The Hill Tribe Market

It is important to spend Sunday in Chiang Mai. That�s the weekly bazaar night, when it appears the entire town has converged at the main street, to buy, sell, eat, drink and have fun. Farzana Contractor joins them

The climate in the gentle valley of Chiang Mai is considered to be comparatively cool. And the best time to be here is between November and February. I was there in December. And the weather was just perfect.

What is important to keep in mind is if you are coming to this hilly town for just a few days, you must somehow work that you arrive here on a Sunday. For that is a high point of Chiang Mai. The Sunday Night Bazaar.

It�s when the hill tribe people come down from near and far, laden with goodies that they want to sell. These could include any and everything. At ridiculously low prices. In addition to the wonderful things you can pick up as gifts for friends, or presents for your own self, or artifacts for your house, you also get to imbibe their culture, understand their ways, notice at first-hand how tradition governs them. I sat at a wayside caf� and people watched. I love the courtesies they show each other, how they greet when they meet. It�s called wai and it�s used by the old and the young, rich and the poor, monks or Royalty. Very much like the Indian namaste except that they fold their hands and raise it right to their face and bowing their heads, touch the tip of their nose to their finger tips!

The bustling market goes right down a long narrow street that is ear-marked for this weekly event. And it goes on and on for maybe two kilometers. It was a feast for the eyes. And there was plenty of music for the ears too. Lined one behind the other in the middle of the street, are people either in groups or individually playing various instruments. Basically they are begging. It�s so moving. All they do is sit playing their band, and there is a bowl placed in front. As people pass by in the busy street, some stop to listen others just drop a coin and carry on.

The little children performing a Thai dance dressed in Thai silks and bling things were rather endearing.

What didn�t, couldn�t escape my notice was the exotic food on display. Plenty of it and really strange. I couldn�t figure most of it, and some were completely new. Like this black jelly like pile of mountain, from which they were making some sort of a drink. No I did not try it. It looked like tar, and if tasted anything like it, I might have ruined a perfectly nice evening.

So I amused myself in the most old-fashioned way a woman amuses herself, I shopped. Bought plenty of aroma oils and aroma diffusers, wooden artfacts, and ceramic objects. I happened to enquire about a pretty clay bird being sold and what a find that turned out to be! You fill water into its tummy and blow into it�s tail and wow, the bird whistles, so beautifully. I bought all of them off the girl selling these birds, much to her pleasure.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY FARZANA CONTRACTOR