Harmonie - Earthquake! - Chiang Mai, Thailand

Earthquake! - Chiang Mai, Thailand

Harmonie

Don and Anne Myers

Thu 21 Apr 2011 02:41

18:47.104N 98:59.655E

March 24, 2011 - March 27, 2011

Yup, there was an earthquake of strength 6.8 centered in Burma (Myanmar) 150 miles to the northeast of where we were in the Thai city of Chiang Mai on March 25. The good news is that we have lived to tell about it - but first things first...

Leaving Harmonie at Yacht Haven Marina on Phuket in the capable hands of John and Sue, we flew from Phuket to Chiang Mai on March 24. Chiang Mai is located almost directly north of Phuket - 10 degrees of latitude or about 600 miles (see the Google Earth map on our home page for the specific location). Six hundred miles north and at least 10% less humidity and 5 degrees (F) lower temperature. Ahhh....now this is what the tropics are all about - not cold enough for long sleeves or socks, but not hot or humid enough to cause major rivers of sweat to roll off and puddle around our feet either. Marvelous.

Chiang Mai was originally built in 1296 as the capital city for the Lanna Kingdom, one of many relatively small kingdoms in existence at the time in what is now Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. The original city was walled. Parts of the wall still exist, and the rectangular outline still marks the boundary of the old city where most of the important Buddhist temples reside along with tiny shops, restaurants, hotels and guesthouses wedged into every crevice on every street and soi (alley or lane). The streets are busy and full of tourists like Phuket, but the atmosphere is completely different. Chiang Mai is a more serious town. Here it's all about Thai culture: food, religion, ethnic hill tribes, crafts. There are no beaches, very few secluded resorts, and no mostly naked, heavily tattooed Russians.

I say that, but there probably are at least some semi-naked, heavily tattooed Russians here because Chiang Mai does have one thing in common with Phuket - what is somewhat euphemistically referred to as 'the sex trade'. You don't have to look far in either Phuket or Chiang Mai to find lots of big, burly, older western men (not all Russian, of course) with tiny, very young, very cute Thai women. Girls really. Bar girls they are called. Our Chiang Mai hotel, which is very nice, happens to be located in the center of the main bar girl district. When we strolled around the area the first day, we didn't notice anything, but when we walked the street again after dark, the place had transformed itself. Every other place of business was a dark, tiny bar with a pool table and several very cute, very young bar girls sitting or standing near the entrance next to the sign proclaiming 'Long Island Ice Tea! Chang Beer! Cocktails!' While at breakfast in our hotel's open-air restaurant, we started to notice the number of very cute, very young Thai girls that happened to stroll out of the hotel lobby, through the restaurant, and on to the street. Hmmmmm.... No one ever said Thailand didn't have its seedy side.

Back to Thai culture - temples, food and craft markets. That pretty much sums up our 4-day stay in Chiang Mai. That and the earthquake, of course. It was our first night in Chiang Mai. We had arrived in the late afternoon, so hadn't seen much of the city other than our hotel where we were pretty much wallowing in the air-conditioning while watching international news (mostly about Libya) on cable TV. It was our first exposure to TV since we left home. At first, TV always feels like a novelty to us, but the novelty usually wears off pretty darn quick after the first hundred or so commercials. Anyway, I was lying in bed and Don was in the bathroom - ahem - peeing, when the quake hit. Having never experienced an earthquake before, I couldn't figure out what was going on - everything just felt like jell-o. Like there was no solid ground, which, duh, of course there wasn't. The bed was jiggling, vibrating, a lot. At first I thought maybe I had hit a button somewhere and turned on the bed vibrator (not that we visit a lot of hotels equipped with vibrating beds, but I couldn't think of any other logical explanation for the excessive movement at the time). Don, on the other hand, had the whole episode figured out as soon as he started having trouble with his aim (sorry to share such intimate details, but hey, this is how it happened). Ten or twenty more seconds into the shaking and I had it figured out too. Besides, why would the curtains be shaking and the floor feel like jell-o if it was just a vibrating bed? At that point, maybe 30 seconds or so into the shaking, I called out to Don in the bathroom in my squeaky-scared voice usually reserved for really frightening times on the boat or when handing a half-full puke bucket over to him to be emptied. He answered, "I know, I know, it's an earthquake!"

