Chiang Mai

Well, here we are in Chiang Mai. This is the river in the area. You can take an afternoon cruise on the river(not very blue water) and we even saw dinner cruise boats. We didn't do that but we did stop for a coffee here at Wawee Coffee. Great coffee. We had to sit inside because of the deafening noise of the Cicadas. You couldn't carry on a conversation.


Some more views of Chiang Mai, the buildings and the method of transport, the Sangteuw ( a pickup with two facing benches). It cost 50 cents for a ride to wherever you were going.




Dinner with Terry and Nicki in an Italian restaurant on the river near where we had coffee the day before. Great meal and great company. They were awesome tour guides. We look forward to visiting them in Warsaw for Terry's next posting.



Two more views of Chiang Mai.

This is the Sunday market in the old downtown area. Mostly artisan work and local handicraft. There were some bizarre t-shirt designs and food stalls.




One of our tours set up by Nicki was a raft ride. The tour guide said we might get wet, so we shouldn't bring a camera. Note how relaxed we were. There is this festival in Thailand called Songkran. See poster below. It involves a sort of blessing with water. Near the end of our trip, some locals waited for us near the end of the ride and just soaked us. They sat in the water on both sides and just splashed water on everyone. We were sopping wet and then went immediately into the van and back to Chiang Mai. Terry says that this happens in the streets of Chiang Mai and the smart people head away for a short vacation rather than be there at that time.




Here is Terry and Nicki's house in Chiang Mai. Each room has its own exit door. It was a great place for us to relax and get acclimatized to Thailand. Of course, the dogs and roosters next door made for a noisy time in the morning.




Two more pictures of the area of Chiang Mai. I bought new glasses on this main road, two pair for 200 dollars, including frames and special coatings.




Elephants!!!

Nicki set us up with an elephant ride. Here he is behind me coming into load us up. Memorial Staff: Note the Tilley hat.


The ride was almost one hour. We went across the river and then up a mountain side. Our elephant driver was forced to lead the way as some of the other elephants didn't want to climb up the trail. The view at the top was amazing as was the trip down; had to hold onto the seat so as not to fall off.


Met two couples from Calgary on this trip. They are on the second and third elephants in this picture. I sent pictures to Davin and Cryssy, who are still on holidays in Europe now. He has some more pictures of us on our elephant throughout our trip that we will get when they are back from their trip.


Afterwards, we both fed our elephant some bananas. Look closely, and you can see the banana in his trunk.


We also went to a Thai cooking school. We met at the office downtown and then went off to this market to buy the items for our six-course dinner. These baked fish and the live fish were not part of the dinner.


Pom is the owner/chef of the cooking class. He runs a restaurant in town. He gave great demonstrations and walked us through each dish. He also was a bit of a comedian. Kept us entertained.

This was the first dish we made - fat noodles with a sweet and sour sauce. This was our appetizer at around ten thirty. Then, we made three more dishes which would be our lunch. Each portion was this size.


Here are two of the three dishes that we had for lunch. They gave us tofu instead of chicken or pork to go with the vegetables. Cooking Thai-style like this was a piece of cake. Pom, or one of his assistants, gave the demonstration and then all the items in the dish were proportioned out for us(or even chopped up). All we had to do was put them into the wok when they told us and stirred when they told us and finished when they told us. Even I could cook this way. And then, we went off and ate, and the assistants did the clean-up and we were ready to cook again. Thai cooking is EASY. The third dish involved a piece of fish, cooked with spices(very hot) in a banana leaf. I added more spices and it was very difficult to eat it, but I did. Greg gave me the nickname "hoover". I just don't like to see food go to waste, so I put it on my waist.




After this lunch and then salad and dessert, we were very full.


Next posting will deal with transportation in and around Thailand and a short visit to Sukhothai, the ancient capital of Siam.