LIFE CONTINUES IN CHIANG MAI

Red Buses

One nice feature in Chiang Mai are the red buses which are small vehicles seating only about 20 people. The deal is you stop one anywhere, state your destination and the driver decides if he/she is going that way and then you negotiate on the fare. Imagine doing that on the 134 from Potters Bar to the Post Office Tower or any bus from Piccadilly, Manchester. They are very cheap as long as you don’t mind a half hour detour to get to your destination.

Old People

I’ve found some old Thai people – see previous blog. On the above mentioned buses there are loads of over 40’s. Perhaps their families stick the oldies on the bus in the morning to trundle all over the city until the evening when they are let back into the family home. Just a theory. The other place is in the post office. I visited the main post office and all the staff, post people, counter staff, cleaners etc all looked over 40. So that’s what happens to Thai people over 40, they are either on buses or joined the post office.

The serious thing is how healthy and young looking Thai people are. I have been constantly surprised at the ages of the people I have asked. My regular tuk tuk driver has no lines on his face a very smooth neck and soft hands and the only thing that gives away his age is a full head of greying hair and he is 47 but looking 30. Perhaps us westerners do not need youth pills but just follow the lifestyle of Thai people – and indeed all Asian races – which is a good diet, drink plenty of water and lead a stress free life. Easy isn’t it. Why do we think that pills can make us look younger when by following a certain lifestyle means it is naturally achievable. We know that the large chemical company’s do not want us to realize this.

Losing Weight

The diet over here is wonderful for losing weight. Thai people generally are very slim and very healthy and I’m developing in the same way. The other day I was walking down the street when I realised that my shorts had slipped down, nestling on my hips. I looked like one of those street kids with their trousers half way down their bottoms revealing designer underpants – Calvin Klein, Joe Boxer etc. If this continues I’ll have to shop for a complete new range of underwear. Seeing Designed by George at Tesco’s or Army and Navy Stores doesn’t really cut it. Seriously though with the womderful diet over here and the fact that being hot means food intake is less than in the UK, my waist has declined.

However, I am concerned about the next generation of Thai people as a large part of the advertising is about how young peoples lives will be improved and how cool it is to eat sticky, sweet cakes, burgers and other wholly unhealthy food plus drink coke and coffee. Why should Thai people be so slim and healthy – lets make them fat and obese like a lot of westerners must be the message from the food corporations. Then we can fill them full of slimming tablets and other tablets to prevent the health problems caused by a bad diet, say the chemical company’s.

Language Difficulties

At Wat Don Chan school where I’m coaching football there is a teacher called Boy (I’m certain this is not the Thai spelling). Anyway, Tie (another teacher), said shall we arrange another friendly with Boys friends. Of course, my thought was that Boy had boyfriends meaning he was gay. The conversation with Tie became amusing when he was trying to say that Boy had friends who are a football team and I was trying to get past Boy being gay. I couldn’t share this humour with Tie as I’m sure he would not have understood. Made me smile though.

Weather

Currently the skies are cloudy and its very humid with it being the rainy season. Most days there are heavy showers. However, in a few weeks the rainy season is over and its back to sunny warm days. Wouldn’t that be nice if it happened in England.

New Business

I’ve worked out that there are very few good bakeries here in Chiang Mai and there are only a few places that supply good European type bread. The bread here is white, tasteless and full of sugar – horrible. So, if anyone in England can bake decent bread and fancies a career switch to Thailand let me know. One of the only cafes that does good bread is always full of tourists.

Mae Rim

Took a trip out into the mountains on the 12^th June – so good to be out of the city to an area called Mae Rim. The tuk tuk driver is like most people here , he thinks I want to see elephants, monkey’s and snakes in farms doing tricks to entertain the tourist. I do not. I want to see beautiful countryside, lakes, rivers, forests and animals in the wild (where they should be). It was a constant battle with the driver to get him to show me the countryside. One thing though are the very beautiful butterflies that live here in Thailand. They all have very bright, vivid, sharp colours and some are small but others are massive. I have heard that in Victorian times in the UK it was possible to see clouds of butterflies in the summer flying overhead. That’s all gone now but not here. It is possible to see hundreds of butterflies playing, darting and whizzing around. Also, it means that Thai people farm organically and are not killing the wildlife and themselves with pesticides, fertilizers etc. Yaabooh to the chemical company’s on that one.