself. There are many more leading up to those steps. After you get up to the actual temple, you’ve probably walked a good 400 steps or so. There were some old people do it but they did have a trolley system you could take if you didn’t want to walk up the steps or simply couldn’t because you were too old or too lazy. The view from the temple grounds were good. The view was hindered by some fog that had moved in over the city. I could see the intersection where I had sat looking around the unmarked roads. I walked around and took film and pictures of the area before finally descending the daunting hill of steps. I took on the red buses down the hill for only B40. I started walking towards the center of town (which was really really far away) because I wanted to see if I could flag down a tuk tuk or something on a main drag. I now figure I should have just tried to flag one coming down the hill from the temple. I walked past the Chiang Mai Zoo and thought, “Hey! Maybe there’s a panda in here somewhere!” I also thought I could give somebody a cool talking to about the zoo in Chiang Mai—you know, the prestigious zoo of Chaing Mai! It was about 5:30 by the time I started walking through the zoo. I could tell the sun was going down but I didn’t think about it at first. There were tons of cars leaving the zoo when I began walking in. I wondered if the zoo closed at 6:00. I was almost sure it must because there were so many cars. I found a map and took a picture of it so I could orient myself. I was so glad I did. I walked up to where the animals looked like they would be. I wanted to find some animal so I could spot it on the map and find out where to find the pandas! I’m not sure if there are pandas at the Hogle Zoo on the University of Utah campus but rest assured, I wanted to see pandas. I found some animals and watched them. There were some lions roaming their cages. It got to be about 6:00 and the sun really wasn’t there anymore. That’s when I started getting really uncomfortable. There were still people wandering around the park which I thought was funny. No one was telling me to get out or anything. It’s probably because no one was around to do so. I eventually used the beautiful screen on my digital camera to find the panda display. And guess what! There were no panda’s there! The workers were inside the glass panel where they were probably cleaning up after the panda’s! I was so bummed. I drastically put myself into high gear. I couldn’t really get that far because I hadn’t really eaten much after that meager lunch. I can’t remember how long I was actually wondering for trying to figure out the map on the camera but I finally came upon a line of cars filing out of the park. Hooray! I followed them outside and got to the road down from the temple. I crossed the street in hopes of catching a red bus into the center town. I didn’t see any and it was a major gridlock with no one moving towards the center. Luckily for me, a red bus jutted out into the long line of cars where I jumped inside to see two other people I seen jump inside it when I was just up the street. The woman spoke English and she talked with me for a while about “stuff.” She and what appeared to be her boyfriend were going to the center of town inside the wall. Well, how convenient! That’s where I was going. The bus dropped me off at the opposite end of the street where I really wanted to be. I had to weave my way through a night market to get to my place, about 5 streets away. People tried to get me to get a massage and others to buy their products. I figured I would come out later and film the process for my documentary and film diary of Thailand. I got up to my room and sacked. I don’t know how it happened but I sat on my bed and I didn’t wake up until 12:30 am. At night! I had probably missed the night market and I hadn’t eaten dinner! I was dumbfounded. Not only this but I hadn’t taken out my contacts or brushed my teeth (of no surprise considering I just sort of fell asleep). So I did that and got into bed.