Chiang Mai - Oasis in N. Thailand

Well, arrival in Chiang Mai after a 14 hour overnight milk run via train was very welcome. Especially knowing that we had a ride waiting for us to bring us to the hotel.

Of course, a lot of hotels here introduce you to tour packages upon arrival before check-in....we apologize but we did sign up for a 3 day trek instead of trying to do it solo :)

Our first night here was spent being overwhelmed with what you could purchase in their Night bazaar which runs every night from 6 pm to midnight. I think Thailand makes everything! As well, this area is very Western - larger hotels, more tourists, less Thai in appearance and feel - not what we were hoping for.

Because we hadn't rested since our arrival in Bangkok, and the previous night exhausted us mentally, we stayed at the hotel and hung out by the pool and caught up on some reading - John ... relaxing... in the same sentence - I know its sounds crazy but its true :)



Back in Chiang Mai, we decide to take time to explore the inner city (inside the 1.5 km x 1.5 km area surrounded by a small mote that more closely resembles a canal. Here, as in Bangkok, there are many wats (temples) and monks seem more plentiful (probably more visible due to the smaller city size - only 200K in Chiang Mai). The wats are very similar in structural shape but the materials and interior decor vary - most seem to have been originally constructed in the 1400s.
















We have also visited a 7 spire chedi (Wat Jet Yot) built in the mid 15th century based on the design of the temple in Bodhgaya, India where Buddha supposedly spent 7 weeks after his enlightenment (thus the 7 spires).















There is a Saturday and a Sunday Walking Street. We missed Saturday due to the trekking, but managed to check out the Sunday Walking Street. We lucked into catching a local parade before the vendors set up at 6:00. We decided to sit at a well placed restaurant and have a light meal while the parade passed by ...turns out the judges had a table there as well. It was basically an opportunity for each village to present itself via music, dance, dress.

The walking street was more authentic than the night bazaar - there were more Thais shopping than tourists! Restaurants are permanent on the street side but there are
stalls on the sidewalks and in the middle of the street. We
are learning to enjoy Rotee (thin dough fried in a wok with banana, carnation milk and chocolate) as a treat....yum!

Hey Alice, you should know that John joined me in experiencing a street-side Thai foot massage (1/2 hr)! We also availed of a shoulder/neck massage (1/2 hr). My masseuse was very strong. For 1 hour of pampering, it cost us $5 each - unbelievable.

There were monk chat signs at some temples inviting you to ask questions or talk about anything from Buddhism, Thai culture, being a monk or anything - it is designed to help them practice their English and maybe educate tourists...totally free. We finally decided to sit and chat. The 26 year old monk we met has been a monk for 8 years. He tried in his best English to explain what a typical day was for him, some of the basics of Buddhism, how he felt about Western influence, etc.

As our hotel was outside the city mote and we preferred to be in the center, we found a hotel that had character with big clean rooms and you can sit with the Australian and Thai owners and chat. The female Thai owner gave me a ride on her motorcycle to her Esthetician - so fun... One could learn to stay here for quite a while :)

We shared a small red truck ride with Rene from Mexico City to Doi Suthep ( 1676m peak) which is the home of a wat constructed in the 1300s - it is one the of the most sacred temples in Northern Thailand which was very obvious by the numbers of worshippers we encountered. There were a lot of bells which the children enjoyed :) We loved the amazing view of Chiang Mai and enjoyed a Chocolate freeze and Mocha freeze in the shade.

We rented bicycles for a day and headed for the university grounds where we took time out for reading and journaling (which we have been a bit remiss at doing). From there we headed to the zoo - pretty decent grounds (of course, we have learned that they are encroaching on the Doi Suthep National park land to do so). So for the first time, I got to see giraffes, lions, tigers, monkeys, penguins. I remind myself that they are safer there than in the wild in most cases.

Just so you are aware, bicycle riding in Thailand is dangerous! Ha Ha. Its just that there are many, many motorcycles, cars, buses, and tuk-tuks and rules are only guidelines so there is a lot of weaving and adjusting - we just watched our behinds and stayed as far left as possible :) Thankfully, they do not drive very fast here in Chiang Mai.

We had dinner one night and I ordered a popular Chiang Mai dish and asked for it spicy (because I hadn't experienced really hot yet).....silly, silly me. It was extremely hot - the chef came out just as I breathed while chilly pepper seeds were still in my mouth! I thought I would never recover - he laughed and told me he had put 4 chillies in my dish - I didn't eat them - didn't have to. Let's just say that I had to order a lassy to finish the second half. it was very good. They do add things to some of the dishes that they do not eat i.e. chillies, bamboo, lemon grass.

