Tag Archives: Chiang Mai

M.D. Madness

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M.D. House was our home in Chiang Mai for three weeks. It had its good sides and bad sides. It had two pools, except it seemed like one was always dirty. There were also tadpoles in one and nasty chemicals in the other. They were both green except for when a ton of chlorine was dumped in. However, they were always a nice temperature and there was a place to jump off into the smaller of the two pools. The bigger pool got deep at one end and had a waterfall.

The breakfasts could have been better. We bought fruit to go with them after the first day, and the only two dishes we ever chose were French toast and toast and eggs. The orange juice was prepackaged in little plastic cups before it was poured into our glasses, but the coffee was good (if you like your coffee without cream, sugar, and scaldig hot. There was a creamer and sugar but it took too long to adjust the flavor to suit your personal taste). The rooms were spacious and we were never lacking in toilet paper, but the sheets were never cleaned. We could’ve gotten clean towels more often but sometimes we were home when the cleaning lady came by.

There are also annoying neighbors, but those come and go and we can only blame them for their problems, including yelling nasty things about Harry Styles and One Direction as a whole.

The people on the staff were amazing. They would always smile at us as we walked by and, after the first day, knew which two keys to give us as we walked by the front desk. This hostel was worth the money we paid (not very much) and it was in a great location, so, if a pool and clean sheets aren’t your top priority in a place to stay, I would recommend this place.

The Day of the Doi

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Today was another- and our last- day in Thailand. After waking up at an hour too early to write about, we went up to Doi Suthep and watched the fog roll in and out. Ethan and I also bought some bananas deep-fried in batter. These were delicious, although it was hard to tell how delicious they actually were because we wolfed them down so fast while they were still burning hot.

We had our typical breakfast at Nature’s Way: one mango pancake each for Mom, Dad, and Ethan, a banana pancake for me, a pineapple shake for Dad and one for Ethan as well, a pineapple-banana shake for Mom, and a watermelon shake for me. We were almost persuaded to buy a flower chain from the little old lady who was selling them on that street as it smelled so good, but we didn’t. I’m not really sure why.

Back at M.D. House, we finished packing and crammed our four suitcases, four backpacks, four people, and one hat into the van of Mr. Sombat. I decided that a van that big- it holds ten people plus the driver- would be a good way to carry my friends and me around town. Not that I actually have nine friends who would want to do that, but it was a pretty cool van.

We went up to Doi Kham which has a huge white and gold statue of Buddha. We were told that we didn’t have to take off our shoes to go inside the wat, which seemed crazy. But, being obedient little children, we did as the monk suggested and went inside, pausing to look at the Poster of Horrors on the wall. It said something in Thai, but the pictures made it obvious: the little blue people were the victims of the big yellow people’s abuse. The little blue people were being sawed in half, pressed to death, burned, hanged, poisoned, forced to work and climb cacti naked, and other horrible things.

The monk was, thankfully, right and we didn’t end up looking like the stupid tourists. There was a Thai couple who seemed very Buddhist. They had their shoes on.

Once outside on the balcony, we could see all of Chiang Mai. (All of it, that is, except for the part that was blocked by the hill to the northeast.) We could see, just below us, the gardens we went to a while back, where we first saw Doi Kham from afar.

Mr. Sambot took us back to the airport and we had Dairy Queen there. That was a mistake because we found chocolate Magnum bars in ToGo, a little store by the waiting area. Not that we were starving. My Blizzard was excellent, and the sandwich with mysterious contents on the plane was pretty good too. I don’t think it was so good, though, that the flight attendant needed to wake us up for it. We went back to sleep, though, and soon enough we were in Bangkok. Ciao!

Good Morning Chiang Mai Cafe

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We finally found it! We were in a totally wrong part of town when we looked for it last time, but Dad went to its website and we rode a tuk-tuk to Good Morning Chiang Mai Cafe. Well, not directly to it. We rode it to a wat and then walked around the corner to the “eclectic” cafe. The menu was pretty good and I got a tall stack of pineapple pancakes. They were called “Fruit Pancakes” but the only fruit besides pineapple was the watermelon that came with it. Dad had the fruit waffles and the yellow chicken curry, Ethan had the whole-wheat pancakes, Mom had the French toast, and each of us had a mocha, which was just a latte with a pseudonym.

We spent the time eating and looking at the three books in the cabinet by the beanbag I sat in. There were two modern hotel picture books and a book called An Idiot Abroad about a British guy sent by his two friends to go see the seven wonders of the ancient world. Dad does not have a very high opinion of it.

We visited the park in the corner of the old city, and there Ethan and I played hearts and sudoku on our parents’ phones. I also got frustrated with some stupid cannibalistic ants. Our steed home was yet another tuk-tuk, which we rode in only after Dad and the driver haggled over the price.

I’ve decided to let you in on a little secret: we’re going to Boutique della Pasta for supper. Ciao!

Boredom Buster

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I do not know anyone named Buster, but today was filled with boredom. After going to a wat early this morning, we went to breakfast at- yet again- Nature’s Way. I had a latte with chocolate syrup and a banana pancake smothered with chocolate syrup. After that very healthful breakfast, we returned to M.D. House and sat around for the next three hours doing nothing. Okay, we read. But that was it.

Ethan and I were going to go down to the computer room, but our parents had other plans: we needed to go to UPS to mail a package and to the market to buy fruit. On our way to UPS, we stopped at the Thai airlines building and Mom, Ethan, and I got to relax in the air-conditioned room while Dad took care of our flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok.

Once on our way again, we took a left turn and walked down the outer edge of the square part of Chiang Mai to find UPS. Well, we took a wrong turn. We finally discovered this and had to walk back and beyond, going almost to the corner. After buying a box and paying for the shipping, we lost an extremely large amount of money for two reasons: one, we were shipping finished school books home and, two, I sent away my foreign currency that I don’t need on this trip such as colones, pesos, and pounds.

We went back out into the scorching sun and walked around the corner of the city and all the way to the market, where Mom bought mango and pineapple. Ethan and I both got shakes: he got a pineapple shake and I got a mango-banana shake. Never again. Ever!

Once we got home, we did our schoolwork and went on the computers in the computer room. After a short visit there, we retreated to our parents’ room and looked at places to stay in Greece. Don’t worry! I won’t be a spoiler and tell you where we’re going! My dad can do that for me on the itinerary page. Ethan and Mom also finished their game of War. She won.

Supper was, for the third time, at Aum. We have plenty of memories there: playing the guitar (and fighting over it), Dad eating the spoonful of what looked like avocado but was really wasabi [horseradish] that came with our avocado maki (sushi with vegetables instead of meat. Aum is a strictly vegetarian restaurant), playing with the Barbie and trying to make her hair look less greasy, trying to figure out what the yak-like animal under “N” on the alphabet-board was, and discussing what a hard time the people are having at work without Dad. Would you like me to explain the alphabet-board? Well, we dubbed it the Periodic Table of the Elephants. It shows the Thai alphabet and our alphabet, and for each letter is a picture. For example, under the letter B is a bird with a ball and a boyfriend bird. It is named for the elephant under “E” because Ethan asked if it was the Periodic Table of the Elements. I responded, “No. It’s the Periodic Table of the Elephants.” Some of the other ones were not so obvious, but we decided that, yes, it is a xow underneath “X” with 1.5 bottoms.

We got Magnums at the 7-Eleven after discovering that the lady who did our laundry couldn’t find one of my socks. We didn’t get Magnums because of that, mind you, but because we hadn’t had ice cream all day (!) and desperately needed to. I find it amusing how at home a pack of gum costs about $1 and here it costs about $33.33 cents. Ethan wanted to spend his pocket change on things beside just ice cream but we had a record of 1:40 to beat on our way back. Guess what? We didn’t. But we did finish the easiest e-crossword puzzle on the website that I found with 30%. We got all the words/letters right (it tells you), but I kept guessing on the letters which lost us the 70%. With my parents’ help, though, I finally finished it. I absolutely hate to say this, but… I could have never done it without you. Ciao!

Smoothies!

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Today, in the afternoon, we went to the fruit market. There was more than fruit, though, there were fish, clothing and vegetebles. Eryn and I crossed the street and found that there were fruit smoothies as well. For only 20 Thai Baht, I could get a pineapple smoothie which I did. For 40 Thai Baht, Eryn got a banana and mango smoothie. They were really good, and they were so good that Eryn and I were still drinking them half an hour later.

The fish there varied a lot, there were fish dead, fish alive, and fish fried. We didn’t get any, but we saw a lot. And they smelled a lot too.

Buatong Bash by Boon

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Buatong Waterfall was our destination today, and after an hour on the road, we finally made it.

Buatong is named after one of the king of Lanna’s daughters. He and his wife were killed and only his daughters Buakaew and Buatong escaped with their lives. Alas, they had no water in the jungle, so they prayed to one of their goddesses for help. The spring came out of the ground and the girls were saved.

The water contains calcium carbonate which has turned leaves, roots, and other things there into smooth rock. Well, not completely smooth. If you’re climbing up or down the waterfall, you’ll notice that the places where the flow is weak are the slippery parts. (Those parts are also green, brown, or black.) There are three levels, and at the bottom of the third one are two shallow pools (one is made for you to jump into. The other is probably too shallow). The top level is by far the longest. From the spring, there is a deep little stream that turns into the falls. After centuries of flow, there are turns around trees that are perfect little chairs.

The second and third falls are much the same, and for the best part you can, like Ethan and I did, climb all the way up to the top in the falls instead of on the trail. If you want to walk 150 meters, you can see the crystal-clear spring. Besides the waterfall, there is a bathroom (Europeans/Americans be warned: these are not Western toilets) and two places to buy necessary food staples such as fried chicken, papaya salad, and ice cream.

We drove back to Chiang Mai in Mr. Boon’s car. He has been of the utmost help to us and we thanked him greatly. Ciao!

Mista Boon

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Today we got up early (again) to go on a ride with Mr. Boon to the Boatong Waterfall. Once there, we changed into our swimsuits and took off down the steps to one of the lower levels in the warm-ish water. But, since you don’t know what in the world I am talking about, I will describe the waterfall:

The waterfall is made up of four levels, level 1, level 2, level 3, and one that I made up…….Kind of. The top level (1) is the one that you first see when you drive up to park, it is made of limestone and it is surprisingly not slippery. The next level down (2) is about 80 meters down the hill and you take steps to go down to it. There, there are some ankle-deep pools that you can wade in and you can climb the waterfall up to the first level or go down to the third. On the third level down, there is a tall and steep face of the waterfall, but it is still easy to go down, and there are some more ankle-deep pools below it. The level that I made up was the one at the very bottom and it had some deep-ish pools that you could jump into if you decided you wanted to go down some more rocks (or steps, the steps go all the way down).

