So why Dogs, motorcycles and walking?
One thing that seems to have changed is the love of pet dogs. When we lived in Thailand 30 years ago people kept dogs as guards and never as pets. Dogs were basically considered dirty and were not allowed inside a house or given any affection etc. Well there has been a cosmic shift in that attitude. The Thais tend to like small/miniature breeds and they take them everywhere! It is very common to see the dogs in baskets on motorcycles or sandwiched between two people on a motorcycle. There is one woman that pushes 3 dogs around in a shopping cart in the late afternoon "for a walk". Since this is the cold season many of the dogs have some kind of clothing on. Most commonly is a T-shirt that is pulled over the dog so the front paws are in the arms of the shirt. Here is one dog that we saw at our local food stall ....
Chiang Mai is a town of motorcycles - lots and lots and lots of motorcycles. It really is not that big a town but many people can afford them so that even though gas is expensive a bike gets you around relatively quickly. In the mornings and evenings the roads are packed with motorcycle commuters. While we may think that a bike can only carry 2 people at the most, here we see 3-4 people packed on to 100cc motorcycles/scooters all the time. We have rented a motorcycle a few times for some trips outside the town - the rental cost is about 6 dollars a day and it is even cheaper for longer rentals. There are some real advantages to riding a motorcycle: at traffic backups motorcycles can weave their way to the front of the pack and wait at the red light for a fast get-away. People with cars are stuck in traffic. There are small traffic jams here but nothing even approaching Bangkok snarls that can take hours to untangle. The Thais also add side cars/carts/food stalls to motorcycles and also trailing carts to move bigger items. Many street food/store stalls are attached to motorcycles. Click the arrow to see a slide show or click anywhere in the photo to see a larger view
Walking - Thais don't tend to walk. I suspect this is for several good reasons: it can be hot, there are very few decent sidewalks, and where there were some good side walks these have been broken up to plant trees along the roads. Walking can be scary as you walk down the streets you are near some really fast moving vehicles! Some years ago it became clear that Thailand had cut down way too many trees and at the King's exhortations many trees have since been planted. The results have been dramatic and positive but the sidewalks were somewhat sacrificed. Having said that, so few Thais walk that it is not a big problem! But we farangs as we are called in Thai do like to walk. I am not sure if this is to try to keep the great food from accumulating on our waists or because we see so much more of everyday life by walking :-). If we need transportation there are lots of options that are very inexpensive. It takes Bev about 45 minutes to walk to her language school and it is about a 25 minute walk to Kids Ark. The "old town" is surrounded by a moat that is about 1 mile square and we are about a 20 minute walk from that moat. See this map
The yellow square is the moat which is about 1 mile on each side.
Finally, it is clear that every imaginable service is available! See the picture below:
