Day 5- Last day sorrow

We went to the Tourism Authority of Thailand in the morning. We were given a very warm welcome and this again got me thinking about the hospitality that i have received here in Thailand. The director and assistant director offered very useful statistics and information regarding Chinese tourists in Chiang Mai. We learnt that the number of Chinese tourists have been increasing rapidly over the past few years and that the government have put up many more signs in Chinese and many other similar initiatives to accommodate to the influx of Chinese tourists in Chiang Mai.

Soon after, we headed out for lunch. We were walking along a stretch of restaurants nearby the hotel and we found a place that is halal! Fortunately, on the last day in Chiang Mai, I managed to eat authentic Thai food, all due to the very observant eye of my sub group mate, Jasmon.

After having lunch, we headed to Wat Chedi Luang. We wanted to go there to interview the monks as they have a monk chat program where the monks are able to converse in English and answer any questions that visitors might have. We were very thankful that the monk had no problems with us taking a video of him answering our interview questions and his answers were certainly a big help for us. He mentioned that there are a greater number of mainland Chinese people marrying local Thais and following the teachings of the Buddha. This made me think about the possibility that the greater influence of the Chinese language in Thailand may not only be due to the growing number of tourists but also due to the greater number of mainland Chinese people slowly transitioning to become local Thai Chinese.

On the way back to the hotel, we conducted two more street interviews with the local Thais who were more than happy to help us. While I was in Thailand, I was very heartened by the fact that Thai people are really nice and very willing to help anyone who needed it. The friendly demeanour of the people we interviewed made me recall all the good experiences i have had in Chiang Mai, mostly attributed to the friendliness of the local Thais and staff in the hotels, restaurants and other places we often visited. This however is a far cry from what my friend and sister told me about their experiences in Thailand. They visited Bangkok and Phuket respectively and both were thoroughly unimpressed with the service they received. Fortunately for us, the Northern Thais are very friendly and have excellent customer service.

Thereafter, we returned to the hotel for dinner and our group reflection. We went through our footage so far and decided what we needed to do after returning to Singapore. We then proceeded to conduct a focus group discussion with the CMU students who had very kindly accompanied us throughout our stay in Chiang Mai.

We went to visit the night market one last time in the hopes of finishing our remaining Thai Baht and simply to have one last night of fun in Chiang Mai. Additionally, we managed to get one more interview from a group of Westerners about their opinion about the Chinese tourists.

The few days we spent here really enabled me to learn about many things which I was previously unaware or ignorant of.

However, knowing that today happens to be the last day before we go back to Singapore is really saddening because that means school will be starting soon.

Well, good luck for the semester everyone.