What we did was skip level 1 because there were a lot of people there, but we stopped at level 2. While at level 2, we climbed up a little and then went down the other side, then waded in the litlle pools before Eryn and I went down the waterfall to level 3 (our parents took the stairs). At level three, I climbed the face a couple of times, and in between, some college age girls wanted their picture with me for some reason. Then we went down to the level that I made up and saw a family jumping in of the edge of a ledge and into a deeper part. I decided to do that and it was a bit colder than in the shallower area. Then Eryn joined me and we both jumped in half a dozen+ times into the water. We (being my father, Eryn, and I) decided that it would be fun to go up, actually, Eryn and I decided, but my dad just followed us. We climbed up steep limestone walls and through shallow pools before reaching the top, where Eryn scraped her toes and started to bleed.

When we arrived at the top, we found my mother sitting there with all of our stuff and we put on our flip-flops and walked up some more stairs to the spring of the stream that created the waterfall. The spring was crystal clear and there were little fish in it. There were also buckets attached to bamboo poles that you could dip into the water and pour on each others heads. We tried out the dippers, and as it turns out, a quart sized amount of water can seem really heavy at the end of a piece of grass.

When we got back to the parking lot area, we saw that a lot more people had come, so we decided to grab ice cream and leave.

Bonjour

Recording Life

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Today Ethan and I finally beat our parents to the breakfast table. We were down at 7:43 am with the intent to pleasantly surprise them (“them” in this case being Mom). After some cajoling, our twosome became four at around 8:19. At church we visited the English Sabbath school and listened to the service and sermon,which was all about what women shoulwe wear according to the Bible, Ellen White, and the speaker herself.

Potluck was the high point, what with one of the boys turning two, and there were noodles, spring rolls, and chocolate cake. Three people from our Sabbath school talked with us about our trip, and we discussed their travels as well. One man had been to India, Australia, Burma, Thailand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Laos, Pakistan, Great Britain, Italy… the list goes on.

Once home, we read: I on my Kindle and Ethan 360 Degrees Longitude. We finally went down to the pool and disrupted the sunbathers’ orderly afternoon. We timed ourselves and I can hold my breath for a pathetic 31 seconds and Ethan a mere 24. I can also do an underwater handstand for only eleven seconds. Once dry, we were dismissed to run to the 7-Eleven for four Magnum bars. It took us 6:44 minutes total, and we were out with the melting and cracking for an astoundingly long time of 2:19. We enjoyed that chocolate as well as our panna cotta at Boutique della Pasta after our potato and olive pizzas. Ciao!

Jump, Splash, Scream

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That is what happened when Eryn and I jumped into the little pool from the jacuzzi above when it was surrounded by college-aged girls who screamed and had to redo their makeup. It was very entertaining…….

We swam for only 20 minutes, but in that time, we scared away some girls, had races, and timed the time we could stay underwater. I noticed that one of the girls was reading Catching Fire and had an iPhone 4 or 4s. I think she put away her book as soon as we started jumping, but weirdly, she took out her iPhone and started doing something on it. Maybe texting her boyfriend, if she has one.

For the races, we put our legs into the lotus position and then proceeded to see who could go from one end of the pool to the other and back (while staying in the lotus position) the fastest. I won the race, but when we continued on to a breath holding contest, I only got 23 seconds while she got 29. Too bad.

The last time that we had swam in that pool, we had noticed that there had been a lot of water bugs and tadpoles due to unchlorinated water. This time, however, when we swam we saw almost no tadpoles, and the one that we saw was very much dead. It was very good to know that we wouldn’t have to be worried at swallowing a live tadpole, but then again, we had to be worried about swallowing a dead tadpole…….Yuk.

Good Morning Chiang Mai

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Today we woke up early at about 7:00 am to get out the door at 7:30 am to get to a restraunt called Good Morning Chiang Mai, which is a little bit south of the M.D. House. We walked for a while, then when we, according to TripAdvisor, were supposed to be there, we weren’t….

So we walked a little ways down the street, still couldn’t find it, and then just decided to go to a cafe with internet that was right next to us. When we got done with the food (which wasn’t very good) we watched the original Hawaii Five-O on the screen in the cafe before heading back to the M.D. House, but not before looking for the Good Morning Chiang Mai which we never found. And that was how we got to be annoyed at how TripAdvisor is always wrong on its maps.

The Search for the Perfect Cafe Take 2

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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 found Ethan some lightweight shoes, got some chocolate ice cream at Swensen’s (Sticky Chewy Chocolate Fantasy for Mom and me, Chocolate Crunch for Dad, and an waffle bowl of some sort for Ethan), and had pad Thai noodles for supper. Ethan also got a pineapple shake afterward (we all tried some- so good!) and we all rode home in a little songtow. Ciao!

Conversational Monk

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Yes, we went to another temple today. Actully, we just went up to Doi Suthep to see the veiw and just hang around in the outer courtyard. After an interesting ride made up of 2 different songtows, we finally got up to the top on empty stomachs, which is probably the right thing, considering that we skipped breakfast in the morning, we walked up the great multitude of stairs to get to the outer courtyard that had a bunch of bells and large gongs (about 6 feet in diameter for one of the larger ones).