We have been fortunate (so far) with any tummy issues...you know what I mean ;D

Okay, ‚„†Cristina and Eve just thought you should know that we have enrolled in a Thai cooking course for tomorrow - I am very excited. We will learn how to cook 11 dishes - it includes a trip to the market, fruit tasting and a recipe book to take home. Maybe this will be the start of my domestication Ha Ha. This is a very reputable chef who prefers to teach and give back to charity from his proceeds...he apparently has a great sense of humor and comes highly recommended.

Signing off now...we will be deciding today/tomorrow whether we will head to Laos or Cambodia next.....miss you all!

Trekking in Chiang Mai

So we left Bangkok in the dark on the overnight train and woke up at dawn to see a whole new world going by...lush, green, hilly, the occasional workers in rice paddies, etc.

...arriving in Chiang Mai around noon. More on Chiang Mai in another post, but a day later we embarked on a 3 day (guided) hike with a group of 9 into the hill country stopping overnight at hill tribe villages, sleeping in very basic bamboo huts. Don't worry, there seem to virtually no mosquitoes around. In fact in the whole 3 day hike all the wildlife that was seen was one small snake. I guess between the deforestation (which was halted in the 1950s....I guess the forests are just starting to grow back now) and the 750 thousand hill tribe villages hunting there is basically nothing left living in the forests around here.

Temperatures up here are a little cooler (22 night and 31 day) and a lot drier so in fact except for a couple of hours at the height of day are quite pleasant.

Our hiking group was mostly young backpackers and the huts we stayed at were well supplied with beer so things got rowdy at night and it was a bit disappointing in terms of seeing/learning about the life of the hill tribes.

Nevertheless I learned a lot, not realizing there were 3500 villages of 100-200 persons each up in these hills of northern thailand. Most seem accessible by motorbike and in some cases basic roads). The villages we saw had homes equipped with solar panels (govt supplied) and seemed to be reasonably self sufficient with rice farming and some cows, pigs, and chickens which seemed to be basically intermingled with the humans

The tribes are animistic/ancestor worship in practice but with buddhism creeping in and in some cases Christian influence. In the 1st village we were in a church was near completion in construction so it seems that there are some missionary groups active in the area though we were unable to learn any more about this aspect of life in the hills.

As always the kids are incredibly cute, shy, but in one case we managed to play with them. Sharing some potato chips and then later when one of the guides gave them a bag of treats they were quick to come over and put some of them into our hands.

On the 2nd night we were both awakened around 4am with itching all over our scalps and necks. A look with the flashlight revealed tiny little bugs by the hundreds crawling everywhere. Lori loved that. Well, we didn't sleep too much thereafter but I am happy to report that so far we seem to have suffered no lingering effects

On the last day we were brought to the usual 'tourist trappy' stuff like an elephant ride, tho I have to admit it was a bit interesting. Of course they sell you every 50m a bunch of bananas and the animals stop every 2nd step and reach their trunks up for you to deposit another banana. There is quite the blast of air coming out of those trunks. Beautiful animals they are. Apparently there are a large number of them that were trained for use in the logging industry and of course which by now have become redundant and because they live for so long, these animals are still around with many of their owners being unable to feed and care for them. Amazing to think they used to roam free and wild in this country!.

So it's back to Chiang Mai to discover what this town is all about.....

Bangkok bound

Somewhere around Nov 14th (I've by now lost all sense of date and time) we arrived for a 3 day stint in Bangkok. It's everything that everyone says it is, so much activity, so much pollution, amazingly cheap and tasty food available on the street every 10m for a mere dollar or two!

It was an unusual time with the cremation ceremony of the 84yr old sister of the king. The main temple and royal palace were closed for 5 days and so we didn't get to see them, however on the other hand for the weekend all the major streets were closed with hundreds of thousands walking around in black coming to observe the ceremony/cremation.

We experienced the usual rides from Tuk-tuk drivers and breathed in amazing amounts of 2 cycle engine fumes, saw enough wats (temples) and buddha statues to last us for a lifetime and sweated in the sticky humid 32 degree weather! The streets feel very safe and the thai people are polite and gentle...when they try to sell you things they are not pushy and so in that sense it is more pleasant walking around than say in arab contexts where you can feel much more hassled.

We rode the water bus down the river to the modern section of town (like any modern city) and experienced the stark contrast from the more traditional thai area of town where are hotel was. We tried out the sky train over to a large central park for some calm and quiet and observed 1m long lizards scouring the grass for tasty eats (not humans like us thankfully!).

Chinatown was another level yet of chaos, noise, crowds and small stalls selling every kind of merchandise and food one could imagine. We had some kind of noodle dish with chicken on the sidewalk, tasty and hot for a mere 3$ for the 2 of us!. So far we have had no issues or side effects from the food (knock on wood!)

