Liz on Pai

A popular saying on T-shirts in Thailand is
(Front) Same, Same
(Back) But Different

360 steps to Doi Suthep. A cable car is an option for the infirm.

White Elephant is a gift of great value that returns nothing and requires constant maintenance.

 Buddha who greets Doi Suthep visitors

Doi Suthep



Monks visiting Doi Suthep. Many carry cameras.

The Gong

For Hitting the Gong

Real poppies where opium comes from.

A field of Amaryllis adorning the gardens surrounding the Temple

View near Doi Suthep

The saying "same, same but different" is well applied to temples, television and even the Post Office. Mike and I finally took the half day tour to the most famous temple in Chiang Mai.  Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, the city's most famous temple, stands on Doi Suthep, a hill to the north-west of the city. This temple dates from 1383. This temple is a destination for devout Buddhists from around the world. This temple is one reason the Thais themselves vacation in Chiang Mai. The population of Metropolitan Chiang Mai is 1 million while 5 million visitors pass through annually.  Every Saturday night is market night. Then the Sunday market runs all day. Tourists urgently try to shop to take goodies back home. Chiang Mai has a large central post office while a small satellite office serves the tourist district.

Thai girl performing native dance in Market.

Blind musicians make good music in the market.

Hilltribe Market has many handmade clothes for sale.  
The Thai are not pushy. Most seem indifferent to shoppers. Burnt out from too much "just looking"?

More Hill Tribe Market

The overflowing Chiang Mai satellite post office in the tourist district. Tourists eagerly ship Thai goods home.

More package overflow.
A dwarf lady with a crooked leg and turned under foot weighs the packages using a scale that sits on the floor..

Thai TV programming seems the same as in the USA with predictable shows like music TV, cartoons, Thailand‘s got Talent, movies, soaps and Thai PBS. Dubbed in Thai or with Thai subtitles. One night we turned on the TV and see a movie sex scene with George Clooney and a topless woman. We did not get the name of that movie. Later George Clooney is the voice in an animated movie of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Featured sports in Thailand are golf, tennis, and snooker. British soccer teams like Manchester United have team billboards. America’s NBA is a covered sports item. Besides Thai stations, the Germans and French each have their own language station with news and movies. English networks include the BBC, Aljeezera, the Asian News Network out of Singapore that I’ve mentioned before and Fox News. Fox even has an English-speaking children’s network.

Rajamangala National Stadium is in Bangkok. The Chiang Mai Movie Cinema is also selling tickets.
Is Lady Gaga touring in the US too? 

Concert Tickets start at $50 and go to $235

The 3 hour van trip to Pai means we arrive during the hottest part of the day so we cool off with TV. The Wi-fi signal in our upscale room is so weak that I have to sit in the registration area of the hotel in the open air. No air conditioning is wasted on clerks who register guests at “The Heart of Pai“.

Because I booked on line we paid $23 instead of $12 to stay here.
Booking on-line is only worth it when rooms are in short supply.

The Lobby for The Heart of Pai Resort is open air.

Our room in The Heart of Pai is new and modern.  

Ting Tong Resort is across from our place and plays country music for their Festival.  

Because it is too hot to go outside we discover the Russian TV network. It is 5 years old. They brag that they are here to keep journalism honest. http://rt.com/news/Shows are broadcast in English. I watch an amazing show called The Soviet Files three times. It is about the health and causes of death of Russian leaders beginning with Leonid Brezhnev. They critically describe Communist leaders as far back as Lenin and as recent as Mikhail Gorbachev.
Their news harps on injustices caused or supported by the USA. Tonight Palestinian protesters remember Israeli‘s land grab. Threats to the European Union are not such bad news on the Russian network RT.  Bad news is a fall in the value of the Ruble.

RT reports how technology in dishwashers and washing machines may be used to spy on people. A 2 billion dollar data center is under construction in Utah so that every single message in the US can be de-encrypted. They report that CIA director complains about a dystopian freefall due to the internet of things. Is Russian reporting about lack of privacy in America an amazing reversal or have Russians been saying this all along? RT watches the stock market especially the BRIC (Brazil Russia, India and China). Global IPOs (initial Public offerings of Stock) have fallen. China tops the list while Russia has not had an IPO is several years.