After walking around a little ways, we were looking at the veiw that wasn’t that much of a veiw, and a monk approached us, and with his somewhat limited English, began to tell us that he had come from an island in the south and showed us a map (in English!) of the island on which he lived. He also asked how old Eryn and I were and we replied in turn. It was a very interesting conversation because some of us thought that he was trying to get us to buy a tour boat service around the island that he lived on, but who knows??
Still, though, it was an interesting conversation.

Sunshiny Days

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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 was when we left for Mom and Dad’s foot massages (Ethan decided not to at the last minute) and my manicure (purple and gold!). Ethan sat on the couch for the whole hour and enjoyed the sticky rice candies. Each massage cost US$5 for one hour, and my manicure cost US$5 as well.

We returned to our rooms, took our doxy, and left at around approximately 6:44 pm for supper, which we had at Ourhouse, the restaurant  associated with the Ourhouse 3 guest house. The little girl of one of the servers, who was wearing a pink dress with Minnie Mouse on the front and Mickey Mouse on the back, was trying to be helpful. She achieved this by taking Ethan’s empty Fanta bottle and napkin off our table, which was only a few inches shorter than her.

It had been roasting hot all day, and as we left the restaurant, the rain started to fall. We had heard the thunder, seen the lightning, and felt the sudden chill, but we didn’t know when it was going to rain. We left in the nick of time. Ciao!

Open Casket Burial at Sea

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Yes, I know that we aren’t at sea, but there was a water burial today, and it was my hair……….So sad. Since Eryn and my mother were gone at a cooking class most of the day, my father took it into his hands to cut my hair. Since we didn’t have scissors and  I didn’t want a buzz cut, he used his hair trimmer to cut my hair, and he cut it very short. When he was done, there was so much hair that we couldn’t just wash it down the drain in the shower, we had to give it the finest burial that we could have in a bathroom. Not that many choices there, are there? Sadly, we didn’t have a goldfish to go with it. When I finally looked at myself in the mirror, I saw how short he had cut it and swore to myself that I would wear a hat for the next month.

As it turns out, I didn’t, we went to one of those ever present 7-11s and got me some hair gel. Then we got ice cream. It was very good and we relished every last bite of it.

For dinner we went to Boutique della Pasta and we had a Caprese, two Bruschettas, pine nut and raisin ravioli, ravioli with greens, and ravioli with ricotta with walnut. Last, (but definately not the least) we had a dessert of chocolate Panna Cotta. It was very good.

“Our Food is Guaranteed to Make You Look Pregnant”

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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 bananas, we got back in our songtow and rode to the market on the other side of the river. After our “guide,” Aum, showed us how to make coconut cream, which chilies are spiciest, and more, we had ten minutes to look around as she bought our groceries. I bought a pink Thai cupcake for five baht. Mom and I ate some of it (I didn’t like it very much) and saved the rest for Ethan and Dad.

Our ten minutes were up and we joined the rest of our group at the table with our baskets. We each got to carry some groceries out to the songtow. Upon our return to the Centre, we split into groups according to what noodle/rice we were making (the rice and noodles were pre-made). I was making the thick Thai rice noodles, so I joined a group with Tae and some others. (Tae is kind of important, but I’ll tell why in a few lines.) We cooked our egg, chicken, noodles, and herbs and ate the delicious dish. After we made that, we made and deep-fried our spring rolls (but we couldn’t have the peanut dipping sauce too spicy because we have a kid in our group [me]) and went to work on our green curry paste. This we added to our green curry, which included chilies (with the seeds taken out), chicken, eggplants (mini, of course), and some herbs.

Do you want to hear about Tae now? She’s from Wales and left her job for two-and-a-half months with her boyfriend Richard (who was also at the Centre). The reason she’s important is because she and I cooked the exact same things except for the dessert.

Before we could eat that, though, we had to make our stir-fried dish. I had chosen sweet and sour (my favorite!). That made, we joined the others in the air-conditioned room and savored the curry and stir-fry. The curry was amazing (mostly because there were hardly any spices in it), but the sweet and sour was kind of tasteless. We only had four pieces of pineapple to put in the stir-fry, but all four were very, very, very good.

We had an hour-long rest from eating, and then we made our desserts. Only three of us had chosen to make the fried banana with vanilla ice cream (the ice cream was pre-made). The other options were black rice pudding and sticky rice with mango. I tried my mom’s sticky rice with mango and found the rice’s sauce too salty for my taste. My banana and ice cream, on the other hand, was to die for. So was my panna cotta at supper tonight at Botique della Pasta. Ethan and I had it last time we were there, so we knew just what dessert to get. Ciao!

Hot and Dangerous

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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 front as we watched in the blessed shade. After that, we walked a bit farther to a little pond with a pagoda. Ethan and I were supposed to go to the pagoda and smile for the camera. I’m not really sure if we did that. All we really did was scare the hundreds of little fishies and make the water boil. On our way back to the main walkway, we saw a boot in a different pond. I’m still of the opinion that there is a body attached to it.

After drifting through the orchid section, we found the playground. It is hardly worth mentioning, but I will say this: there was a whale slide.

After [too] much more drifting, we found ourselves at the entrance buying deliciously cold water in .6 liter bottles. Those finished, we walked up to the monument for the king and looked at the walls, which show of his love for his subjects.

Our alotted time over, we climbed back in our song tao and rode off into the sunset. 🙂 Ciao!

