Bo Sang (or craft central, money bye-bye), Wat Chang Kam & The Three Kings Monument

Hi there Internet! It was a very busy day yesterday and the evening was packed and fun too, but more on that in a post later. I started the day with a Bo Sang half-day tour and had some extra time with the driver so visited Wat Chang Kam near Wiang Kum Kam. I also checked out the Three Kings monument in the Old City after a late lunch. Plus, I went out to 6ixcret in the evening as well, but that is for another post.

The tour started at the Umbrella Making Centre in Bo Sang, basically my whole reason for booking the tour. Bo Sang is known for handicrafts in general but most famous for the umbrellas. They make all kinds of bamboo umbrellas with cotton, imitation silk and paper. When I read up on it and discovered the paper is made by hand from Mulberry Tree bark (the paper is known as Sa paper because the Mulberry Tree is known as the Sa Tree in Thai) I lost my mind and was so fascinated, I knew I had to come and the experience did not disappoint.

My driver Otto from Chiang Mai Driving tours guided me through the factory. First, he showed me the mulberry bark strips which are softened in vats of boiling water and then the pulp is pounded on tree stumps with mallets (see photo taken by Otto). The fine pulp is then boiled again and the process repeated until a very fine pulp is stretched and spread over wooden frames to dry (the second boiling is when the dye is added). The resultant paper is then used for umbrellas, fans, paper lanterns, notebooks, the list goes on. We then went to the next stations where bamboo was being cut and whittled for handles, the ribs of the umbrellas and for the ribs of fans, many different people were creating each unique piece. We then went on to the assembly section where cotton and paper were applied to the framework. Many of the cotton umbrellas have a waterproof coating applied making them rain umbrellas not just parasols. Next we headed to the painting stations where many people were decorating umbrellas, cellphone covers and decorative fabrics with intricate and beautiful hand painted designs. One lady wanted to paint my handbag but although leather, it is worse for wear from the trip, instead I handed over my backpack and received a floral painting in matching purple for 100 Baht, it is gorgeous! Needless to say I went wild in the adjacent store and am panicking about the trip back to Bangkok and my luggage weight, eek!

We then headed off to Shinawatra Thai Silk to hear about Thai silk making. When I arrived, I was greeted by the guide in very traditional looking silk attire and pinned with a little silk rose bud. I was then given an almost ceremonial welcome drink and taken inside to learn the process of silk making. She explained that Thai silk is rougher and yields fewer metres than Chinese cocoons, also the Thai ones were yellow and the Chinese ones were white (that little nugget was my personal observation). We then went on to see a lady with wet cocoons in heated water spinning the strands of silk onto a spindle. We then saw a few ladies weaving the silk into bolts of cloth on huge, old-fashioned, wooden looms. Apparently, the plain silk is produced at a rate of half a metre an hour or four metres in a day, while a woven patterned silk only produces half a metre in a full day! This was all fascinating, I was then led into their showroom which was like something out of any lux boutique anywhere in the world with prices to match. When every item of clothing is thousands of Rands and scarves tend towards R700 upwards, it is not a place for me at any time, but I especially looked like a backpacker with my laptop backpack and hiking boots (it was due to rain and I didn’t want wet feet again) in any case. I found a couple small items that were not completely eye watering for mater and pater (shh, don’t tell them, they can’t work the computer to read the blog, so not a huge worry) and felt justified in taking up the guide’s time.

It was then onto a lacquerware factory where I received an extensive guided tour and explanation from an extremely knowledgeable man with excellent, American-accented English. He explained the lacquer comes directly from the trees and then refined to produce the smooth, shiny lacquer used on the products. He detailed the shaping of bamboo for some of the items and the extensive work which produces a smooth and solid bamboo item. The items are either made from the shaped bamboo or carved teak wood. The item is then coated in a layer of lacquer which needs to dry for a week before the next layer is applied, each item has 7 layers, so that is a 7-week process before they decorate it! He showed me a cut plate where one could see the thickness of the seven layers of lacquer. He also took a cigarette lighter to it to show that genuine lacquer is very heat resistant (the surface was hardly warm after he did this) while an imitation lacquer item was scarred and blistered from previous firings. He then detailed the different decoration processes, crushed eggshell and lacquer (they use chicken and dug eggshells to provide different colour), 24-carat gold-leaf decoration through photo-negative style application and then delicate acrylic paint (in a similar style to some of the umbrella factory designs). We then saw artisans in the tour area working on these different techniques, the gold-leaf, the paint and the eggshell. At this point he had spent a considerable amount of time with me and I knew the extremely labour-intensive nature of the lacquer and I am worried about both affording a souvenir and taking the weight of such a heavy item.  We then tour the showroom and I see the commensurate prices of most of the items and feel the heaviness of even small things. All the while I am looking for something to buy, he is chatting to me about South Africa, my trip and endlessly about “my boyfriend”, clearly fishing. I gave vague replies focusing on trying to find an item to purchase and feeling less bad about the inevitably low price with every comment about “my boyfriend”. In the end I took a couple tiny boxes, essentially pill boxes, for a few hundred Baht, thanked him profusely and left. They still weigh over a hundred grams for two measly, little boxes (I checked with my luggage scale)!

