Thailand, Part 2
Apr. 18th, 2007 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaelieIt is 3pm on the 18th here, so it's 3am on the 18th there in Texas. Funny to think of that, isn't it? Oh, and please excuse grammatical errors or idiosyncrasies, as I'm not on a US machine and I don't think that their MSWord will function quite right for me in English. ^_~
Note (again): If you want to see any of the pictures larger, just right click and view photo. I made these smaller so they would load more quickly. If you want to view all the photos (these are only a very few!), go to our Thailand 2007 vacation gallery.
thu 4/12:
Thursday morning was very relaxing. We watched a few episodes of Band of Brothers and made sure we had everything packed for the road trip to the beach. Audt asked us to be sure we had enough for two days, just in case we decided to stay longer. Heh. No problem. Gogo clean laundry. ^_~
After Amy and Art got out of school, we headed out. I read a book this trip, as Amy was playing with her brother's Gameboy. Matt watched the scenery and poked me for all the cool stuff. It was about three hours from Bangkok to Bangsaen, which I'm told is one of the beaches more geared towards Thais than towards western tourists, and based on the lack of English labeled stuff, I'd have to agree. Apparently there's a very popular beach town called Pattaya pretty close by that all the tourists go to, so I got to see a bunch of Thais and very few westerners, which is fine by me. ^_^
We checked in to our hotel, got our stuff situated, and then headed down for a sunset walk on the beach. It's a very long beach, and that night many of the locals were out digging for crabs, cockles and mussels in preparation for the big day on the 13th, which would be the first day of Song Kran, the Thai new year and water festival. It was a very lovely walk. Not only did I get to see the ocean, but I got to watch people at work and many more at play in the low tide, playing soccer and all kinds of games in the water. The general atmosphere was one of mellow enjoyment.
Just after sunset we headed back to the hotel to meet up with Audt and the gang and went to dinner. Most dining that I've had here has been outdoors and this one was only slightly different in that it was outdoors and on beams over the shallow surf. We had all kinds of lovely sea food (yum!), and topped it off with some local flavors of ice cream. Matt had mulberry leaf ice cream and I had tamarind ice cream. I'm definitely going to pick up some tamarind candy to bring home because that stuff is good. And here I thought the only thing that tamarind was good for was hot red curry!
(Audt took the pic: Matt, me, Aim, Ning, Art. Didn't have any pictures with people in it of the hotel or beach. I have pictures of them, but just of the stuff)
fri 4/13:
Friday the 13th. April the 13th. Whee! Chok Dee!
I found out on Friday morning that Song Kran is not a seasonal holiday like Loi Krathong (which happens like the weekend after the first full moon of November or something - I'll look it up when I get home because I think I have something wrong). Anyway, Song Kran is not seasonal. It's every April 13. It's the Thai new year holiday that is celebrated by a huge, crazy water festival. Fun, fun!
So we start out with breakfast at the hotel. I had my first fairly normal breakfast, although I did supplement it with some noodles. But I had a croissant and some cold cereal just because I could.
After breakfast, our original plan was to walk the beach and maybe wade in the ocean, so Matt and I put on our suits and headed across the street. However, when we got there, the beach was crowded so we switched plans and joined Audt and the family at the hotel pool and did a lot of swimming.
For lunch we all headed back to the beach and rented a table under the umbrellas. Apparently there is wait staff there because we had food brought to us as well. Papaya salad, roasted squid, crab, all of relatively cool temperatures due to the heat, but still spicy, heh. Yummy!
(Matt, under the umbrellas!)
As we lay there under the umbrellas, I could see the clouds starting to roll in. Then the wind picked up. A lot. So we packed up our food and started to head back across to our hotel.
(Matt, Art, Ning, Audt, all eating as quickly as possible so we don't have to carry a ton back)
On the way, crossing the street, we got caught up in the water festival craziness. It was hilarious. Matt, Art and Amy were armed with water guns with which they defended themselves (and probably instigated, too). Trucks with the beds full of people with huge buckets of water drove slowly past, while the people tossed the icy water on the people on the side of the road, or on the people in the back of the trucks passing them.
(Blue shirt guy is a stranger tagging Art. Art is in the tan shirt, Matt in the red hat, and Audt in the red shirt. All enjoying the national water fight)
Occasionally, one person would trot by on foot holding a small bucket full of fine white clay paste, which s/he would scoop up in their finger tips and apply it to the face of the people on the sidelines. Or the people in the trucks. Or the truck itself....
