Mom found the perfect place for breakfast this morning: Good Morning Chiang Mai. Except... it wasn't there. After spending a trillion hours looking for it, we finally settled on some cheap coffee shop playing So You Think You Can Dance. Their waffle maker wasn't working, the pancakes were bland, and the fried rice was too onion-y. Ethan said that his mocha was good! We returned home and did nothing except dip in the pool (we didn't swim or dunk because it smelled strongly of lethal chemicals) until four. We got up and left for the Central Airport Plaza, where we ...
Our father decided that we should get up at the awful time of 6:40 am to be able to leave our hostel at 7:30 for Doi Suthep, the wat up on the hill. After climbing 618 steps and watching Ethan slowly eat a cup of hot corn (and discovering that the waffle man doesn't get to his shop before 9:30 am), we climbed back in our songtow and headed down the hill. Once we returned to Chiang Mai and had breakfast yet again at Nature's Way, we did homework, ate Magnum bars, and played Temple Run until about 3 o'clock ...
That's what the wall at the Thai Kitchen Cookery Centre says. (Not that I would know. I never saw the sign in person. I just saw it on the camera.) The Thai Kitchen Cookery Centre is where Mom and I went today for seven-and-a-half hours, from nine o'clock to four-thirty. We were picked up at approximately 9:01 this morning. We were the first of nine in our songtow and were followed by three British guys and a group of four with a couple from Malaysia and a couple from China. After a few minutes at the Centre eating sugared dried ...
That would be the sun. Today it was more than that: it was a skin-burning, egg-frying, ice cream-melting, sweat-inducing, kid-blinding, plant-withering ball of fiery fire. How do we know? We spent two hours in the light of the very same star you just read about. Where were we? We were at the Ratchapruek Royal Gardens, about 10K southwest of M.D. House. It was apparently funded by government agencies and large companies like Toyota and AirAsia. Some of the buildings were more interesting than others, like the Groundwater building. Ethan took the time to pump all six water pumps in the ...
Bhumibol Adulyadej- His Majesty's full name is Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramintharamaha Bhumibol Adulyadej Mahitalathibet Ramathibodi Chakkrinaruebodin Sayamminthrathirat Borommanatbophit" (Thai: พระบาทสมเด็จพระปรมินทรมหาภูมิพลอดุลยเดช มหิตลาธิเบศรรามาธิบดี จักรีนฤบดินทร สยามินทราธิราช บรมนาถบพิตร). He is called Rama the Ninth as he is the ninth in his line, and his job is called "Ruler of the Country." There are three books about His Majesty: The King Never Smiles, The Devil's Discus, and The Revolutionary King. All three are written in English; The Devil's Discus is written in Thai as well. All three are also banned in Thailand, as well as The King and I. However, in 1985, the king and queen ...
Today was hot. Okay, compared to, say, what we'll experience in India, it was not hot. But to our inexperienced selves, it was very hot. And we decided to walk (walk??? in summer in Thailand??? who does that???) to Wat Chedi Luang and Wat Phra Singh. Once we were done at Wat Phra Singh, much to our relief, Ethan got us a tuk-tuk and we rode home. Once at home, we lounged around for a bit after getting more Magnum bars and sandwich cookies (including blueberry ice cream Oreos) from the 7-Eleven. We finally went swimming in the wonderfully cool ...
This morning, other than breakfast and updating the pictures on this site, we did... nothing!!! We were going to go to church, but the English service started at 9 am. This we discovered at 11. Eventually, we left with a certain destination in mind. To get there we had to ride in a songtow, which is a red "bus" that works like a taxi but has multiple stops with each load, as different people want to go different places. These are usually red with green padding on the benches and walls of the truck, but there are also yellow songtow ...
After an extremely good breakfast at Nature's Way consisting of mango pancakes, banana pancakes, dragon fruit, Thai iced tea, and shakes, we did pretty much nothing the rest of the day. Well, nothing other than school and sorting pictures and reading. At around 2 pm, we finally got ourselves moving: Ethan and I went swimming for half an hour. I also got frustrated with some tiny ants for not caring about when we submerged the others (we didn't let any die, though!). Then we decided we needed Magnum ice cream bars like we had yesterday. So Ethan and I got ...
The Disney elephant certainly had big ears, and, compared to the size of his body, they were humongous. But he probably grew into them. Our elephants today at Ran Tong Elephant Training had huge ears. True, they were all full-grown, but, true, they weren’t blue animations. After a long drive up a road that makes our gravel road at home seem like a newly-paved freeway, we arrived at the camp. Since we were the first group to arrive, the elephants and the cook and all the mahouts were there to meet us. We walked for about five minutes, giving us ...