All Flora and no Fauna

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Today we went to the Ratchaphreuk Royal Gardens and walked around for a ways, there was an orchid farm in it and it had a maze-like collection of paths that connected the sides and the back. As far as I could see, there were very few orchids, but there were lots of plants. When I heard from my mother that Eryn was in the back, I went there immediately and tried sneaking up on her but the fountain was motion activated so she knew that I was there before I even knew where she was. Then Eryn and I hung out in the back and interested ourselves with looking at the sign that said “Do not Inhale” and it was in front of a flower. I didn’t inhale. We sat back there until our parents came to the back an finished looking at the orchids.

There was also a couple of small ponds that had so many fish in them. There was a pagoda out on the biggest pond and fish stayed right underneath it so when they came out you could almost reach down and grab one, there were so many. I would have, but they are fast fish, instead, I got myself wet. Eryn also humored herself by taking off her flip flop and waving it right over the fish so the all ran in different directions. In one of the smaller ones, there was a pipe going through it and on that pipe there were a lot of snails the size of my fist. There was also a boot floating upside down and Eryn seriously wondered whether it was connected to a person, I said ‘no’.

The Royals

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  • 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 went to see The King and I on Broadway.
    He was born in 1927 Cambridge, Massachusetts, and  is the only American king. (He has dual-citizenship.)
    If you come to Thailand, do not dare to write His Majesty’s name in red ink. Writing someone’s name in red means that they are dead or that you wish them to be dead.
    HM is also an excellent saxophone player and has played with some of the world’s best jazz musicians. 
  •  Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya- Rajakanya is the oldest child of the king of Thailand. She has a younger brother and two sisters who are even younger than him. She has two daughters and had an autistic son, who died at 21 in a tsunami in 2004.
    She was born on April 5, 1951, in Switzerland. When she was sixteen, she and her father competed in the fourth SEA Games and won gold medals in sailing. Her parents nicknamed her La Poupée, which means “doll.” Eventually, it was shortened to Pée.
    The princess was born with the titles of “Her Royal Highness” and “Chao Fa,” but these she relinquished because she married an American commoner. She still holds the style of Tunkramom Ying, meaning “Daughter to the Queen Regent.”
    Her father is sadly getting older and will soon no longer reign. There is hot debate about who will follow him: will it be the princess, who everyone likes because she helps the Thai people, or will it be the prince, who would continue the tradition by becoming Rama X and who would get angry if his sister got the title but who the people think doesn’t deserve it? Ponder deeply.

    Ciao!

     

What Wat??

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Today was not a busy day, and we sat around and had naps for a big chunk of the day. In the morning, we had gone to Nature’s Way (again) and we sat around and had the same things as last time; mango and banana pancakes. An hour after we finished breakfast, we headed down the road for two Wats. One of the Wats was really big and had an old temple with elephant statues on the side of it and the other had a large temple building inside and was pretty big…..In the afternoon, Eryn and I swam in the deeper of the two pools and had a lot of fun, less fun, perhaps, when Eryn accidentally  made a big scratch on my back. For supper we went to back to the place where we had met the Oregonian family and didn’t see them but dined anyway.

Market Day

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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 pool. Once we got tired of that, we dried off, organized (i.e., deleted) more pictures, retrieved our clothes from the laundromat, and went in search of supper.

We didn’t find it at first. We were going to try Botique della Pasta again, but we passed it at 6:05, and it opens at 6:30. What a bummer. So we decided to try street food at the Sunday night market. All we ate in the “food court” section was a fried banana with a sugary sauce. It was good, but not very filling.

We looked around the market, and it didn’t seem that different from the Jatujak market, which was in Bangkok. Well, there was more variety in Bangkok. The Sunday night market in Chiang Mai is just a street that goes from wall to wall. It is lined with people selling their trinkets, baubles, and food and is filled with tourists, Thais, and musicians trying to earn a few baht. We bought two lamps (one for Ethan, one for me) and tried out our bargaining skills. We ended up with both lamps- originally 160 baht each, but we got a “discount” so it was 150 apiece- at 280 baht total (about US$3.70). After we walked up and down the street several times and looked at several restaurants, we decided on Aroon Rai, where we’ve gone before. (Mr. Boon recommended it.)

The food was good, as usual, and afterward we went to “Bird’s” (you want the real name? Fine. It was Bud’s.) With almost no chocolate left, we had limited choices. Well, there were only ten flavors in the first place, and only a few of those had chocolate (we can “only” eat ice cream with chocolate!). Mom had one scoop of rocky road, Ethan had one scoop each of rocky road and cookies and cream, Dad had one scoop each of rocky road and mocha almond, and I had a scoop of peanut butter (there was chocolate in that. Just a very small amount). It was very, very, very good (and it was cold, too. That made it even better!). Ciao!

To the Zoo!!!

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Today we went to the zoo in the early afternoon and stayed for about two hours. It was fun to feed the giraffes pieces of banana straight from your/my hand. We were going to go to the so-called “snow dome” but it turned out to be just an opportunity to get your picture taken in 19.4 degrees Fahrenheit next to a styrofoam snow man……Not exactly the best thing to do, even if it was only eighteen dollars for the four of us. Anyway, we also saw an elephant that had its tusks curled together so that it couldn’t skewer people in the passing buses that sometimes stopped there. The zoo also seemed so proud of the fact that it had some pandas, and it even had a gift shop that had some panda-dung notepads. We saw a couple of different varieties of big cats, including tigers, white tigers, lions, leapords, and panthers, and for the leapord, for twenty baht, I fed it a piece of beef on a stick.