Oh and during all this the participants say "Sawat di bi mai" or "Happy New Year!"
Fun, fun!
When the rain started to actually fall, Audt, Ning and the kids ran for cover, while Matt and I strolled there. I mean, we were all already soaked to the skin from the celebrators, so what's a little rain?
Our hotel, called The Tides Resort, was a very swanky hotel that was just across the street from the beach. It was probably about a four-star? Very, very nice.
(Durian is a stinky fruit that Thais love to eat. I've tried it a few times, and the taste just hasn't been worth the smell!)
The only down side that we ran into was the fact that the beds in our room were just barely larger than a twin. I don't know what was up with that, but after a very restless night of worrying that I was going to fall out or accidentally knock Matt out of the bed, we slept in separate beds on Friday night for the first time in our marriage. Heh.
sat 4/14:
We had breakfast at hotel, checked out, and headed off to the zoo. This was a kind of drive through zoo, where through parts of it one drives, then we parked to walk around to the various animal habitats.
Moments of note:
* Lemurs. I have always loved the lemurs. They are super cute.
* Deer. I don't recall what species these deer were but they had no horns (I didn't think to check on the gender while I was there with them). The coolest thing about the deer is that the zoo visitors (us) were able to feed the deer by hand, as the deer were more or less free ranging in the small field that was their habitat. The deer liked cucumbers, green beans, and especially bananas.
(me, feeding the deer)
* Giraffes. I got to feed giraffes bananas, too. Their habitat had a slope that led to the wall where we were and they waited patiently for us to break off bananas and give them to them by hand. Whee!
(me again, this time feeding the giraffes!)
* Binturong. It's Thai name is the Hooked Bear, but is also known as a bearcat, apparently. It's a native Thai critter, and I Googled it because we only took two pictures of them, and neither picture came out very well. Ah, well. Go go wikipedia! And Google, of course. Oh. Binturong are omnivorous and really like cucumbers. I think it was my favorite critter in the zoo. Hehe!
* Capybara. The world's largest rodent. I mention these because their Thai name made me laugh. Their Thai name is Ogre Rat (nu yak).
* Tiger cubs and a jaguar cub. These were separated from their feline parents and in a small-ish air-conditioned pen all by themselves. They were so very painfully adorable. Of course. And when I went inside the tourist shop (they were in an attached windowed room), I could hear them "roaring." I almost fell over because of the cute.
*Clouded Leopard. I wasn't able to take any pictures of the clouded leopard because the light was shining on the glass in such an inconvenient way. However, it was enough that I could see one after my recent research. ^_^
After the zoo, we hopped back into the car and drove back to Bangkok. When we got to the house, Art loaded up his water gun to go shoot the complex's guards (it was still Song Kran, after all). Amy was feeling pretty war-like so she started up a water fight with Matt in the garden. Heh. They both got totally soaked again, and enjoyed every moment of their mini-war.
Soon we're going to dinner, and right now Amy's going through my make-up bag (which has gone completely unused this whole trip). Each time she pulls something out of the bag, we go through a pantomime of what the item is. She has gone through the entire contents by now and is eating the peanuts I snagged from the flight. Heh. Next time we come, I'll bring her some honey roasted peanuts, because she likes them a lot.
sun 4/15:
Sunday morning we caught a cab from the house and headed into Bangkok to meet for church. We went to the International service, so everything was in English. I was able to meet up with the Judds, which was very cool. Iris Judd is a friend of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elizagoth's mother, so when Elizagoth's mom heard I was going to Thailand, she asked me to say hello to Iris for her. The Judds are in Thailand serving a mission as employment experts, which is to say they help local members of the church find jobs. Coolness.
After church we went back to the house and loaded up in the stationvan and went over to the Bailervelds. Bob (Mr Bailerveld) is an ex-pat from Denmark and Naa Nok, his wife, is Matt's effective second mother, and when I saw the look on her face as soon as she saw Matt, I could tell that there is a lot of love in her heart for my husband. You know how sometimes you meet someone and you can tell that they truly have a sweet spirit? That's how I felt about Nanohk. I can totally see how this woman must have reached out to Matt as a child and totally won his heart. Our visit was way too short, as we had to be at the train station before 8pm, but I am going to really push for us to have another visit with the Bailervelds on Friday before our plane leaves.
