New York Times Article On Chiang Mai

[JimGant]

Interesting take on CM -- and snakes at the Mandarin Oriental

NY Times, 19 June 2005

(subscription required, but painless)

[bkkmadness]

Since you've already subscribed couldn't do a copy and paste job for everyone here could you?

[Donnyboy]

June 19, 2005

Chiang Mai, a Hippie Hideaway, Goes Upscale

By MATT GROSS

AFTER two rounds of sunset cocktails at a quiet bar outside Chiang Mai, my friends and I were eager to explore the placid rural vista we'd been gazing upon all evening: Below us was a rice paddy that led down to a sprawling pond, beyond which lay a stand of tall red-flowering trees through which we could see the twinkling lights of traditional northern Thai houses. But as we got up and made for the little wooden walkway that led across the water, a waitress deftly blocked us. It might be better if we came back tomorrow, she suggested. We asked why.

After conferring with a colleague, the waitress returned with a simple answer: "Snakes."

We decided it might be better to wait for daylight.

Had this been a bar deep in the mountains of northern Thailand, we might not have been so unnerved, but this was no jungle watering hole. We were at the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Devi, a $100 million resort just 15 minutes from the center of Chiang Mai, a city of 265,000 that is Thailand's second largest after Bangkok. At the Dhara Devi's front gate, we had boarded electric golf carts and been whisked through a 60-acre fantasy of a northern Thai, or Lanna, royal city - complete with a down-to-the-scrollwork re-creation of Myanmar's Mandalay Palace (it houses the spa) - to the Champagne Bar, where we were the only patrons on this low-season Tuesday. At a hotel where the cheapest of the 144 guest rooms and villas goes for $295 (a special opening rate through September), we had not expected snakes.

But perhaps we should have, for if the Dhara Devi is intended to be a microcosm of northern Thailand, then it should surely share the same virtues and faults - proximity to the natural world, dependence on urban artifice - of its model, the city and province of Chiang Mai. Founded in 1296 as the seat of the Lanna empire, which stretched into Thailand from southern China through Burma and Laos, Chiang Mai has for the last few decades been a hippie hideaway, a place where those who couldn't take the hustle-and-bustle of Bangkok or the sex-soaked southern beach scene came to chill out, study Buddhism in the local temples, or wats, and head into the surrounding wilderness in search of elephant camps, hill tribes and a more "authentic" Thai experience.

Ten years ago, however, the Four Seasons opened just north of Chiang Mai, offering five-star comfort in the realm of $5-a-night guesthouses. And in 2001, after Thaksin Shinawatra, a Chiang Mai native, became Thai prime minister, the region began to receive increased development funds and outside investment. Today, the old walled, wat-dotted, moat-bordered city of Chiang Mai is surrounded by a modern sprawl of shopping centers, highways, high-rise hotels and Starbucks, and the Four Seasons is no longer the only luxury game in town: there's the new Rachamankha, designed by the architect Rooj Changtrakul; the Chedi Chiang Mai, in the former British Consulate, set to open in July; and the D2, a boutique offering from the Dusit Thani chain.

But as tourists at both the high and low ends have poured into Chiang Mai, traffic has worsened, international chains like Häagen-Dazs have set up shop, and the once-quaint attractions have become institutionalized.

"Everyone, they all flock to Chiang Mai. You can't get a quiet moment here," said Adi Monribot, 22, a furniture and textiles exporter who grew up in Chiang Mai and was on a recent night sporting a New Jersey Nets jersey and a diamond stud in his left ear. "To me, it's all, like, commercialized. Back in the day, there was never no pollution up in Chiang Mai."

Yes, you can still find beautiful centuries-old wats on every block (the city boasts more than 300), but many have their share of postcard vendors and booths offering Thai massage, a traditional temple practice that nonetheless can come off as a bit tacky, like the back-rub practitioners taking up space on SoHo sidewalks in New York.

At perhaps the most famous of the wats, the mountaintop Doi Suthep, which overlooks the city, German tourists and Thai families alike pour out of tour buses, file past vendors of strawberries and brass bells, ride a $1.25 cable car to the peak, trek the fuzzy plastic carpet past the enormous golden chedi, or spired stupa, and visit the wat's museum, whose glass cases display nearly as many donated foreign bank notes (e.g., Central African Republic francs) as they do Buddha images. The view of Chiang Mai itself can be less than spectacular, with the most notable sights the airport - currently undergoing a $52.5 million expansion - and the ring road that encircles the city.