Well by now you are hearing about the political turmoil in Bangkok. As usual, the news makes it seem like the whole country is in turmoil when in fact the activity is quite localized. Nonetheless, very clever of the protesters to choke the country via the main airport as such a large aspect of the GDP is based on tourism. Most people that we talk to say that business is way down, and our experience has been that there are very few evidences of full hotels or restaurants.

This protest is very much urban, upscale Bangkok vs the rural poor. Most of the rest of the country has no issue with the current gov't (which is spreading a lot of new benefits to the rural areas such as health care and education...and so it would seem rather undemocratic to try to topple a recently, freely elected gov't. But what do we know!, the protesters say the gov't is corrupt and perhaps they are?. Well, right now we feel no effects and probably shouldn't affect us.

After 3 days we were ready to slow down the pace and escape the pollution somewhat so we booked an overnight train to the north to Chiang Mai, the 2nd largest city and religious center of thailand.

Even more almost like home - Holland

So this is Holland, what a stark contrast from Paris just a few hundred km away.   Everything made from brick rather than stone blocks, built to human scale rather than Paris with its  'over the top pomposity' 

My family has been helping to make up for my Newfy 'screeching in' by introducing Lori to that which is distinctively dutch.  First and foremost is the bicycle.  

This was a 50km ride on the dikes with

 my 78 yr old

 aunt who had no trouble setting a pace that we could barely keep up with!

Next of course on the list is the cuisine which of course you all know the dutch are so famous for!  This is smoked herring smothered in onions (raw).  So long as there was sufficient onion Lori seemed able to get it down!

This is the 'Kinderdijk', an area of 19 preserved windmills built in the 1700s to cope with the settling of the land and the rising of the water levels.  It was a beautiful and windy day with most of the mills in

 operation.  These things are BIG and when those sails are whirling past it scares the &*^&*^% out of you.  They are just whipping at an unbelievable speed.

We also visited the Canadian war memorial near my aunt's home in Nijmegen

 and learned a lot about Operation Market Garden where Holland was liberated from the Germans.  My aunt and her friend regaled us with stories of living under the German occupation when they were young, about the jewish friends who were taken and never returned, and about the dutch women who had consorted with the Germans during the occupation and who had their heads shaved in the streets after the liberation.  These 'live' remembrances will

 soon be gone here from living memory.

All in all, this has been a nice time, being with family,  for Lori to meet them, and to relax before we head off to the more uncharted waters of the orient.

Almost like home

So ok, here is the 'gag' photo. But come on, if you're in Paris with your new wife you just have to do one like this right?  Why wasn't Lori here 4 years ago when I used to live here? That could have been so much fun.  Now,  she's a tourist and I'm the tour guide!.  

Paris feels very comfortable and it feels good to be back and to make contact again with some of the people I used to know and the church I used to be part of. But, unfortunately, it's just not quite the same as when you actually lived here

 and had an apartment to go back to every night.  It feels like home but not quite like home.

Ah, below, in the jardin de luxembourg.  One of the prettiest places in the world and in the center of Paris.  I

 am reminded again about 

what I like about Europe...the compact style of living, the  architectural beauty, the publicly owned infrastructure all around (parks, trains, historic buildings, museums, etc) with people hanging all about in large numbers all doing there thing.

This is Lori looking her gorgeous  self in a gorgeous setting.  Can it get any better than this!!!

Well, I think  it's time to head out from here for a short visit to Holland so that Lori will have a better idea of where I came from and what my family blood-line is like....and for her first ride on a train....at 230km an hour!

John and Lori do Paris...

Starting with a stroll down the Champs Elysees toward the Arc de Triumphe.  Our apologies as we cannot seem to figure out the French key strokes on the iBook we are fortunate enough to have use of.  My time in Paris was completely surreal.  

The view from Cabot Tower

 This is only one of the many breathtaking views from Cabot Tower.  You will - on a clear, fog-free day - have a 360 degree view, taking in St. John's and its harbour, the South Side hills, Whitehills, Cape Spear (the most easterly point in North America) and the wide open Atlantic. 

Cabot Tower

For those of you who have never been, this is Cabot Tower - not nestled, but boldly standing high above the harbour entrance to St. John's.  It is here that the first wireless telegraph was successfully transmitted by Marconi, transatlantic of course!  This is also why this site is known as Signal Hill.

From the oldest city in North America

First stop together on our journey begins in St. John's - the oldest city in NA.  I know it may be hard to see the booming metropolis in this photo but trust me, its there.   We have mastered the art of  camouflage and stealth.  It is where I call home and holds a special place in my heart.