After our visit, we headed to the train station to catch the overnight express to Chiang Mai. Matt's mom arrived with her friend a good hour before the train was scheduled to arrive, which isn't surprising because his mother is very punctual.
While on the train, we chatted with the people sitting across from us. One was a young woman named Suzanne who was from Germany. She was going to Chiang Mai to go to a Buddhist retreat up at the Wat on Doi Suthep. I thought that would be so very cool, except for the fact that I'm not Buddhist, so that may have presented problems for them. But the meditation and other things I could learn doing something like that would be an unbelievably awesome experience. The other one was a man named Shoeb who was from India. He was just traveling Thailand since he had never been here before. Both were very nice and interesting people and we managed to waste away several hours visiting.
For once I didn't sleep too well on a train. Usually it's not a problem, but this time they left the cabin lights on, which shone right into my little bunk. Yick. So I slept poorly, but on the trip down I will definitely defeat that by wearing my sleeping mask. So there!
mon 4/16:
We arrived in Chiang Mai at 11am and were met by Sak Daa, a friend of Matt's mother, who also would be our host and tour guide. We loaded up our luggage and the five of us climbed into Sak Daa's Toyota. Since I'm the "young one" I got to sit in the center of the back seat. We dropped off our luggage at Sak Daa's house and headed out for some sight-seeing.
And let me tell you. There is plenty to see in the Chiang Mai province!
(Matt holding green and orange Fanta. Vendors keep the bottle/can because it's recyclable for money and poor the soda in a bag for consumers to drink. Heh)
Our first stop was the Wat (wat=Buddhist temple. I don't recall if I've ever actually mentioned that) at the top of Doi Suthep (doi means mountain). We took a lot of pictures (ok, we've taken a lot of pictures this whole trip), but the wat at the top of the mountain is gorgeous. It was built in the 1300s and it overlooks the entire valley. I felt a bit out of place due to the fact that we didn't get a chance to change clothing, and they request that visitors wear pants when on the wat grounds. Or maybe it was for entering the shrine itself, as no one stared at us and there were several other people in shorts as well. Ah, well. I just wish we had gotten a chance to change clothes first. I'd prefer to err on the safe, polite side.
(Matt - in the center- at the Wat Doi Suthep)
After we finished gawking at the beauty that was the wat, we headed further up the mountains to visit the Bhubing Palace gardens. Bhubing Palace is the Queen of Thailand's summer home. It's so high up the mountain that it stays pretty cool up there, relatively speaking. I think it was only 95 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the 100 that we've been dealing with pretty much the rest of the time here. ^_^
(Matt going up the flowery lane...)
Anyway, the gardens around the palace are simply exquisite. One of our favorite parts was the variety of roses that are planted there. Matt pointed this out and I found it very amusing - the different species of roses are planted so close together that they are cross-pollinating and coming up with some really pretty colors. I do hope the Queen doesn't mind, since it makes for a very beautiful accidental experiment, heh.
We headed back to the house, and were unfortunately faced with a very, very uncomfortable night. Our host, Sak Daa, recently built the house we're staying in and there was no air-conditioner for our room (or any other room for that matter. We would have happily slept on the floor for some good ole A/C). It wouldn't have been too terrible except for the fact that the house was so new that there were no screens on the windows. Disaster!
Now, to put this in perspective: while in Bangkok, I was eaten alive by the mosquitoes. They looooove me. At this point I can count fifteen mosquito bites on my limbs alone. I have a few on my back and shoulders, too. Anyway, if Bangkok mosquitoes are bad, I'm told that the mosquitoes in Chiang Mai are like ten times more plentiful. Yikes. So, no sleeping with the windows open.
What this amounted to was another miserable night for Jay (and Matt, too, of course), as I woke up every hour or so just because of the stifling heat. All the fans did was move around the stale, enclosed air. Boohiss.
tue 4/17:
Happy Birthday, Carol!
Tuesday morning started EARLY - we left the house at 5am. On the way out of town we stopped by Wat Chom Tong to take some pictures. All these old wats are just beautiful. Of course.
(Matt in front of the sacred Bodhi tree)
After the wat, we started our 245 km (150 miles) drive through the mountains to go to Mae Tong Son, where there are a lot of really cool natural caverns and caves.