Yet Doi Suthep remains a functioning wat, a gorgeous Buddhist aerie where novice monks light candles each morning and whose chedi contains a relic of the Buddha, and where visitors like Chatchawan Somprasertsuk, a TV-commercial producer from Bangkok who's buying land outside Chiang Mai, will proclaim, "Every time I go there, I feel proud."

The jungle treks, too, have become standardized, with every old-city travel agency offering one-, two- or three-day excursions to elephant camps, where the elephants play soccer and make oil paintings, and to visit - or, depending on your point of view, gawk at - villages of "longnecks," the ethnic Karen tribespeople who stretch out their necks with brass rings. Along Highway 107, signs direct tourists to "hill tribe villages" where they can witness Yao, Akha and Hmong people living - artificially - side by side, 200 yards from the road, selling tribal (or tribal-style) jewelry and textiles that can be bought as easily, and almost as cheaply, at the Chiang Mai night bazaar, on Khao San Road in Bangkok and on Bleecker Street in Manhattan. And some tourists report seeing relatively little jungle on their jungle treks - ironically, the denuded hillsides are the result not just of development but also of the slash-and-burn agriculture practiced by the dwindling numbers of real hill tribes.

"You know, it's a small world now," says Charlie Rasameephoklarb, 59, the owner of the Top North group of hotels and guesthouses, and a three-decade resident of Chiang Mai. "We have computers, we have I.T. in the villages! What can we do? But we still have scenery, old people. I think in 30 years, no more hill tribes. We spoil the environment. But what can we do?"

Chiang Mai lovers, however, insist that there remain many authentically rural destinations - the plentiful waterfalls, villages and mountain camps in the surrounding countryside. "You don't have to go too far, surprisingly," says Niki Prachensky, a cheerful Austrian who roams the tea plantations of northern Thailand, Myanmar and southern China in his Toyota Hilux in search of rare oolong teas, which he sells to hotels like the Rachamankha and restaurants as far-flung as Kittichai in New York City. "Mae Sa Valley is only 30 minutes from downtown Chiang Mai - there are creeks, trekking, various farms, mountains. The sleepy town of Samoeng lies up there. Not so long ago you could get there only by 4x4."

And the city itself still holds charms for Mr. Prachensky, who has lived there eight years. "You drive around a corner, and - bingo! - there is a beautiful chedi, for no reason whatsoever," he says. "I had a house back in Bangkok - 100 years old, Ayutthaya style - but I would not go back. Chiang Mai is totally laid back, not like Bangkok."

To be fair, Chiang Mai has not been ruined. It has simply changed. On a November evening, you can watch university students float candles down the Ping River during the Loy Krathong Festival - then spot the same crowd later at the Bangkok-style club Warm Up. You can still get a perfect 65-cent bowl of khao soi, Chiang Mai's famous curried noodle soup, at the barebones Khao Soi Islam, but you can also get an equally rich version with osso buco at the Rachamankha's restaurant - eight times the price but still a relative bargain. And even if the backpackers who once made up the bulk of Chiang Mai's tourists now sometimes dismiss it as "just a big city," they are still coming in droves to study yoga, massage and Thai cooking.

Indeed, it may be the midrange tourists who see the worst of Chiang Mai. While the low-enders have their massage schools and morning Vinyasa study, and the Mandarin Orientalists their private plunge pools and fresh lobsters from Brittany, an average family might get stuck in a charmless hotel like the Sheraton and wind up slurping the disappointing noodles at Just Khao Soi, well known to tuk-tuk drivers as a tourist fave.

As Chiang Mai grows into its modern identity, intrepid tour operators and hoteliers are already looking for the next untouched mountain paradise. The Four Seasons has found it 125 miles to the north, in Chiang Rai, where early next year the Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle is expected to open on the border with Myanmar and Laos, a region more famous for opium- and arms-smuggling than for tourist resorts.

"Chiang Rai still has a certain charm and innocence that Chiang Mai doesn't have," says Jason Friedman, the camp's general manager. "It's a quiet, provincial capital. Very, very culturally intact."

For now.

VISITOR INFORMATION

GETTING THERE

Thai Airways International makes the 90-minute flight to Chiang Mai from Bangkok 10 times a day (about $110 round trip), but the overnight sleeper train, leaving twice a day from Hualamphong Station in Bangkok, (66-2) 223-3762, is a good alternative; second class $12.85 (with fan) and $19.60 (air-conditioning); first class $31.50.