The Search for the Perfect Café

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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. We call these “yellow red buses.” The lining of our songtow was pink.

Chiang Mai Zoo is what the sign says. But it is more than that. It is also a place to buy ice cream, land of the [lame] Snow Dome (-7 degrees Celsius, but it’s only really a photo oppurtunity), and the place to feed big cats (leopards, jaguars, pumas) and hand-feed giraffes. AND it is the only location of the Loo Café (I misread “Zoo” on the cursive sign).

After a very refreshing swim with Louisa (remember her? She’s the one who likes One Direction.), my family members chose the Free Bird Café for supper. It was being renovated. So we walked some more and found a [really good] Indian restaurant. The garlic naan is to die for!!!

Now I’m sitting next to Mom as she gets a foot massage. She says, “It’s wonderful… I could do this every [week].” Hmm. For US$5, I bet you could (and would) do it too! Ciao!

R&R

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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 to go by ourselves (!) to the 7-Eleven a couple yards down the street. We got three chocolate truffle bars and one chocolate ice cream cone, which was for Ethan.

For supper we went to a suggested restaurant: Aum. It had a very small downstairs and a fair-sized loft. We ate in the loft, where you could recline on chairs and play with the toys in the toy basket, including…. BARBIE!!! 🙂 Well, all we really did with her was do her greasy hair. Who knew synthetic hair could be greasy???

Our meal was good. We had deep-fried soybean leaves in tempura, red curry, spring rolls, green beans in a spicy sauce, brown rice, sweet and sour vegetables, and deep-fried tofu. To drink, I had a frothy pineapple lassi, which seemed the same as a pineapple smoothie. Apparently it’s made with yogurt, but I detected no difference. Ethan had apple Fanta, which he said tasted like Listerine mouthwash. Dad had a pineapple-lemon shake, and Mom had a banana-orange smoothie. For dessert, Dad and I went to the 7-Eleven and bought four types of cookies for 40 baht (about US$1.34): double-chocolate Cream-Os (Oreo wannabes), vanilla-chocolate Cream-Os, and strawberry and blueberry cookies, both by Dewberry. So far, the blueberry cookies have been the worst. Ciao!

Chiang Mai has Delicious Ice Cream

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Today we went nowhere. How fun…….Actually, it was fun, because we got to do what we wanted to do and nothing was scheduled so we just sat around in the air conditioning reading books and sorting pictures on the computer. The highlight of my day (and probably Eryn’s too) was swimming in the pool. The water was a little cold and we had to dunk a couple of times before we were warmed up enough to swim around. We had a couple of races and breath holding contests before we “discovered” a new stroke and I call it the squid stroke. It is where you are going back-first underwater and you just kick, and you don’t use your arms. Also, when I came back from using the bathroom, Eryn was giving a lecture to some ants that were walking across the filter in search of food; she was blocking one off to prove that they didn’t care about one another and all they cared about was getting food back to their home. As it turns out, she was right, and when she barricaded an ant off from the rest and it was stuck, no other ant came out to help it. When we got out of the pool, we read a little bit before going across the street to an ever-present 7-11 and bought ice cream for us all. It was really good. I got a chocolate cone, and the rest of my family had a Chocolate Truffle Magnum Bar. When we got back, my dad was editing pictures from the wax museum, and some of the pictures were of Eryn with “Justin Beiber.” Oolala……not.

Splish Splash goes the Elephant

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Today we went to an elephant training camp and rode elephants for some of the day, here are some of the things that we did,

Getting There, A pickup truck picked us up at our place and we got to ride up to the mountain tops with my family, a couple from Canada, some french people, and two young women from England. It was a very bumpy ride once we had gotten off of the paved road and it was mostly dirt. Sometimes, though, there were strips of concrete that you could drive on that were very narrow. When we finally got there, we saw a bunch of elephants and their trainers working on some projects. We had to follow all of the elephants up a mountain trail and across the same stream three times to get up to the base camp where there were some tables and bathrooms.

Training, Before we started anything, they gave us clothes to change into so that we did not get any of our clothes that we had on sopping wet. The clothes were just an itchy shirt and some itchy pants, it was all very itchy. When we were all changed, we started our training. We had to learn about the elephants and their basic commands, it was very interesting, and I do not really remember anything except for that saying “by” makes the elephants go forward. We also learned how to get onto our elephants that we were going to ride.

Riding in a Loop, When we started out, we rode two to an elephant and rode in a small loop that lasted about 30 minutes. My dad and I were at the front of the line of elephants and the guy that was leading tossed back a bunch of bananas that we could feed to our elephant that we were riding. Our elephant was a mother of a 6 month old calf, and the calf stayed up with us the whole ride, and the guide gave it some pieces of sugar cane. While we were riding around in the loop through some marshy grasslands, it started to rain and we were glad when we finally got back to the “camp” to eat lunch.

Lunch, When we got back from the short ride of about 30 minutes, we found lunch prepared for us at one of the tables under a roof. Lunch consisted of noodles wrapped in banana leaves and spring rolls that you got to make yourself. That was all pretty good and we all ate a good amount, when we got done, we started out on another elephant ride up to a waterfall.