Normally speaking, in the States at least, 150 miles takes how long? Two hours, I think? Well, they don't have any super-highways up here in Chiang Mai apparently. Or if they do, we didn't take it. Or it doesn't go from Chiang Mai to Mae Tong Son. It took us four hours to get to Mae Tong Son. Why? Because that road is so full of twists and turns and switch-backs that the driver can't often go faster than 50 miles per hour, and more often than not is going from 20 mph to 40 mph, and that's counting the time spent on the wrong side of the road to make the turns more quickly! Eeek!
Anyway, the first cave we stopped at was called Kaeo Komon Cave. It's statistics are: 390 feet long, 98 feet deep (under ground), and 1,706 feet above sea level. Oh, and 147 very steep stair steps. I know because I counted them climbing back up and out of breath. Anyway, we weren't allowed to take pictures, but Matt's mom bought a CD with photos of the cave, so we'll yank some pictures from her. The reason Kaeo Komon is so famous is because of the very, very extensive calcite formations, which were really quite awesome.
After that we went to Wat Phra Tat Doi Kong Mu, which, by "Doi" you can guess that this is another wat at the top of a mountain. Specifically, Wat Phra Tat at the top of Kong Mu Mountain. This one was slightly different in that the jedi was plastered white and all the out-buildings had more of a Burmese style architecture.
(Matt in front of the jedi)
Rather than all the dragon iconography which is very prevalent in the southern area around Bangkok, these buildings had a very beautiful metal-worked trim that really reminded me of lace. The watch point of Wat Phra Tat overlooks the city below for quite a breathtaking view.
We had dinner in Mae Tong Son, and headed to our second cave for the day: Thampla. Which, translated literally, means "Cave of Fish." Matt's mom told us that the fish come out of a crack in the water that flows from the cave. Interesting! So, we stopped at Thampla and had a nice scenic walk up the river to the cave. we could tell as that we were getting closer to the mouth of the cave because we could see so many fish in the water.
(Matt on a bridge on our walk)
According to the sign, the fish were a species called dace. I got some pretty good pictures of that, too. We wandered around and then we headed on the long drive home.
Remember I mentioned earlier that upon arriving in Chiang Mai, it was declared that since I was "the young one," I was relegated to the center back seat? Do that for ten hours on very twisty roads on which a car cannot even remotely maintain a specific speed or even course and see how sore you are!
When we got back to the house, though, blessedly our hostess had opened the windows and taped a window screen over the openings, so after a beautifully cold shower, I was looking forward to a solid night's rest.
wed 4/18:
This morning didn't start out quite as early as yesterday. We got up at 7am, but I did sleep so much better with newly applied window screens. Our room was so cool for the night that I had to use the supplied blanket. Thank goodness!
Anyway, we got up and had pah-tahngo with khai lua, and headed out to visit with our sister-in-law Audt's parents (not to be confused with Audt Matt's brother. Quick Aside: Audt is a Thai nickname that means "Tadpole" and it's given to males and females alike. It just so happens that in Matt's family there are two Audts. One is Matt's brother Nirundon and the other is Matt's sister-in-law Somrudee). I had met them before when they came to the states to support their daughter during her divorce from Matt's brother. Anyway, they were just as kind as I remembered. However, this visit reminded me how tiny they are. I really do feel like a giant here sometimes.
After the visit with sister-in-law Audt's parents, we headed to the touristy district for a little bit of shopping, and then back to the house to "rest."*
I'm not sure what is planned for tomorrow other than for certain we're catching the 4pm overnight express back south to Bangkok. Friday, hopefully, we'll spend the day with Audt, Ning, Art and Amy, and then have dinner with the Bailervelds before we catch our midnight-ish flight back to the States.
*Right now I'm in a suburb of Chiang Mai in a little internet cafe, paying 15 baht per hour (which is almost $0.50) to use the internet while Matt's mom is back at the house visiting with our hosts. Since I speak/understand very, very little Thai and their topics range from the possibly-slightly-interesting-but-about-nothing-that-we-know to the extremely mundane, Matt and I escaped here. I dare say that it will be $4 well spent ($2 for me and $2 for Matt on another computer). Whee!