Then it stopped. Don came out of the bathroom and we stared at each other. 'Holy crap! That was an earthquake!' (stating the obvious always seems like the right thing to do in a time of crisis). Our first concern was that another huge earthquake hit off the coast of Sumatra or Thailand causing a giant tsunami like the one in 2004. We had visions of our boat being carried off into the blue yonder with John and Sue aboard. So we called them. Only to find out that all was fine on Harmonie in Phuket. Shew. Don then got on the internet to see what the US Geological Survey (USGS) website had to say while I got dressed and ran down to the lobby to see what the hotel staff had to say. When I arrived in the lobby I was amazed to see that no one seemed fazed. People were laughing, music was playing, dinner was being served like nothing had happened. I approached the desk to find another shaken American asking the same questions I had pinging around in my head, "Was that an earthquake? Does it happen often around here? Where was the epicenter? Do we need to do anything?" To which the answers were, "Yes. No, not since the 2004 Sumatra earthquake. We don't know. No." Hmmmmm, not finding it comforting that Chiang Mai hadn't felt an earthquake since the massive 2004 Sumatra quake, I went back to the room where Don was having good luck with the USGS. The quake was shown centered 150 miles northeast of Chiang Mai in Burma (Myanmar) at a strength of 6.8. It was about then that the alert came through on our e-mail account (we receive tsunami and earthquake alerts via e-mail). It was also about then that the first of four aftershocks happened. None were stronger than 4.5ish, but we could still feel them as they caused our bed to shake throughout the night and into the next morning. The next day, the news reported no damage in Chiang Mai, some damage to the Thai city of Chiang Rai where one person was killed, but there was little or no information flowing from Myanmar (which is typical of Myanmar where the government squashes nearly all communication). Since then it was reported that about 150 people died in Myanmar (although no one knew for sure because no aid organizations or media were allowed into the country), but then news of the quake disappeared. So that's it - a shaking bed and trouble peeing, our claim to fame in the world of earthquake survivors.

Ok, back again to Thai culture - temples, food and craft markets. Here we go:

One of the Buddhist temples we toured in Chiang Mai. There are as many Buddhist temples in the greater Chiang Mai area as there are protestant churches in Calloway County, Kentucky - a grand total of 130. Like all building structures within a specific faith, the architecture is similar. One temple looks much like another, but all are spectacular with their colorful tile peaked roofs, gold paint trim and intricate carving.

The entrances to most Buddhist temples are guarded by a pair of nagas (dragons) to ward off evil spirits. I love the way the tails of these two intertwine perfectly over the doorway.

Inside one of the temples. The trick is to leave your shoes outside, be sure to lower yourself so you are never at a level higher than the main Buddha image, and fold your legs to the side when sitting so (major taboo!) your feet don't point in Buddha's direction. Don struggled with this particular position, so did his best not to approach the Buddhas too closely such that his tall self wouldn't offend.

Another temple and lots of Buddhas. The devout are lighting joss sticks and paying their respects. Just to the left is a monk going about his business. We saw a few monks, but generally we were warned to keep our distance from them so as to not distract them (this advice was targeted more toward women, particularly younger women). It's also in good taste for both men and women to dress modestly when visiting temples with shoulders, elbows and legs covered. Near the entrance of some of the more revered temples were 'dressing rooms', where those who were not dressed modestly enough were gently corralled and rented sarongs to drape around naked legs or shoulders. It was all very civilized and understandable. We were just grateful that all the Buddhist temples were open to tourists and most even allowed photos inside. The little bit we know about Buddhism indicates it's a very open and welcoming religion. It's a good thing too since the pageantry is so amazingly over the top - it would have been a pity to miss.

Yes, this is a monk. A monk in a glass box. He's not alive, but he's not dead either. It's a wax model of a renowned abbot of the temple. He is deceased (and was cremated), but this shrine was built to honor him and some (all?) of his relics (ashes, bones) are kept here.

This is the entrance to one of Chiang Mai's most important temples (or wats as they are called in Thai). Guarded by a pair of seven-headed nagas, whose tails reach the full length of the 307 step staircase, this temple sits on a mountain side overlooking the city of Chiang Mai. The temple was built on this particular spot starting in 1383 because a prominent monk from Sukhothai (south of Chiang Mai) instructed the local Lanna king to enshrine a very important relic (religious item - usually bone or ashes from an important figure, sometimes claimed to come from Buddha himself) somewhere on the mountain. The king strapped the relic to the back of a white elephant (albino elephants were considered extremely valuable, and were the monarchy's travel mode of choice - which was true as recently as the early 20th century), and proclaimed that wherever the elephant stopped, a temple would be built. The elephant not only stopped on the mountain, it died, and Wat Phra That Doi Suthep was built.