Will the Russian network (RT) want others to learn of our Facebook? The launch of Facebook, the biggest IPO in history is set for June, 2012. Valuation is a projected $102 billion and launch will create at least 1000 millionaires. Will RT mention it? Seems like the Russians would like to harp on all the tax advantages this IPO is getting at the expense of the American people. Will RT report that today in the US that 1 in 4 workers works in the financial industry up from 1 in 10. Will the Facebook IPO be tax exempt? The US hardly has enough stockbrokers and bankers to manager the IPO. But Russians use their own social network, In Contact.

The real question we have about the RT network is, “Who is their target audience?” We met one tall young man with a British accent who weakly said he was from Texas. He was the only American we came across in Pai. Since RT is in English do fluent English-speaking Thai people watch these programs? RT is broadcast on every continent.

Buffalo Steak Dinner at The Funky Dog

Are you aware of medical tourism? It is an industry in Thailand. We met an American, Julia at The Funky Dog Restaurant when we first arrived. Julia was doing a psychic reading for a traveler in the restaurant. She came here from the US for dental implants 4 years ago and never left because the cost of living is so low. She had a bad husband and their restaurant folded so she moved to Thailand. Our friend Diane in West Bloomfield was advised that she needed $6000 in dental work so she went to a dentist in Tel Aviv. She paid $500 to secure her appointment with him. The Israeli professor of dentistry said that there was no medical necessity for the $6000 in work her US dentist was prescribing and he refunded her $500 deposit.

Dental Implant Clinic

So I decide to look into medicine here. The first and biggest issue confronting me is that I do not understand Thai recorded messages when I call a doctor’s office. I cannot call and ask, “Do you have a bone density scanner? If so how much do you charge?” So on March 29 we took a morning walk of around Chiang Mai‘s northern perimeter of the old city. Along the way I went into the Ram Hospital to ask if they have a bone density scanner. While Mike enjoyed the air conditioned waiting area with a book, I asked how much a bone density test costs here. $75 for use of machine and $15 for use of hospital vs. $140 at Troy Beaumont Hospital in Michigan. Boniva, the once a month bone building medication that costs me $80 per month costs $4 less in Thailand. The receptionist would have run a bone density scan on me on the spot. I will wait for my US doctor to order it when we return. If Mike needs another dental implant we will have a great excuse to visit Thailand again.

Chiang Mai appears to have a nice psychiatric facility. I suspect that it is inexpensive relative to facilities in other countries. The Thai people are reputedly accepting of individual differences. Mike said that a soldier in his US Army unit was socially and emotionally defective. In response the army's Thai housekeepers treated him with exceptional kindness due to his limitations.  Thais do not understand sarcasm in our humor. We were cautioned to joke carefully since they take things literally. I identify since I am all too literal myself.

We had our first ever Burmese (Myanmar) meal. I ordered the fish since I love Thai grilled fish. Apparently Burmese prepare fish almost raw and very spicy with rice. Mike thought his chicken curry was very good and very spicy. Pepsi is still bottled in old style glass bottles here. Thailand is holding its breath over the victory of Aung San Suu Kyi. They are watching their border closely. We do not visit Myanmar since we don’t want to risk kidnapping.

Our Burmese Lunch

The trip to Pai costs 160 baht or $5.25 each. Mike has us up by 6:30 am. I go to the Somphet Market and order a bowl of fruit with muesli and yoghurt and a mango smoothie for Mike to bulk out the small pancake breakfast our hostel La Mer serves. We change from a taxi truck to a van with 7 passengers for the 3 hour ride to Pai. We cross the Ping River and fuel up at Shell. There I realize that in Thailand people are paid to pump gas. 4 employees with a Shell logo on a denim jacket are ready to pump gas. One man sits in an office among the pumps to take their proceeds.

Let's see, a baht is about 3 cents. A liter is about a quart.
Makes 85 octane about 4 bucks a gallon. 91 octane about 5 per gallon.
Or somewhere in that neighborhood.

One young woman works with men in the Shell Station. Women work on construction sites too. The only exclusive roles for a man are Buddhist Monk or King. A queen cannot rule. Monks appear in the mornings in saffron robes The prime minister is a woman.

Bucket Brigade Pouring Cement in Pai.