Tonight, though, we're heading to Chiang Mai's famous Night Market. First of all, I think that name is very, very neat. And of course, in Thailand, having a market in the evening is incredibly smart, since it's so extremely hot during the day. Obviously. ^_~
Note (again): If you want to see any of the pictures larger, just right click and view photo. I made these smaller so they would load more quickly. If you want to view all the photos (these are only a very few!), go to our Thailand 2007 vacation gallery.
thu 4/12:
Thursday morning was very relaxing. We watched a few episodes of Band of Brothers and made sure we had everything packed for the road trip to the beach. Audt asked us to be sure we had enough for two days, just in case we decided to stay longer. Heh. No problem. Gogo clean laundry. ^_~
After Amy and Art got out of school, we headed out. I read a book this trip, as Amy was playing with her brother's Gameboy. Matt watched the scenery and poked me for all the cool stuff. It was about three hours from Bangkok to Bangsaen, which I'm told is one of the beaches more geared towards Thais than towards western tourists, and based on the lack of English labeled stuff, I'd have to agree. Apparently there's a very popular beach town called Pattaya pretty close by that all the tourists go to, so I got to see a bunch of Thais and very few westerners, which is fine by me. ^_^
We checked in to our hotel, got our stuff situated, and then headed down for a sunset walk on the beach. It's a very long beach, and that night many of the locals were out digging for crabs, cockles and mussels in preparation for the big day on the 13th, which would be the first day of Song Kran, the Thai new year and water festival. It was a very lovely walk. Not only did I get to see the ocean, but I got to watch people at work and many more at play in the low tide, playing soccer and all kinds of games in the water. The general atmosphere was one of mellow enjoyment.
Just after sunset we headed back to the hotel to meet up with Audt and the gang and went to dinner. Most dining that I've had here has been outdoors and this one was only slightly different in that it was outdoors and on beams over the shallow surf. We had all kinds of lovely sea food (yum!), and topped it off with some local flavors of ice cream. Matt had mulberry leaf ice cream and I had tamarind ice cream. I'm definitely going to pick up some tamarind candy to bring home because that stuff is good. And here I thought the only thing that tamarind was good for was hot red curry!
(Audt took the pic: Matt, me, Aim, Ning, Art. Didn't have any pictures with people in it of the hotel or beach. I have pictures of them, but just of the stuff)
fri 4/13:
Friday the 13th. April the 13th. Whee! Chok Dee!
I found out on Friday morning that Song Kran is not a seasonal holiday like Loi Krathong (which happens like the weekend after the first full moon of November or something - I'll look it up when I get home because I think I have something wrong). Anyway, Song Kran is not seasonal. It's every April 13. It's the Thai new year holiday that is celebrated by a huge, crazy water festival. Fun, fun!
So we start out with breakfast at the hotel. I had my first fairly normal breakfast, although I did supplement it with some noodles. But I had a croissant and some cold cereal just because I could.
After breakfast, our original plan was to walk the beach and maybe wade in the ocean, so Matt and I put on our suits and headed across the street. However, when we got there, the beach was crowded so we switched plans and joined Audt and the family at the hotel pool and did a lot of swimming.
For lunch we all headed back to the beach and rented a table under the umbrellas. Apparently there is wait staff there because we had food brought to us as well. Papaya salad, roasted squid, crab, all of relatively cool temperatures due to the heat, but still spicy, heh. Yummy!
(Matt, under the umbrellas!)
As we lay there under the umbrellas, I could see the clouds starting to roll in. Then the wind picked up. A lot. So we packed up our food and started to head back across to our hotel.
(Matt, Art, Ning, Audt, all eating as quickly as possible so we don't have to carry a ton back)
On the way, crossing the street, we got caught up in the water festival craziness. It was hilarious. Matt, Art and Amy were armed with water guns with which they defended themselves (and probably instigated, too). Trucks with the beds full of people with huge buckets of water drove slowly past, while the people tossed the icy water on the people on the side of the road, or on the people in the back of the trucks passing them.
(Blue shirt guy is a stranger tagging Art. Art is in the tan shirt, Matt in the red hat, and Audt in the red shirt. All enjoying the national water fight)
Occasionally, one person would trot by on foot holding a small bucket full of fine white clay paste, which s/he would scoop up in their finger tips and apply it to the face of the people on the sidelines. Or the people in the trucks. Or the truck itself....
Oh and during all this the participants say "Sawat di bi mai" or "Happy New Year!"
Fun, fun!
