A PASSAGE TO INDIA: 17. CHIANG MAI

The Northern Thai city of Chiang Mai is one of my favourite places. Once again, I observe the strong Buddhist/Hindu influence in their culture, mannerisms and way of life, like in Jogjakarta and Bali. The Thai people are gentle, quiet and polite, like the Javanese......considerate too.....terribly easy going.

Thai Buddhism has evolved into something uniquely Thai but they retain reverence for the elephant and have a Thai version of Ganesh in some of their temples, painted a Krishna blue.

I read somewhere that ancient rulers in the former Ceylon had close ties with Thai Buddhist missionaries which may explain Buddhism's influence in Ceylon/Sri Lanka.
Some temples I've been into in Sri Lanka have wall paintings and other decorations which seem typically Thai.

The Thais are wonderfully accepting of their good number of transvestites and transsexuals whom they affectionately call lady boys. They do not abhor them and welcome them into their beauty salons and chat like old friends. In Singapore, such lady boys come out only at night and take some pains to hide this aspect of them in the daytime. Thai hospitals are tops at sex change operations. Their transvestite/transsexual shows are tourist draws in nearly every city that showcase them.

Thailand is another place I can be comfortable living in. I like their people and their yummy and exciting food, prepared with flair and imagination. They are highly creative people and what they may lack in classroom education, they make up for by putting their hands to good creative use. So Thailand's biggest tourist draws are all home grown and home produced - products from dry food to mangosteen and strawberry wine, arts and crafts, Thai silk fabrics and knick knacks are proudly Thai, the variety is staggering.

When the weather gets cooler towards the later part of the year, I might just head that way again to catch up with my English friend coming this way to escape winter, and together we will explore another part of Thailand and perhaps cross over to Laos, Vietnam and at last, I will see Angkor Wat in Cambodia and possibly include Myanmar, if the political situation is stable there.

These countries form the former Indochina when under French colonial rule. Politics has divided its people into 4 different nations but the similarities are there. It would be most interesting to take a closer look.

On a previous visit to Phnom Peng, Cambodia, the ladies had on costumes very similar to Thailand's, right down to the silky fabric and little elephant motifs. They speak in a similar melodious style and their music and instuments were identical. The Thai and Cambodian women's national costumes come with a 'perlu' slung over one shoulder, sari style. They greet visitors with a namaskar meeting of the palms.

The colonial French were quite right to associate them with the Indo-China region, in those early days, without the politics of border controls or boundaries, its people would have moved freely between one place to another, traded barter trade, settled and raised families at wherever they found a mate, spoke the same language and dialects, ate the same kinds of food.

Mammals, birds, fish, migrate to warmer climes to find fresh food and water, to find a mate and reproduce. So too, the Human Mammal is essentially nomadic. Today, it is called Emigration.

Thai Ganesha in Krishna blue