Chaing Mai Revisited.

It is about a fortnight or a fraughtnite since I arrived in Chaing Mai. Even as I write I can hear someone nearby sneezing. There is a lot of URTIs about. Even with two trips to the Ram Hospital I have had a double dose. If you like to come away from a trip to the doctor with a handful of scripts you would not be diaappointed here. One of the conctions was a cough mixture laced with Camphorated tincture of opium. You beauty, I thought maybe I will be able to write like Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Rather the opposite was the result, a considerable blockage, Darmverstopfung as the Germans call it. My mate Gregan McMahon provided the literary link, he is so well read and wise. "Did you ever smoke opium?
Clifford Mortimer: Certainly not! Gives you constipation. Ever see a portrait of that rogue Coleridge? Green around the gills and a stranger to the lavatory!"   
Happy to report all  is better. I am sure you wanted that detail from the traveller's tails.
Change is a constant as we know, and change in Chaing Mai is both subtle and substantial. Several of the people I know have and major life changes. One died in a motor bike accident, one is married and a father, one has expanded a little business and one has started a little business. The ingenuity and persistance of the Lanna people or Thais generally never ceases to amaze me. Give them a  space the size of a doormat, a can of water and a few objects and they have a business.
The area I used stay, Wat Gate, opposite the Warrawat large market, across the river Ping has a number of closures of old original wooden buildings, most of which will never be restored. Their shadowy dark hulks are sad remenants of well designed and beautifully crafted merchants' homes and offices.
The foot bridge across the river which I have used many times it has been demolished. Most of it sits just above the water line like a  soggy cement sponge. As you might expect there are several supposed reasons for the demolition and as many suggestions for the future development. They are as numerous as I imagine they are fanciful.
Last week end was the Flower Festival. The city is bountifully decorated with all kinds of arrangements. There is a massive procession of floats of all kinds many followed by trucks with generators and big speakers. I'll try to attach some photos.  The city fills up with visitors for the week end and seems quiet when many of them depart.
One change I do notice is the large increase in the number of Chinese visitors. Some look Thais but many do not nor do they have the graciousness nor the voice modulation of the Thais. I understand from my mate Roger that these are the cashed up bogans from the Celestial KIngdom and they are as unpopular at home as abroad.
There are quite a few French tourists in this Chang Puak Gate (White Elephant Gate) area and a French cafe and travel agent. They have breakfasts of "Petti Baguette with 7 grains and strawberry jam". You could inject the sjam with a narrow needle and the coffee seems strangely like Nescafe. But this is not Paris.
I eat mostly at Jok Sompet, which eponomously serves Jok (conge) and other simple rice dishes.
But so often it is the people you meet... Last night I spoke to a young man walking in the same direction as myself. Edwardo is a Basque from Pamplona nown for the Running of the Bulls and the place where Ignatius Loyola was badly wounded and changed his life while recovering. This young 30 yr old had yesterday arrived 80 ks on bike from the Lao side of Chaing Mai. In Spain he could see that his job was coming to an end and before being fired he resigned. He bought a fare to Hanoi there he bought a cheap mountain bike and had so far gone into Laos, then to Thailand and intended to traverse the border with Myanmar. Much of his trip was on unformed roads with many many mountain climbs. HIs belief in his ability to find is way and ride hard was inspiring to say the least. He says he will come to Australia some day. You may meet him.