WHERE TO STAY

The luxury resorts - the Four Seasons, (66-53) 298-181, www.fourseasons.com, (from $375), and the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Devi, www.mandarinoriental.com, (66-53) 888-888 (from $295 through September) - are destinations in themselves, the only drawback being that they lie outside the city proper. For comfort within the old city walls, try the Rachamankha, 6 Rachamankha Soi 9, (66-53) 904-111 (from $327), or its architect's previous endeavor, Tamarind Village, 50/1 Rachadamnoen Road, (66-53) 418-896, www.tamarindvillage.com (from $100). Budget travelers who don't want guest houses can try the Montri Hotel, 2-6 Rachadamnoen Road, (66-53) 211-069, www.norththaihotel.com/montri.html, where functional rooms start at $17.50.

WHERE TO EAT

First, you must eat as much khao soi - a Burmese-Indian-Chinese mélange of wheat noodles, curry broth and chicken chunks, topped with crisp-fried noodles - as humanly possible. The version at Just Khao Soi, 108/2 Charoenprathet Road, (66-53) 818-641, $2.50 to $3.75, won't change your life, but it comes with instructions and historical notes that will enable you to better enjoy the noodles at the Rachamankha ($4.40 a bowl) and at Khao Soi Islam, 24 Charoenprathet Road Soi 1, (66-53) 271-484 (65 cents).

But khao soi is just lunch fare. For dinner, try Mho-O-Cha, (66-53) 273 008 (at the night bazaar's Anusarn Market, off Changklan Road), a seafood restaurant with a bewildering array of mollusks and crustaceans lazing on ice, waiting to be stir-fried with curry paste; the venerable Riverside Restaurant, 9-11 Charoenrat Road, (66-53) 243-239, theriversidechiangmai.com, which has all the Thai favorites plus northern dishes like sour pork spareribs with garlic; or the House, 199 Moonmuang Road, (66-53) 419-011, an upscale bistro that feels transplanted from Los Angeles, where a meal for one, with wine, costs $25 to $30.

WHERE TO SHOP

The night bazaar is huge and worth a wander, although it can be difficult, if not impossible, to find one-of-a-kind souvenirs among the T-shirts, prefab ethnic textiles and lacquered chopstick sets. For more refined shopping, take a trek along the riverside Charoenrat Road - look out for La Luna Gallery, No. 190, (66-53) 306-678, lalunagallery.com, and Nussara, No. 66, (66-53) 302-072 - or down Nimmanhemin Road near Chiang Mai University, where Paothong's Private Collection, 4 Soi 1, (66-53) 217-715, has rare vintage textiles, from about $5 to $100 and up.

[JimGant]

Thanx, Donnyboy.

[sabaijai]

Chiang Mai was a hippie hideaway in the 1970s, hardly so anymore.

[PeaceBlondie]

Same with San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas - and San Miguel de Allende, both in Mexico. You can still see old hippies who have been there thirty years, and their kids who are insulted if you mistake them for foreigners. Neal Cassidy, buddy of Jack Keroac, died on the railroad tracks at San Miguel.

That population figure - how could anybody know how many people live in Chiang Mai? And with it being a tourist town, you should add in the hotel occupany during low season, at least. I'd say a million people. Even so, isn't Khon Kaen or somewhere else bigger than Chiang Mai?

And can Chiang Rai ever be what Chiang Mai once was?

[SBACM]

an average family might get stuck in a charmless hotel like the Sheraton and wind up slurping the disappointing noodles at Just Khao Soi, well known to tuk-tuk drivers as a tourist fave.

Edited June 21, 2005 by SBACM

[meadish_sweetball]

Chiang Mai was a hippie hideaway in the 1970s, hardly so anymore.

Darn, and I thought they still couldn't see me.

[jomama]

What I can't get is why they are building more enormous hotels. You've got the Chedi (almost complete), the Oriental Devi (complete) another large one under construction in lower Chang Klan (on the river almost to the highway underpass) and I noticed yestreday a huge foundation taking shape at the Night Bazaar (where at one time they had parking -- on the northwest corner of Loi Kroa and Chang Klan Road. As well in the little soi that runs behind Pontip Plaza (just to the south of Loi Kroa) there's another massive foundation underway.