Today was spent with our friend Mr. Boon, who had driven us home from the train station on Monday and was familiar (in detail) with Chiang Mai. We had him drive us around to various places, and he was also a very valuable source of information about a lot of things, ranging from King Rama IX to Thai schools to street food. The places we went to today were as follows: Wat Umong- the tunnel temple. We were slightly dissapointed, I think, because on Trip Advisor it said that there were plenty of temples, it was interesting, etc. There was ...
We finally arrived at M.D. House around 9:30 yesterday morning. There we spent about five hours sleeping, rehydrating, reading, and eating (Jelly Bellies, of course!). We soon decided that we had done nothing for long enough, and we set out to find the Buak Haad City Park, which is about as far away from M.D. House as you can get while staying in the old city (it was the original Chiang Mai. Funny thing: Chiang Mai means "new city."). The old city (built in 1296 by King Mengrai) is almost a perfect square. It is surrounded by a moat and ...
Last night was, quite literally, a bumpy night. When we got on the train to Chiang Mai, we were expecting- well, I don’t know what we were expecting. I don’t even know what I was expecting. However, I have one-word descriptions on several different points: Funny- The lady selling the Lays and Pringles was going up and down the hall saying, “Sheeps, sheeps.” (She meant “chips,” but she had a very strong accent.) Overwhelming- At least, this is how I see the man who took our meal orders and served us. He was also our alarm clock, and as soon ...
As the miles of rails pass by, we get to think about what we did in Bangkok, especially what we did today: we hit three malls in the time frame of less than six hours. Obviously we didn’t hit every stall and shop, but we went to the important things: Cream and Fudge Factory (for the best ice cream since Friday) and Madame Tussauds wax museum. My experiences? I got to cuddle up to Justin Bieber, have a friendly conversation with George Clooney, be Oprah Winfrey’s guest, take charge of the Oval Office as President and First Lady Obama looked ...
Today we had a more relaxed day. After a typical breakfast (rice, eggs, mangoes, mystery sauce, chocolate soy milk, and pomegranate juice), we headed down the street to the Chimney Cafe for mochas and desserts: hot lava cake and whipped cream (I thought the sign said "Chocolate lava with whipped cream," but it said "and" instead of "with." They were right. There was more whipped cream than cake!), a brownie, and a piece of almond mocha cake. They weren't all for me... :(. I had the lava cake, Ethan had the brownie, and Mom had the piece of cake. We ...
Let me start off by saying we were neither high nor dry today. Now I will continue: We were going to visit the floating markets of Dar, but we, as obvious American tourists, were advised against it. Instead we had the second-most laid-back day of our trip. We had our typical breakfast of rice, eggs, and some mysterious (but thankfully mild and flavorful) sauce. We also had oranges. We spent a while after that just dilly-dallying until about ten. After a few stops, we finally got off the sky train at the Sala Daeng stop to visit the park given ...
Wow Eryn! you really are going all around the world!!!! LUCKY!!!! I’ll miss you @ school though 🙁
Eryn! Have a safe trip! I miss you already. And post a lot of things, cause I’ll be checking;) Love you TONS!
Good Morning Miss Eryn, Did you like bowling? Did you put the ball down the lane or were they gutter balls like I manage? I’m glad y’ll made it safely to the country of Siam. I’m assuming you have gotten warm, thaughed out or otherwise melted? You’ll get used to it as the days go by. Enjoy everything to the fullest. Laters, Love Grandma
Bowling was okay. Not my favorite … “sport”. (Honestly, I prefer minigolf.) Umm… it seems like half-and-half, but I think it was 1/3 gutter balls and 2/3 “good” balls. Oh, yes, we’re very thawed, and we’re melting through the back of our shirts. 🙂 I love you! Tell Grandpa and Zoie “hi” for me, and tell Grandpa I send my love!
Good Morning Sweetie, Well guess what…its raining. should be in the mid 60’s today. Did u get my reply from yesterday? when I pushed the Post Comment button it said the server was down or some such nonsence!
I’m getting ready to go to Curves. Today is the Garage Sale and its raining. Should have it on a different weekend.
Have fun today. Love you
Good Morning, Ethan!
The things and places you have already seen and enjoyed are very interesting and will be remembered for your life. But even more interesting to me is what you see when compared to the other scribes’ reports on this ADVENTURE. Keep up the good work!
Your discription of the Buddhist shrine/Temple leave me wondering how odd Christians must look to Buddhists.
I am really enjoying your notes.
Love, Gramps
Hi Eryn,
Wow! Is what I have to say! You have a great writing style, informative and entertaining 🙂 I look forward to your continuing sagas.
Happy trails!
Eryn.. it most certainly seems like you and your family are having a wonderful time
(so Jealous!) Love your stories, especially about your mom ! Thanks for keeping us posted.
Yes… but I tone down the stories of my mom a lot. 🙂 And, yes, we’re having a good time here in South Africa.