It was then on to a silver factory where I received a perfunctory explanation of silver composition, imitation silver detection and the fact that they produce Sim Stars which is exported all over the world. If you didn’t know, it is an imitation Pandora system of charms, bracelets and bangles. I told the lady I knew it as we have it in South Africa too. I was then handed off to another lady who led me quickly past a few artisans working in silver and into a huge showroom with silver everything. There were massive displays under glass of silver jewellery, of homeware, anything you could think of – they even had a selection of ornate, etched, little handbags. I am not sure the pricing on everything but I headed to the racks of earrings on cards and then the Sim Star charms (I have a Pandora bracelet) and it was insane. The earrings, that even in South Africa should be no more than R300, R400, R500 (and I would not pay that) where sometimes over R1000! The Sim Star charms started at R350 for tiny ones and averaged between R750 and R1250 each, it was crazy! I politely thanked the woman and left – I didn’t feel bad, the tour was not a big one. Otto then pointed to an attached store and I reluctantly went in. It was not more of the same, it was different, but a similar hovering hard sell. It was a lifestyle type of store with lots of homeware, some women’s clothing, silk, even gorgeous rugs, it was very lux. I looked at a beautiful dress but didn’t even bother with the price as it looked to be the same Asian sized fare as at most places and even the holiday weight me is not going to fit into Asian sizes. The fellow trailing me said, Thai silk, I can try it on, I said it was too tiny, he said no you have a good figure. Thanks buddy, but I know what won’t fit me. He followed me all over the store prompting with a comment here or there. Based on appearance and accent of all the fellows and the rugs, I suspect the store is a Middle Eastern store, possibly subcontinent, and even if the prices were more my lane, that pushy energy that they had always turns me away.

Next it was off to Baan Celadon where they make the famous Northern Celadon pottery. The glaze is traditionally a whitey-jade sort of colour and they also do a slightly darker light navy-grey. I was taken through the factory by a pleasant lady who showed me the items being hand thrown on wheels using a traditional clay which looks a lot darker than regular clays and has a grey colour with a brown tone to it. Then it was off to different stations where artisans carved designs into the clay or further shaped it. It then goes for its first firing and spends eight hours in the kiln! Then we went past a dipping station where people where putting items into the glazes. After the glaze is dry it goes for a second firing which is another eight hours! We went into a room with three smiling ladies painting the most intricate, sophisticated and delicate designs onto vases, elephants and all sorts of crafts. The lady told me the items are microwave and dishwasher safe, that blew my mind! I was then led into the showroom with trepidation. It was a wonderful tour, I wanted to buy something in appreciation and to commemorate it but pottery is both heavy and extremely breakable, I had over a week left in Thailand, three more flights and two more accommodation moves before I am back in SA, there was no way I could buy anything big or expensive. I settled on one small spoon rest for my Mom of 100 Baht in hopes it will survive, I will still cry if it doesn’t.

Lastly, we went to a cotton shop. They had some rough cotton out front as part of a display and I would have liked an explanation but was quickly ushered into the showroom by one of the staff. Inside they had two looms that to my untrained eye looked exactly the same as the silk ones from earlier, and two ladies were busy making cloth from cotton. The one, with a plain pattern worked at lightning speed, I was amazed and she simply gave a little laugh, while the other woman was working on a more complicated pattern at a very slow rate. The wares were of a more traditional cut in the rough and heavy cotton I have seen around before. The prices similarly high to the silk outlet. I was going to grab a little cotton elephant keyring when one of the saleswomen showed me all the sale items. “40% off!” She held up a pair of cotton shorts then thought to show me how the waistband stretched. “No, it won’t fit me,” I assured her. She looked at me, looked at my skirt and then ended up touching my behind and hip. It was laughable, no lady, it’s not a bustle or some kind of volume skirt, it’s me. Satisfied, she put them back and showed me an indigo cotton knit scarf with little pom poms and beading. It was pricey, even with 40% off but the colour and the pom poms (on a lot of the hill tribe garb) was appealing and I thought about having it when I go back to winter in a week. So, it was added to the now vast collection.

I still had about an hour with Otto and getting back to the guest house in Chiang Mai would take about 20 minutes. I asked him if there were any scenic drives in the area, but there weren’t. Based on an earlier conversation, he asked if I would like to go and see a local Wat, which I liked the idea of, so we went. Wat Chang Kam is a local Wat but still beautiful in the Lanna style of the North. Yesterday I was definitely not temple appropriately dressed, with a skirt that was too short, and although I stayed near the sides, not going too close to anything out of respect, no one cared. The site was beautiful and peaceful and really reminded me of Big Buddha back in Phuket. There were also the coppery prayer leaf-hearts, but these were tied to huge sticks and not actual trees. Also, you could see old ruins near the entrance to the Wat. My driver explained that we were in the area of Wiang Kum Kam, which was the original capital of the Lanna Kingdom before the city was flooded out and buried (this I knew from my visit to the Chiang Mai Historical Museum on Friday). It was fascinating to be in this area I had read about at the museum and see some ruins at the Wat. It was certainly a great bonus to an already good, albeit expensive, trip and day.

After lunch, I decided to check out the Three Kings’ monument in the early evening. It was not too far from the guest house and I went in the early evening when the heat was abating a little. The Three Kings are the founders of Chiang Mai (literally New City) which replaced Wiang Kum Kam which I had seen earlier. It turned out that I had actually been there before and already have a photo of the monument with the building in the background – the building in the background is the Chiang Mai Historical Museum! How about that! I got my photos and went back to the guest house.

I had decided to go and see the 6ixcret Cabaret, but more on that later in another blog post. For now, the weather looks better so the red hat seems like she will make her first debut in a few days…