An accommodation fiasco and shopping in the rain!

Hiya Internet! Well it has certainly been an event filled few days, that’s for sure. In fact, I would have preferred a little less excitement in some departments, which I shall soon explain. Not to worry though, I am still here and enjoying myself.

Saturday was a leisurely day where I rested and recovered from the trip into Chiang Mai. I also made ample use of a number of very useful guide books and coffee table books that were in my guest house room. With that and my prior preparation, I was confident about my plans for my remaining time in Chiang Mai, weather dependent. Everything was going along swimmingly, I was relaxing, and then I checked my email that evening and received a very nasty shock. My next accommodation had emailed me in the early hours of the morning to say that they had been electronically double-booked and they could not house me on the 4^th of August. But this reservation had been made a week before, which they had confirmed at the time! I was both shocked and panicking as I had officially nowhere to go because I was due to check out of the current guest house in about 14 hours from when I read the email!

I frantically emailed the guest house to say that they needed to accommodate me as I had booked because I had nowhere else to go and I had not seen their email earlier – really 36 hours’ notice is not much better than 14 hours’ notice. They said they could not and I would need to find something else. Seriously, what the hell? I was shocked and appalled. I quickly raced to my current guest house reception and asked did they have any rooms available? Now, I was willing to take anything they had as I was in no shape to be scrambling online looking for something else for the next day. My current guest house also has more budget rooms with shared bathrooms and toilets, not something I am keen on at all, but when you are desperate, you will take anything! Luckily, they had my current lovely self-contained flatlet still available.  I double-checked with the next place to make sure there was no way they could accommodate me the next day, which they could not, so I booked another night at my current guest house. After all the stress, I was exhausted, I was also out of pocket as this guest house is more expensive and my plans were thrown off as I was expecting to be in the Old City of Chiang Mai by Sunday. But there was still a huge sense of relief as I was not effectively “homeless” for a night.

I was actually recounting the entire sorry tale to family back home in South Africa, after numerous back-and-forth emails with the guest house and Booking.com, as I had made the reservation through them, when I received a phone call. It was an unknown number and I suspected it was the guest house to apologise or to tell me on the phone of some fresh misery, but it was Booking calling to check on me and make sure that I was okay for the night that had been messed up. They had clearly seen the fiasco on their system and were worried that their client could be without accommodation for a night. I explained the situation, confirmed I had sorted it out and that it had greatly upset me, cost me money and upended my plans. They apologised profusely and said they were available if there were any further issues or if I needed more assistance. All of which I appreciated. The whole saga, on the other hand, is not something I appreciated in the first place.

Now before anyone asks why I didn’t just cancel the entire thing and start again with a new place…well the problem with that is it still involves major scrambling to find new accommodation for four nights in the Old City, exactly where I want it, plus at a decent price. After everything I had already been through, I could not face fighting to cancel the existing booking and finding a new place that fit all my criteria. But rest assured, I am going to demand a discount that will cover the extra money I spent on the 4^th August plus late check out, at a minimum.

Since that sorry saga, it has been a busy and fun time. This morning the rain was bucketing down and so I ordered a Grab taxi and headed to Central Festival shopping mall. It is the largest shopping mall in Chiang Mai and is only five years old. But why did I come all the way to Thailand to go to a shopping mall, you may ask. The answer is rather simple, prescription glasses. I have a lovely pair and my script is very stable, but the cost of that basic pair of glasses was astronomical two years ago. Plus, with this trip, I have been very worried about damaging this extremely expensive item. I had done a lot of research and although I have weak eyes and thick lenses, I don’t need fancy lenses so it seemed the price would be very good here in Thailand. I wanted to go to one of the big chains as I suspected based on comments in forums, they would give me the least trouble about copying my glasses as is and not doing a new test (I had one in March this year and it is the same) and would be the cheapest. I had read good things about Owndays, a Japanese chain, so that is where I went. Their pricing is between 1 990 and 4 990 Baht for the frame and lenses! I was happy to pay the highest price as frankly that is less than a single lens costs me in South Africa! Ultimately, I ended up paying the lowest price as that frame was the only frame that sort of fits my face (yes, I know, it does not quite fit my larger Western nose). And I don’t care that it is not perfect, having paid less than a R1 000 to get a spare pair of glasses, that is absolutely fine and it was ready 20 minutes after I had paid and signed the paperwork. Also having worn them for a few hours after I received them, I can confirm, the script is spot on!

I trawled the entire mall, having a look at everything and it was all right, but not mid blowing. What I did do was check out some toiletries as I was running low on a number of things now, and despite the stereotypes, not everything is cheaper in Thailand. In addition to the general exorbitant prices of sunscreen, deodorant is crazy! They have so little of it, seriously, you will find an entire aisle dedicated to deodorant in South Africa, while in Thailand, a big selection will fill the short end of an aisle if you are lucky, or there will be a single shelf. It is also double the price of South Africa. On the other hand, examples like sheet masks are cheap and international make-up tends to be cheaper than it would be in South Africa. Go figure.

Anyway, by the time I left, it was still pouring with rain. I headed back to my room to stow my purchases, did a bit of research and then headed out to the Sunday Walking Market. Yes, I hit the Night Bazaar already, but this is the bigger market and includes a lot more crafts from Chiang Mai province (like the handicrafts from the different hill tribes) and not just mass-produced souvenirs.

Did I mention, it was still raining? So, there I was amidst thousands of other shoppers and countless stalls (the market just sprawls and spreads out in many different directions) while the rain pelted down on all of us tourists. The stalls themselves have makeshift plastic awnings to cover the goods and the proprietor.  I went after 7PM and it was just thronging and you almost had to push and shove to make your way along the road. Also, people were protected from the rain to varying degrees. Now, I have a light rain jacket as I knew what I was getting into coming to Thailand in the rainy season. Many of the Asian tourists had umbrellas, but these are likely their regular sun umbrellas (they tend to carry umbrellas during the heat of the day), while some of the Western tourists had the garbage bag style rain coats, which are even available to purchase at the market on the night! While the rest of the Westerners were at the mercy of the elements. Luckily the crowd thinned as the night wore on. I really wanted to check it all out as I will be in Bangkok by the time next weeks’ market opens, so I had to take advantage now. The market is meant to go until at least 10PM, but I left close to 9:30PM as I was completely done at that point and many of the stallholders had already closed up, there were definitely few vendors at that time.

The big questions though, was it worth it, was it good, was it better than the Night Bazaar? The answer to everything is “Yes!”. Despite some of the things written online, it is still full of a lot of the same tourist bait as everywhere else like Bangkok and Phuket. But at the same time the prices are equal if not better than you can get anywhere else for the same stuff. On the other hand, the local Chiang Mai items were a lot more interesting and there was a lot of traditional style clothing and jewellery from some of the hill tribes. I don’t have photos of the items as most stallholders have signs prohibiting photography. As for buying, I ended up picking up a few items of tourist knick-knacks that I had been eyeing but at a better a price. The local clothing, though delightful did not come sized and there is no way I could fit in Asian clothing, while the jewellery was not to my taste, but it was still amazing to see it all. Now I just have to stop buying things until I reach Bangkok when I will finally have more luggage weight! Let’s see what the red hat gets up to tomorrow, or will it be in hiding again because of the rain…