The important thing to remember here is that you are the prey! Pedestrians have no rights. Most people who walk in Chaingmai are tourists. Did I mention that one white guy got shot yesterday? Yes, dead! But he was riding a motor scooter, so that’s another story for another time. Let’s concentrate on the walking lesson.
In addition to there being few sidewalks, there are things you need to watch out for when using the ones there are. Most of the sidewalks on the main roads are about 2 to 3 feet wide. They are not necessarily for walking on, though. They are also used as extra lanes for motor scooters and motor scooter
parking lots. There are little ramps the storeowners make for the curbs in front of their stores so people using motor scooters can use them to drive up
over the curb, onto the sidewalk, and park them to go shopping. It’s a good idea to remember this when walking in front of a store, which is almost all the time! More than once I have been brushed by a motor scooter using the sidewalk as a road. As we say in basketball, “no harm, no foul.”
There are other moving objects you’ll encounter. Watch out for dogs, cats, lizards,
French, German, Swedish, American, English, and
who knows what tourists and Monks.
Some of the non-moving things in the middle of the sidewalk are phone booths, electrical poles, street vendor carts, pot holes, merchandise from stores along the sidewalk, steel grates, and a variety of plants and trees. Some of these depend on the people who decide they want to block the sidewalk on any
particular day. Arriving some place, after walking through Chiang Mai, makes you feel like you’ve survived a gauntlet.
Now if you are walking along the side of a road where there are no sidewalks then a whole new set of obstacles present themselves. But I’m not ready to think about that yet. All of this seems to support my contention that you do not walk in Chiang Mai.... you hike.
Made it so far!
Gary