Along the way out of Chiang Mai we pass a golf course, a gated community and The Richy Rich Shopping Center. Hazy skies escort us. We have not seen a true blue sky since we can remember. Mike is surprised when we stop at a stop light. Stop lights are infrequent. Initially the road reminds him of going up North for Father’s Day. After we pass the village areas we hit over 670 switchbacks. The van climbs up past banana trees, bamboo, tall hardwood trees, general jungle, some burned patches and power lines.

Rest area Menu on the way to Pai

Speaking of power Mike read that China invested in hydroelectric plants in Myanmar. Thailand now imports power from Myanmar and is held hostage for water coming down from Myanmar due to worsening drought.

On the flip side a contributing factor to floods in Bangkok last year was a rush of rain water flowing down with too little jungle to absorb the water flow due to excessive burning and urban sprawl.

The Thai woman next to me on the bus is a travel agent and realtor who is now starting up a frozen tuna distribution. She has 2 cell phones going. She is buying the tuna in Bangkok and customizing a truck with refrigeration in Chiang Mai. She tells me that foreigners are buying real estate and retiring to Chiang Mai but that the seasons to visit are in July or October, not now. I tell her about the Thai Chevy ads showing a man and woman, each driving a Chevy Cruze with ambiguous feelings of love created by the car. She says that Chevy has not hit the mark in Thailand. However Isuzu is considered much more durable and better than Toyota. I hope Isuzu still has a GM joint venture.   

Isuzu is GM's real presence in Thailand. It is considered better than Toyota. Chevy has not hit the mark here.

Thailand has a $175 billion trade surplus. Manufacturing in Thailand is huge while tourism is a mere 7% of their economy. Thailand’s Treasury Secretary sees the need for Thais to spend more to ease their trade surplus so that foreign investment doesn’t overwhelm their economy.

Imagine signs in Pai announcing that motorcycle helmets are required along with seat belts. Hardly any Thais wear helmets. Perhaps the driver of a motorbike wears a helmet but other passengers usually do not.

This sign is in Pai. It is for tourists who rent motor bikes.  Locals do not typically wear helmets.  

Water buffalo near the waterfall

Mike rents a motorbike for $6 including damage and theft insurance. We ride to a steep lookout point one day and the next we ride to a water fall. Along the way women make “smoking” gestures to us to signal drugs including marijuana, cocaine and opium. Then Thai police stop us to search for drugs. We tell the young people we meet, "Whatever you do in Thailand do not buy drugs on the way back from the waterfall in Pai."

One way to say the rocks may be slippery.

Thai Soldiers in Pai

The Mosque in Pai. DuBai has discovered Pai. Women in black burquas sell in the Pai Market.  

Sign for Police Training in Pai

Speaking of smoking cigarettes cost $1.60 per pack. Good tobacco too, Mike says. He is up to half a pack per day. No surgeon general's warning in fine print but graphic photos are to deter smoking.

Thai Cigarette Pack showing Tumor caused by Smoking

Mike's brand of Thai Cigarettes. $1.60 per pack.

Cigarette Pack with photo of man holding a cranky baby while he enjoys a cigarette.
Is this an effective way to tell a man to stop smoking? .

We chat with an Indian backpacker in the transport station. I ask him about budget travel issues in India for our upcoming trip. He tells me that Indians are not budget travelers. He is alone as an Indian backpacker. Indians are rarely found in hostels. Ohh, that explains a lot. We are booked into a hotel in Bangalore through booking site, Cleartrip. The Bangalore hotel costs as much as our hotel in Singapore or $68 per night. We booked The Emlion because it was the least expensive of the 6 hotels choices provided with proximity to The Ashram in Bangalore and Bangalore International Airport. Lonely Planet says that hotel rooms in Bangalore are in short supply due to their thriving IT industry.


My mother is on a 19 day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale thru the Carribean to Spain. Advertised base price is $999 including return airfare to US. She bought the trip when I copied her on a note promoting “Legendary Journeys”. She is thrilled that with her air fare from North Carolina and gratuities for crew her total cost is $1770. Her friend Pat Bush is traveling with her. She returns on April 4.

The Only Motorhome we've seen in Chiang Mai.
We are watching the Michigan market to buy a truck and 5th wheel when we return on May 4.