Surrounding funky, grungy old Chiang Mai roughly 5 to 10 kilometers outside the moat is an asteroid belt of modern residential construction: shiny new single-family homes clumped into pristine gated communities. Prices start around US$89K.
Because I encounter mostly service-industry folks, I sometimes forget that not everyone in this town drives a
tuk-tuk or pushes a
som tam cart. CM in fact has a healthy middle class of professionals who work in banks and law offices, academics at the universities, doctors, engineers, etc. And as Lian puts it, "People who have money live outside."
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| "The Classic" -- 3 bed, 3 bath. Anyone want to come visit? |
Our sub-studio nook down a tiny
soi by the river is ... let's call it "cozy." But for those 3 a.m. client conferences on Skype, I need a better privacy option than the bathroom floor. So one afternoon we flag down a Red Car and go exploring in suburban Chiang Mai. Our first stop: The
Luxury Home gated community.
Three basic house styles, all of them a bit sterile in their variations on a theme of beige. But impressive: rock-solid construction, literally, no stick framework around here, and thoughtful use of space. This being Thailand, some floor plans even include a "Buddha room," i.e., an alcove for the candles, flowers, graven images, etc. The middle-of-the-road option with the amenities we like totals 3.2 million baht, just north of one hundred grand, American.
Maybe we can rent for a little while longer?
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Flash back to May 2010 when I am living for a month in a studio apartment in a gated community outside Bangkok, where I am studying for my English teaching certificate. My old friend and former Brookings newspaper colleague, Frann, herself now an English teacher, connects me with a delightful young Thai woman, Pan, whom she met while earning her Master's at PSU. Pan is by her own admission upper middle class Thai: her family operates an English school in Bangkok, her father is a commercial airline pilot, and she balances teaching with various business ventures. A Bangkok native, she grew up in northern California around Chico and speaks English with a flawless American accent. Pan is a work-hard, play-harder kind of girl; we hit it off well and have stayed in touch -- in fact, it is Pan who connected me with her old Chico chum Nick here in Chiang Mai, the dude who got his head bashed in a year ago in a bar fight.
Fast-forward to last week and Pan is in town to stage some software sales event or other at the hotel where I belong to its fitness center. She reminds me on Facebook that I owe her a beer. So I meet up with Pan and a friend of hers, John from Australia, and we kill the better part of the afternoon at the new Bus Bar -- literally a bar in an old red bus parked by the river. Three quarts (each) later Pan runs off to catch her flight back to Bangkok and I lumber home to explain to Lian how I missed the lunch she cooked for me because I am busy drinking with a 29-year-old Thai lady. Domestic hilarity ensues.
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| Launching fire balloon from the bridge. |
Loi Krathong is still two days away and the party has already begun with a bang. And a ka-BOOM! And a krackety-POW-POW-POW-POW-POW! long into the night.
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| Candles for Loi Krathong |
The apartment manager warns everyone that he will be shutting the entrance gate at nightfall to keep out the firecracker tossers and other riff-raff. Roadside stands have popped up to sell banana-leaf candle boats to honor the water spirits and fire balloons to illuminate the night skies like airborne jack-o-lanterns. All the stores sell these yellow candles that at first I thought were lemon tarts but in fact are used to send the fire balloons aloft.
Throngs of young people have already begun to jam the sidewalks of the Iron Bridge, and the open spaces by the river are lined with food vendors. Music is everywhere. Monday night is our reconnaissance mission to check out where all the good stuff will be -- and we're just an easy five-minute walk from all the action. So maybe there ARE some advantages to living in town.
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