I can't believe the hotel occupancy is that high to warrant so many new hotel rooms...

[bartender100]

Since you've already subscribed couldn't do a copy and paste job for everyone here could you?

This is a handy tool of quick superscriptions of journals

www.bugmenot.com

in this case it comes up u teste p teste

[Rinrada]

Chiang Mai was a hippie hideaway in the 1970s, hardly so anymore.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Believe that all the New hippies now crash out in Pai....like man..its cool and dont need too much bread

[joe beets]

So yr like sayin the scene in CM is passe'?

Whoa.

Total bummer, dude.

C U in Vang Vieng, man.

[Johpa]

Chiang Mai was a hippie hideaway in the 1970s, hardly so anymore.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It might have been a transit point, but Chiang Mai City was never really a "hippie hideaway." Sure younger folks liked to head for the hills for their obligatory trek and opium experience, you know, smoke pipe cleanings and then puke. But the city was not a welcoming spot for such behavior. The old Daret's, back when it was on the west side of the moat, had the signs all over the walls warning about the dangers of drug use. And this German guy worked with the police on the frequent morning raids of the guesthouses to bust and then shake down those caught with anything illegal. That is not to say that Chiang Mai wasn't a hideout. But it attracted a different crowd of long term ex-pats than say Goa and the other spots I would describe as a "hippie hideaway."

[jomama]

Chiang Mai was a hippie hideaway in the 1970s, hardly so anymore.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It might have been a transit point, but Chiang Mai City was never really a "hippie hideaway." Sure younger folks liked to head for the hills for their obligatory trek and opium experience, you know, smoke pipe cleanings and then puke. But the city was not a welcoming spot for such behavior. The old Daret's, back when it was on the west side of the moat, had the signs all over the walls warning about the dangers of drug use. And this German guy worked with the police on the frequent morning raids of the guesthouses to bust and then shake down those caught with anything illegal. That is not to say that Chiang Mai wasn't a hideout. But it attracted a different crowd of long term ex-pats than say Goa and the other spots I would describe as a "hippie hideaway."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jopha,

Jopha, I’ve always valued you input. For those out there, I well try to translate: he often goes under the full name of Jopha Duemlaokrung (which means half-shot of moonshine).

He’s been here a long time and most condescendong…

Sorry, Joppy If is spelled your “last name wrong”

Perhaps Jopha can tell us what Jopha means…

[Johpa]

Perhaps Jopha can tell us what Jopha means…

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It is the name many people call me up in the hills and it simply means "John's father." My wife is referred to, of course, as Johmo but strictly Thai speakers need not apply. And I am not what passes as an old timer. I am one of the younger members of that group in Chiang Mai often referred to here as the dinosaurs.

On SCT & AOL I use to go by Johpa Deumlaokeng not Deumlaokrung although I often come off half crocked. When in town many Thais might still refer to me as Achaan. There are a few on this board who know my given name and who understand that Johpa, nearing 20 years of providing unsolicited online opinion, is a rather cantankerous two-dimensional semi-fictional character. And there are those who only know my online character who prefer other, often more pejorative, appelations they wish to bestow upon me. I take each one as a badge of honor.

Johpa was originally created because it was almost impossible at the time to publicly make criticisms of Thailand and the government. Judging from the new thread in the Thai News forum about the government blocking dissident websites it would appear not much has changed over the past few decades in the Land of Smlies. So best to continue in this semi-anonymous vein. Why don't some of you IT people invite my old SCT nemesis Trin Tantsetthi to discuss the most recent developments?

[chanchao]

Read the article yesterday. Not good, not bad. The journo resisted the temptation to make a reference to human trafficking and prostitution / sex tourism, so right then and there this article is way above average in journalistic quality.

Of course, it could have been written 10 years ago, and in another 10 years another journo will write it again. (Because the main subject matter seems to be the author's pre/misconceptions about Chiang Mai / North Thailand. Would make a great entry in his personal diary. Not sure if it belongs in the NY Times.

'nuff said.

[jomama]

Why don't some of you IT people invite my old SCT nemesis Trin Tantsetthi to discuss the most recent developments?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the clarification on your "last" name -- and thanks for your input over the years. But who's the guy you mention above? -- I don't know the name.

[Limbo]

And can Chiang Rai ever be what Chiang Mai once was?

.... Mr. PeaceBlondy asked himself and us.

I don't think so. Chiangrai is even not going to be what it was itself.