The Waterfall, When we finished lunch and the other group had come back, we got back onto our elephants and started up the hill to the waterfall, which formed a pool that stayed in place because bags of soil made a small wall. At the waterfall, there was a young elephant that was trained to spray people with water from its trunk and we all got wet from that. Also, you could pose with an elephant or get “kissed” by one and then you would have an interesting picture. You could also scrub the elephant with brushes that were up there or you could splash other people with water from buckets. On the way back to the camp, we rode on a different path that went uphill a lot but still down hill a lot. When we got to camp, we changed out of our wet clothes and back into our dry ones so that we did not smell like elephant on the ride back down the mountain.

Going back DOWN, The ride back down was a bit more slippery because it had rained and the road was all slick, but we did not crash, which was very good. Once we got back onto paved roads, our driver took us to a place that sold ice cream and we all got some. When we finally got back to our home at the M.D. House, we started on “real” work…….

Evening Fun, In the late afternoon and evening, Eryn and I swam in the other pool and found a pair of sunglasses and tried to jump in and come up with the sunglasses still in place. When we finished, we went upstairs like obedient little children and started our schoolwork. For supper, we went to a place that Mr. Boon had recommended us to go to and right on the table next to us, there was a family from Portland……WOW!!! My mother chatted with them for a little while before Eryn my dad and I joined her and we talked a little about our trip and the fact that they are away from home for 6 weeks. Their family consisted of a 6 year old girl named Sadi, a 13 year old girl named Summer, a dad named Jim, and a mom named Brook. On our way back home to the M.D. House, we stopped and an ice cream shop and got some more ice cream to take back to the M.D. The ice cream was really good and I think that we all enjoyed it. Anyway…..When we got back, Eryn and I finished up on homework and read a little bit out of our books.

Dumbo

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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 time to think about what we were about to do and who we were with.

First there were the two college-aged British girls. One especially (Lizzie, I think) was outgoing and laughing. The other girl was quiet around the other eight of us until the ride home. Maybe it was because the oldest two in the group- my parents- were in the cab of the pick-up, but maybe not. Then there was the Canadian couple. They spoke both French and English fluently, which is good because they’re going to university in Ottawa and I overheard them say that the university classes are taught mainly in French. She is a med school student who will graduate in 2014 (there was a sign on her backpack). The French couple was probably relieved to find more French-speakers on the trek, but they could speak English just fine.

We finally arrived at the Ran Tong camp. The Canadian couple, Ethan, our guide, and I were the first to arrive (everyone else was behind the mom and baby elephants). We were given our mahout clothes and told to change. Because Ethan and I are so small, we had red shirts and everyone else had pink striped shirts. The rope on the shorts went around me twice and dragged a couple inches on the ground.

We sat at the picnic table under the first shelter and listened to our guide explain the instructions for an elephant. “Sie” is left, “qua” is right, “how” is stop, “toi” is back, and “bie” is forward. We then practiced on the one male elephant they had and then boarded our own. Everyone had to ride with someone else except the two Canadians. Luckies.

Ethan and I were the drivers on our elephants, and Dad was Ethan’s passenger and Mom was mine. Our elephant was always begging for bananas (which we had). We were at the end and Dad and Ethan were one of the two elephants at the front. The four elephants in the back were so slow because we all got stuck behind the biggest elephant.

After a short ride, we went to the second shelter for lunch: pineapple, noodles, and make-your-own spring rolls. The second group had arrived by then and went on the elephants for the short ½ hour introductory ride. By the time we finished lunch, a third group (that was thankfully only hiking, not riding) had arrived and the second group had started their lunch. We got on the elephants for a second time, this time going to a waterfall. Mom and I rode a 22-year-old elephant named Mesvah (or something close to that).  Once at the waterfall, two elephants were left behind as the others went to go bring the second group. We were supposed to wash them, but Mom, Dad, and I weren’t too keen on the getting wet part. We did go in the water for the pictures, though. There were certainly a lot of those. We also got sprayed by the elephant, which is why one side of me was soaked and the other side was hardly wet. (I was facing away from the elephant so I wouldn’t get water in my eyes.)

After the elephants finally returned with their human loads, we got on- this time I was with Dad- and rode back to camp on the path that went up and down the side of the hill instead of along the stream. My passenger was groaning the whole time, and it was uncomfortable too.

As he put it, “It’s like riding a piece of plywood with a three-inch bump in the middle.” That’s because he rode on the actual back, not at the neck like I did. It started raining once we were about half way through, and, combined with the waterfall water, we were soaked by the time we returned to the camp. We changed into our own clothes and walked to the truck. There we saw the cook. She had slipped in the mud from the rain and her whole back was covered in mud. And her shirt was white.

The rain had also done wonders to the road. Well, not really. It seemed the same as before just with slightly deeper puddles. I was on the end of the bench that was at the edge of the bed, so I could “almost” fall out (but only if I tried). My parents were smart enough to grab a ride in the air-conditioned cab. As we drove down the road that consisted of two one-foot-wide lines of concrete (washed away in places by the torrential rains), we peered behind us at the slick road that was really only red mud. Oh, yes, and the concrete!

We stopped at a little roadside store for drinks, but only Lizzie bought a drink (a can of Coca-Cola). However, all of us bought either a Magnum chocolate cone or ice cream bar- “made with real Belgian chocolate!” They were so good. There a can of seaweed Pringles was bought, and those of us in the bed of the truck shared the chips on the way to Chiang Mai. They just tasted like regular Pringles instead of some “special” flavor.