When the rain started to actually fall, Audt, Ning and the kids ran for cover, while Matt and I strolled there. I mean, we were all already soaked to the skin from the celebrators, so what's a little rain?
Our hotel, called The Tides Resort, was a very swanky hotel that was just across the street from the beach. It was probably about a four-star? Very, very nice.
(Durian is a stinky fruit that Thais love to eat. I've tried it a few times, and the taste just hasn't been worth the smell!)
The only down side that we ran into was the fact that the beds in our room were just barely larger than a twin. I don't know what was up with that, but after a very restless night of worrying that I was going to fall out or accidentally knock Matt out of the bed, we slept in separate beds on Friday night for the first time in our marriage. Heh.
sat 4/14:
We had breakfast at hotel, checked out, and headed off to the zoo. This was a kind of drive through zoo, where through parts of it one drives, then we parked to walk around to the various animal habitats.
Moments of note:
* Lemurs. I have always loved the lemurs. They are super cute.
* Deer. I don't recall what species these deer were but they had no horns (I didn't think to check on the gender while I was there with them). The coolest thing about the deer is that the zoo visitors (us) were able to feed the deer by hand, as the deer were more or less free ranging in the small field that was their habitat. The deer liked cucumbers, green beans, and especially bananas.
(me, feeding the deer)
* Giraffes. I got to feed giraffes bananas, too. Their habitat had a slope that led to the wall where we were and they waited patiently for us to break off bananas and give them to them by hand. Whee!
(me again, this time feeding the giraffes!)
* Binturong. It's Thai name is the Hooked Bear, but is also known as a bearcat, apparently. It's a native Thai critter, and I Googled it because we only took two pictures of them, and neither picture came out very well. Ah, well. Go go wikipedia! And Google, of course. Oh. Binturong are omnivorous and really like cucumbers. I think it was my favorite critter in the zoo. Hehe!
* Capybara. The world's largest rodent. I mention these because their Thai name made me laugh. Their Thai name is Ogre Rat (nu yak).
* Tiger cubs and a jaguar cub. These were separated from their feline parents and in a small-ish air-conditioned pen all by themselves. They were so very painfully adorable. Of course. And when I went inside the tourist shop (they were in an attached windowed room), I could hear them "roaring." I almost fell over because of the cute.
*Clouded Leopard. I wasn't able to take any pictures of the clouded leopard because the light was shining on the glass in such an inconvenient way. However, it was enough that I could see one after my recent research. ^_^
After the zoo, we hopped back into the car and drove back to Bangkok. When we got to the house, Art loaded up his water gun to go shoot the complex's guards (it was still Song Kran, after all). Amy was feeling pretty war-like so she started up a water fight with Matt in the garden. Heh. They both got totally soaked again, and enjoyed every moment of their mini-war.
Soon we're going to dinner, and right now Amy's going through my make-up bag (which has gone completely unused this whole trip). Each time she pulls something out of the bag, we go through a pantomime of what the item is. She has gone through the entire contents by now and is eating the peanuts I snagged from the flight. Heh. Next time we come, I'll bring her some honey roasted peanuts, because she likes them a lot.
sun 4/15:
Sunday morning we caught a cab from the house and headed into Bangkok to meet for church. We went to the International service, so everything was in English. I was able to meet up with the Judds, which was very cool. Iris Judd is a friend of
elizagoth's mother, so when Elizagoth's mom heard I was going to Thailand, she asked me to say hello to Iris for her. The Judds are in Thailand serving a mission as employment experts, which is to say they help local members of the church find jobs. Coolness.After church we went back to the house and loaded up in the stationvan and went over to the Bailervelds. Bob (Mr Bailerveld) is an ex-pat from Denmark and Naa Nok, his wife, is Matt's effective second mother, and when I saw the look on her face as soon as she saw Matt, I could tell that there is a lot of love in her heart for my husband. You know how sometimes you meet someone and you can tell that they truly have a sweet spirit? That's how I felt about Nanohk. I can totally see how this woman must have reached out to Matt as a child and totally won his heart. Our visit was way too short, as we had to be at the train station before 8pm, but I am going to really push for us to have another visit with the Bailervelds on Friday before our plane leaves.
After our visit, we headed to the train station to catch the overnight express to Chiang Mai. Matt's mom arrived with her friend a good hour before the train was scheduled to arrive, which isn't surprising because his mother is very punctual.