Last year about four middle sized (80 to 100 rooms) new hotels opened. This year there will be two bigger hotels opening their doors additionally.

It sounds ridiculous to me, but twenty years ago it sounded ridiculous to me that coconut-island Koh Samui would become a tourist paradise.

If you wanted electricity at that time, you had to bring batteries. Nowadays you have to bring coconuts.

The whole area, Chiangrai to the north, Chiangsaen and Maesai is enormeously expanding. When you go to Big C you see farang as many as you never saw before. Mostly pensioners with a T-shirt, short pants, flipflops and a fourwheel truck outside. And a young lady following in their footsteps.

In the beginning I greeted or gave a friendly nod.

They looked at me with the expression 'hej, am I maybe wearing clothes of you?'

So now I look in another direction.

The "Baitong" was the first 'farang-place', opened by Canadian Ian about 18 years ago. Much later Australian Ken was running it.

About 12 local farang frequented it and a couple of regular visitors from Chiangmai. No, for the good and the bad, Chiangrai changed and is changing every year.

I don't go much into town any more. Next morning I have headaches.

I must honestly say that Thai people are much nicer than farang people here.

[Johpa]

And can Chiang Rai ever be what Chiang Mai once was?

It sounds ridiculous to me, but twenty years ago it sounded ridiculous to me that coconut-island Koh Samui would become a tourist paradise.

If you wanted electricity at that time, you had to bring batteries. Nowadays you have to bring coconuts.

IMHO, Chiang Rai was never more than a typical Thai provincial center, it was never the cultural center that Chiang Mai is. It never had the "old world" charm that Chiang Mai once had and never will.

BTW, twenty years ago Samui, or at least Chaweng did have a generator that went on in the evening from about 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM and also went live on Saturdays for the rare TV to show Thai boxing. I use to stay at Suneast where on Saturdays they would have crowds of about 50 Chao Samui watching a single small TV and betting like crazy on the outcomes of the fights. And between televised fights they would hold cockfights and bet on those too.

[The Mask]

What I can't get is why they are building more enormous hotels. You've got the Chedi (almost complete), the Oriental Devi (complete) another large one under construction in lower Chang Klan (on the river almost to the highway underpass) and I noticed yestreday a huge foundation taking shape at the Night Bazaar (where at one time they had parking -- on the northwest corner of Loi Kroa and Chang Klan Road. As well in the little soi that runs behind Pontip Plaza (just to the south of Loi Kroa) there's another massive foundation underway.

I can't believe the hotel occupancy is that high to warrant so many new hotel rooms...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well thais have an innate inability to think logically and build,build,build even though the infrastructure cant handle it. It wont be long before the whole of Chiang Mai is evacuated from what is probably the worst pollution in the world.

[PeaceBlondie]

It wont be long before the whole of Chiang Mai is evacuated from what is probably the worst pollution in the world.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Several dry months of the year, you can't see Doi Suthep clearly. Yes, Chiang Mai has a pollution problem. Does anybody even have any make-believe statistics that Chiang Mai's pollution is ever as bad as Bangkok's, let alone Mexico City or Houston?

But I'm moving to Hua Hin next month, anyway.

[sabaijai]

Chiang Mai was a hippie hideaway in the 1970s, hardly so anymore.

It might have been a transit point, but Chiang Mai City was never really a "hippie hideaway." Sure younger folks liked to head for the hills for their obligatory trek and opium experience, you know, smoke pipe cleanings and then puke. But the city was not a welcoming spot for such behavior. The old Daret's, back when it was on the west side of the moat, had the signs all over the walls warning about the dangers of drug use. And this German guy worked with the police on the frequent morning raids of the guesthouses to bust and then shake down those caught with anything illegal. That is not to say that Chiang Mai wasn't a hideout. But it attracted a different crowd of long term ex-pats than say Goa and the other spots I would describe as a "hippie hideaway."

When I lived here in the 70s, there were plenty of hippies living here .... they just didn't go to Daret's. They lived mostly in the old city or in Santitham.

Oddly enough a few old hippies are trickling in nowadays from Kathmandu, where the scene is falling apart. Rents are still cheap enough in CM to keep the lifestyle going.

Of course such discussion begs the question, 'what's a hippie?' best reserved for another thread ...

[meadish_sweetball]

If they've been hippies long enough, you can spot them by their 'hippie hippie shakes' (withdrawal symptoms or bhang lassies, take your pick).