More Air Travel & Chiang Mai (and here are the smiles and the rain)

Hi Internet! I left Phuket yesterday and I arrived in Chiang Mai. It is as fabulous as people say it is, at the same time, leaving Phuket was more painful than it needed to be.

With all the card drama and booking my domestic flight to Chiang Mai via everyone in SA (thanks again, I love you guys loads), I could not deal hunt and we had only one airline choice and they charge for bags separately and a lot. Paying for the bag is meant to get you extra perks, but all I can see it got me is something about travel insurance (hah!) and a meal I didn’t want in the first place. It also is meant to offer seat selection, well that did not come up on the screen when we finalised the booking. When I went to do online check-in, moving my seat would have cost money, lots more money! Honestly, I have flown loads of airlines, including low-cost guys and no one has not given a passenger a seat choice at check-in, unbelievable Air Asia!

Because it was a morning flight, I didn’t want to be stuck on the road and late for my flight and I was warned the minibus taxis could take between 2 and 2 and a half hours to get to the airport. And they run on the hour, not the half hour. I took an earlier taxi to be safe. Also, having booked this minibus through my hotel, all was good and none of the nonsense related to my arrival in Phuket. What I didn’t anticipate is that I missed rush hour altogether, it was so early, even after picking up all the other passengers and the full trip to the airport. I was there three and a half hours before my flight! The driver was early and so it took no more than an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the airport, including picking up all the other passengers, not over two hours!

I ended up reading a book on my phone and waiting for a reasonable time to drop my bag for my flight and pick up my boarding pass. I am “greeted” at the Air Asia desk by one of the most stony-faced airport staff I have ever seen, she was South African or Dubai level airport staff unfriendly. She then promptly told me that my flight was delayed and would leave an hour later as the plane was late!

Needless to say, I was tired by the time we boarded and I was seated in the middle of a school trip group. Luckily, they must have been high school students and not raucous, so it wasn’t too bad. But come on Air Asia, there is no way under any circumstances that I choose an aisle seat on a full row unless I have no choice.

Fortunately, when I landed, the taxi situation was exactly as described on the internet, I received a written-out receipt from a taxi company at arrivals and also got a happy smile from the lady at the counter. I went to Exit 2 as instructed, my receipt was handed to a man with a clipboard and a female driver was called to take me. Now, she was the tiniest and cutest little woman you have ever seen, she had a driver’s licence obviously but had braces, so she must be quite young still. She wanted to take my checked suitcase, but I could not allow it. The bag was as big as she was! I told her if she insisted, she could take my cabin bag and I would take the suitcase. The little bag for the tiny woman and the big suitcase for the big woman (or at least regular-sized woman for any other place). She then took me in an airconditioned taxi to my guest house, with nobody else and no delays. It is not very far, but this only cost 150 Baht!

Next I take a look at my room and it is a lovely, self-contained flatlet on the property of the owner and not in the guesthouse itself. I was also warmly greeted by the owner when I bumped into her. That is the other thing, since the moment I landed, people have been so much friendlier in Chiang Mai with a ready smile and a greeting or even a compliment, for no other reason than you are there and maybe smiled first.

In addition to the newly discovered friendliness (Chiang Mai, I dub thee the City of Smiles), the rain has definitely also been found. In the less than day and a half I have been here, it has rained three times, twice yesterday and once today, thus far. It is fine, it is not cold, it is just I need to be a little better prepared with my clothing, hat and bags for the rain. Also, the roads get full of puddles and one accidently steps into them and gets a leg splashed with dirty water, yay! I am only joking; it is not even close to being an issue.

In between the arrival, the necessary food and all the rain. I also checked out the Night Bazaar (this was my first big night market) and the Chiang Mai Historical Centre. The Night Bazaar was sensory overload, there are hundreds of stalls everywhere selling all sorts of things, mostly tourist stuff, souvenirs, clothing, loads of things, for a little less than in Phuket, by and large. The stalls on the street have metal frameworks and little awnings to protect the vendor, the customers and the goods from the rain. When the market spills into an alley, it carries on there and some of the stalls bleed into a proper, more formalised area that is fully covered with hundreds more stalls, food vendors, buskers, everything all running perpendicular to the main night market. There are at least two of these additional markets on both sides of the street, there could be more but I was way too exhausted and overwhelmed to explore every nook and cranny. The Night Bazaar was an experience! I picked up a couple items, but I am still wary of luggage weight and space and beyond that, it was just a little bit too overwhelming and I simply could not decide on much. I will probably hit the markets more seriously in Bangkok when I have more luggage weight to play with.

Today it was eat, think about an errand, which turned out to be a bust and then finally make it into the old city – I am staying most of this weekend just outside the old city and moving into it on Sunday. As I was following Google Maps semi-successfully, it started to rain and it started to rain hard. I rushed for cover and picked up a Skype call from South Africa as I found myself in the Chiang Mai Historical Centre grounds. This was a great coincidence as the Lana Folk Museum is on my list of things to do and it is in the Chiang Mai Historical Centre. But it turns out the Centre (and they spell it correctly!) is a three-museum complex. Entry to any of the museums is 90 Baht but they have a special of 180 Baht for all three. However, the staff member who told me this indicated you need about 2 hours to do it all justice. I didn’t have that much time. So, I decided to do only one. Worse still the Lana Folk Museum was on the other side of the complex, ie. through the rain I was trying to avoid. In the end I did the Chiang Mai Historical Museum which had some interesting facts and kept me dry (okay it is no Imperial War Rooms London, but it was fine for a rainy afternoon). So, the red hat will be back for the Lana Folk Museum and later on will properly get to the see the old city (the Chiang Mai Historical Centre is in the Old City but Google Maps didn’t tell me that)! That’s bye for now, the hat has many more things to do in Chiang Mai…