While on the train, we chatted with the people sitting across from us. One was a young woman named Suzanne who was from Germany. She was going to Chiang Mai to go to a Buddhist retreat up at the Wat on Doi Suthep. I thought that would be so very cool, except for the fact that I'm not Buddhist, so that may have presented problems for them. But the meditation and other things I could learn doing something like that would be an unbelievably awesome experience. The other one was a man named Shoeb who was from India. He was just traveling Thailand since he had never been here before. Both were very nice and interesting people and we managed to waste away several hours visiting.
For once I didn't sleep too well on a train. Usually it's not a problem, but this time they left the cabin lights on, which shone right into my little bunk. Yick. So I slept poorly, but on the trip down I will definitely defeat that by wearing my sleeping mask. So there!
mon 4/16:
We arrived in Chiang Mai at 11am and were met by Sak Daa, a friend of Matt's mother, who also would be our host and tour guide. We loaded up our luggage and the five of us climbed into Sak Daa's Toyota. Since I'm the "young one" I got to sit in the center of the back seat. We dropped off our luggage at Sak Daa's house and headed out for some sight-seeing.
And let me tell you. There is plenty to see in the Chiang Mai province!
(Matt holding green and orange Fanta. Vendors keep the bottle/can because it's recyclable for money and poor the soda in a bag for consumers to drink. Heh)
Our first stop was the Wat (wat=Buddhist temple. I don't recall if I've ever actually mentioned that) at the top of Doi Suthep (doi means mountain). We took a lot of pictures (ok, we've taken a lot of pictures this whole trip), but the wat at the top of the mountain is gorgeous. It was built in the 1300s and it overlooks the entire valley. I felt a bit out of place due to the fact that we didn't get a chance to change clothing, and they request that visitors wear pants when on the wat grounds. Or maybe it was for entering the shrine itself, as no one stared at us and there were several other people in shorts as well. Ah, well. I just wish we had gotten a chance to change clothes first. I'd prefer to err on the safe, polite side.
(Matt - in the center- at the Wat Doi Suthep)
After we finished gawking at the beauty that was the wat, we headed further up the mountains to visit the Bhubing Palace gardens. Bhubing Palace is the Queen of Thailand's summer home. It's so high up the mountain that it stays pretty cool up there, relatively speaking. I think it was only 95 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the 100 that we've been dealing with pretty much the rest of the time here. ^_^
(Matt going up the flowery lane...)
Anyway, the gardens around the palace are simply exquisite. One of our favorite parts was the variety of roses that are planted there. Matt pointed this out and I found it very amusing - the different species of roses are planted so close together that they are cross-pollinating and coming up with some really pretty colors. I do hope the Queen doesn't mind, since it makes for a very beautiful accidental experiment, heh.
We headed back to the house, and were unfortunately faced with a very, very uncomfortable night. Our host, Sak Daa, recently built the house we're staying in and there was no air-conditioner for our room (or any other room for that matter. We would have happily slept on the floor for some good ole A/C). It wouldn't have been too terrible except for the fact that the house was so new that there were no screens on the windows. Disaster!
Now, to put this in perspective: while in Bangkok, I was eaten alive by the mosquitoes. They looooove me. At this point I can count fifteen mosquito bites on my limbs alone. I have a few on my back and shoulders, too. Anyway, if Bangkok mosquitoes are bad, I'm told that the mosquitoes in Chiang Mai are like ten times more plentiful. Yikes. So, no sleeping with the windows open.
What this amounted to was another miserable night for Jay (and Matt, too, of course), as I woke up every hour or so just because of the stifling heat. All the fans did was move around the stale, enclosed air. Boohiss.
tue 4/17:
Happy Birthday, Carol!
Tuesday morning started EARLY - we left the house at 5am. On the way out of town we stopped by Wat Chom Tong to take some pictures. All these old wats are just beautiful. Of course.
(Matt in front of the sacred Bodhi tree)
After the wat, we started our 245 km (150 miles) drive through the mountains to go to Mae Tong Son, where there are a lot of really cool natural caverns and caves.
Normally speaking, in the States at least, 150 miles takes how long? Two hours, I think? Well, they don't have any super-highways up here in Chiang Mai apparently. Or if they do, we didn't take it. Or it doesn't go from Chiang Mai to Mae Tong Son. It took us four hours to get to Mae Tong Son. Why? Because that road is so full of twists and turns and switch-backs that the driver can't often go faster than 50 miles per hour, and more often than not is going from 20 mph to 40 mph, and that's counting the time spent on the wrong side of the road to make the turns more quickly! Eeek!