By the way, we were happy to see that monks get to sightsee too. This one posed while his family snapped pictures.

Shoes. A common sight outside all Buddhist temples. Sometimes we had to laugh because there were segregated shoe racks outside of several temples we visited. One rack for Thais, one for foreigners. We weren't sure why the shoes had to be segregated, but complied anyway just to be sure we didn't offend Buddha.

Dancing Thai girls on the grounds of the mountainside temple (Wat Phra That Doi Suthep).

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. Aside form the Grand Palace in Bangkok, this was the most crowded temple we visited. Packed with Thai and foreign tourists alike, the place was buzzing. It definitely wasn't the serene, meditation-friendly atmosphere you might normally associate with Buddha. But....it was gorgeous. Impossible to photograph though. The compound contained at least six buildings, all beautifully constructed and decorated with gold. The umbrella-like structure in the center of the photo represents the tree Buddha sat under when he achieved enlightenment. The tall, gold structure to the right is the 'chedi' within which the relic the white elephant delivered is enshrined.

In total we visited six or seven wats (temples) in the Chiang Mai area. Each one was more fantastic than the last and each has its own unique history - some dating back to the 13th century. Most of the opulent gold-covered structures were built with teak logging, and possibly opium, money. Today, both industries are banned - one to protect the forests, the other to protect humankind. Teak logging wasn't banned until more recently, and one of the fallouts has been out-of-work elephants. Really. For centuries, man and elephant worked together to log teak, but no more. It used to be that a father and son mahout (elephant keeper/trainer) team would work with a single elephant for all their lives. The father/son team was needed to span the lifetime of an elephant. Today the elephants have nothing to do but entertain tourists. In Bangkok it's said that it is not uncommon to see an unemployed elephant wandering the streets (we didn't, but others have). The one thing we didn't get to do in northern Thailand was to go see the elephants. The two options close to Chiang Mai seemed too touristy to us, and we couldn't get a hotel room near the elephant place further outside of town. Maybe next time. Elephants are such an integral part of Thailand's history it seems a shame not to pay homage. After reading some of the history, I'm still having visions of ancient battles fought by warriors sitting atop herds of elephants - it seems more like something you might read in a fantasy novel than real history. Cool.

Now the cooking part. Based on encouragement received from friends that had gone before us, we decided to go for a half-day Thai cooking course. Yes, both of us. Don and I, a French Canadian, three Swedes, a woman from Idaho and a UK couple braved the world of Thai cooking and each made an appetizer, soup, noodle dish, curry paste and curry dish. Don's Penang curry was voted best dish (by me, anyway), and his sexy soup was no slouch either. Our teacher, the tiny Bai, belted out instructions ("Start the fire! Add water! Fish sauce! Oyster sauce! Hotter! Vegetables! Stop cooking!) while nine of us sweated over woks on gas burners. We pounded dried chili peppers and spices into submission with a mortar and pestle to make the curry paste (that's me demonstrating my curry paste cooking abilities above). The flavors and spices were so intense that when we all fired up our curry pastes we could barely breathe (in a good way), coughing and spluttering all over our curry. It was still good though. After eating so much Thai food over the past three months, Don and I have a new found tolerance for hot peppers. You'll see. When we are home this summer, we'll cook Thai for you and dare you to eat it.

The final product. Don with his Penang curry and sexy soup along with our fellow international chefs (and our instructor Bai standing at the end of the table dishing up rice).

And...last but not least, the market. Tipped off by the Maloneys based on their travels here before us, we ventured out for the Sunday night 'walking street'. The main street through Chiang Mai's old city is blocked off and hundreds of vendors set up shop for the duration of the evening. Silk, silk, lots of silk (this is part of the famed silk trade route, after all), embroidery, leather goods, wood carving, paintings, on and on and on. It was so overwhelming we decided we might have to go back and do it all over again just to be sure we didn't miss anything.

That's it for our four days in Chiang Mai. Sorry for the long entry, but Chiang Mai was so packed with cool stuff and experiences (including the quake) it's hard not to overdo it.

Anne