Anyway, the first cave we stopped at was called Kaeo Komon Cave. It's statistics are: 390 feet long, 98 feet deep (under ground), and 1,706 feet above sea level. Oh, and 147 very steep stair steps. I know because I counted them climbing back up and out of breath. Anyway, we weren't allowed to take pictures, but Matt's mom bought a CD with photos of the cave, so we'll yank some pictures from her. The reason Kaeo Komon is so famous is because of the very, very extensive calcite formations, which were really quite awesome.
After that we went to Wat Phra Tat Doi Kong Mu, which, by "Doi" you can guess that this is another wat at the top of a mountain. Specifically, Wat Phra Tat at the top of Kong Mu Mountain. This one was slightly different in that the jedi was plastered white and all the out-buildings had more of a Burmese style architecture.
(Matt in front of the jedi)
Rather than all the dragon iconography which is very prevalent in the southern area around Bangkok, these buildings had a very beautiful metal-worked trim that really reminded me of lace. The watch point of Wat Phra Tat overlooks the city below for quite a breathtaking view.
We had dinner in Mae Tong Son, and headed to our second cave for the day: Thampla. Which, translated literally, means "Cave of Fish." Matt's mom told us that the fish come out of a crack in the water that flows from the cave. Interesting! So, we stopped at Thampla and had a nice scenic walk up the river to the cave. we could tell as that we were getting closer to the mouth of the cave because we could see so many fish in the water.
(Matt on a bridge on our walk)
According to the sign, the fish were a species called dace. I got some pretty good pictures of that, too. We wandered around and then we headed on the long drive home.
Remember I mentioned earlier that upon arriving in Chiang Mai, it was declared that since I was "the young one," I was relegated to the center back seat? Do that for ten hours on very twisty roads on which a car cannot even remotely maintain a specific speed or even course and see how sore you are!
When we got back to the house, though, blessedly our hostess had opened the windows and taped a window screen over the openings, so after a beautifully cold shower, I was looking forward to a solid night's rest.
wed 4/18:
This morning didn't start out quite as early as yesterday. We got up at 7am, but I did sleep so much better with newly applied window screens. Our room was so cool for the night that I had to use the supplied blanket. Thank goodness!
Anyway, we got up and had pah-tahngo with khai lua, and headed out to visit with our sister-in-law Audt's parents (not to be confused with Audt Matt's brother. Quick Aside: Audt is a Thai nickname that means "Tadpole" and it's given to males and females alike. It just so happens that in Matt's family there are two Audts. One is Matt's brother Nirundon and the other is Matt's sister-in-law Somrudee). I had met them before when they came to the states to support their daughter during her divorce from Matt's brother. Anyway, they were just as kind as I remembered. However, this visit reminded me how tiny they are. I really do feel like a giant here sometimes.
After the visit with sister-in-law Audt's parents, we headed to the touristy district for a little bit of shopping, and then back to the house to "rest."*
I'm not sure what is planned for tomorrow other than for certain we're catching the 4pm overnight express back south to Bangkok. Friday, hopefully, we'll spend the day with Audt, Ning, Art and Amy, and then have dinner with the Bailervelds before we catch our midnight-ish flight back to the States.
*Right now I'm in a suburb of Chiang Mai in a little internet cafe, paying 15 baht per hour (which is almost $0.50) to use the internet while Matt's mom is back at the house visiting with our hosts. Since I speak/understand very, very little Thai and their topics range from the possibly-slightly-interesting-but-about-nothing-that-we-know to the extremely mundane, Matt and I escaped here. I dare say that it will be $4 well spent ($2 for me and $2 for Matt on another computer). Whee!
Tonight, though, we're heading to Chiang Mai's famous Night Market. First of all, I think that name is very, very neat. And of course, in Thailand, having a market in the evening is incredibly smart, since it's so extremely hot during the day. Obviously. ^_~
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Date: 2007-04-19 04:56 pm (UTC)I can't wait till you guys see what i did to your dog though, i think i broke him!! He was jumping up on me again last night, like so happy i was home and wanted to be loved on lol it was cute!!
I have some surprises for you guys in other ways too when you get home but we can go over that later.....