We dropped of the two Brits first, and then came the M.D. House. We were the only ones who got out, but it was good to be home, sweet home, at last. Ciao!

Tigers!!!!!

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Today, we went on a tour with Mr. Boon and got to see a couple of things, here is the list: we went to Wat Umong, Doi Suthep, the Orchid Farm, and the Tiger place.

Mr. Boon picked us up at our place and took us to the following things, waiting for us at each place:

Wat Umong: Wat Umong is a temple up on the hills surrounding Chiang Mai, it has a tunnel system that runs underneath some bricks, where there are bowls and multiple statues of Buddha. It also has a lake where you can buy food and feed it to the pigeons or the fish, sounds kind of anti-temple, doesn’t it? Then we went to Doi Suthep

Doi Suthep: Doi Suthep is a temple on another hill that is built on the place where a white elephant died. The legend tells it that a king ordered that wherever the elephant died, a temple had to be built, and so, there was a temple, and there was a hermit there named Suthep, so someone named the temple Doi Suthep, after that hermit. It took about 100 steps of vendors and 200 of steep stairs (300 total) to get to the top of the hill where the temple is situated (there was also a tram, but we didn’t use that). Once on the top, you can either go up a little bit further to the inner part of the temple or walk around the outer bit, we chose the former. Inside the top part, there is a golden dome that people walk around saying prayers. There are a couple of Buddhas with five heads, and a green-colored stone that was made into a Buddha. There was also a little stone wall that was covered in coins. There were two buildings on opposite sides of the inner courts that both had a bunch of Buddhas and some elephant tusks. After we saw all of that, we went down to the outer courts and explored a little bit there. There are two big drums laying on their sides in carts, also, there are a lot of different bells. Then there is a statue in commemeration to the white elephant that “founded” the temple. Then we began our grueling descent back down the mountainside. When we got down about three quarters of the way, we came across a man selling waffles, so we bought a few. There were waffle sandwiches with chocolate inside, and a banana fried that was wrapped in waffle. My dad ordered some corn across the way. Then we went to the Orchid Farm.

Orchid Farm: At the orchid farm, the first part of it is a butterfly enclosure with lots of different types of butterfly. After that, we went out of the other door of the enclosure and entered the “real” orchid farm. In that part, there were lots of different colors of orchids, red, purple, blue, orange, pink, and a lot more that I don’t care to list. In the gift shop, there were some necklaces that were made out of real butterflies and orchids, they had been dipped in some sort of glaze and then rimmed with gold. Then we went to the Tiger place.

The Tiger place: At the tiger place, there were 3 different kinds of tigers that we got to see and touch, large (full grown), small (“teenagers”), and smallest (cubs.) Eryn and I were only allowed to see the small and smallest ones, too bad. I liked the small ones the best (maybe they just reminded me of me when I fight my sister, but who knows???) because the were more fun to be around since the littlest ones who didn’t do much at all. Later, when we were having snacks of ice cream and pineapple juice, we saw a man playing with the full grown tigers, making them chase some pieces of dried grass. Eventually, one of them got it and sat there, in the little pond, chewing on it while the rest of them chased a “flying” coconut. Then we went back to our place.

Our place: When we got back to our place, Eryn and I swam in the pool before going inside and working on schoolwork. Boring…….Yawn. Anyway, when we got done sorting some of our pictures and doing most of our schoolwork, we all went to the Italian place right down the road from the M.D. House (our place.) For supper, we had pasta and ice cream. YUM!!

Tomorrow: Tomorrow, we are going to an elephant place by a bumpy pick up truck ride. We have to get up at around 6:30 AM to be downstairs and waiting to be picked up somewhere in between 8:00 and 8:30, and somewhere in there, we have to squeeze in breakfast. Now that is going to be soooo much fun.

Happy Fourth!

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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:

  1. 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 a fish pond, too, and apparently it is a good investment to buy fish and pigeon feed and sell it to visitors at the wat. There were two Thai ladies there who had dozens of pigeons around them.
    We were also growled and fauxtacked by the stray mutts there. There must be at least twenty of those creatures there.
  2. Doi Suthep- There are 309 stairs to get to the wat at the top. That, OR you can take the tram. Obviously we walked. On our way down we stopped at the waffle shop, and Ethan and I got waffle-and-chocolate sandwiches and Mom got a wafflized banana. (A banana wrapped in waffle.)
  3. Orchid and butterfly farm- One of the most beautiful places in the world. First we went in the butterfly section, where Mom, Ethan, and I got some amazing pictures. Drifting on into the orchid part, we found the best and most colorful blooms placed at the ends of the long aisles, but there were some pretty ones in the actual aisles, too. The most interesting part? The orchids aren’t in pots; they’re just hung from a hook once they get to a certain size/age.
  4. Tiger Kingdom- I’ll admit it now: I was scared going into it. I was thinking, They’ll bite. Of course they’ll bite. I’ve seen Animal Planet enough. They stress that, despite what it seems, animals like tigers are still wild animals and can still act viciously.
    Which they (kind of) did. Just not to me, or anyone, for that matter. Just to their playmates.
    We couldn’t go in and see the newborns in the nursery because it was off-limits to visitors, and Ethan and I couldn’t get in the cage with the big cats because we’re under 15 and less that 160 centimeters tall. But Mom and Dad survived.
    We did get to cuddle with the 3-4-month-olds and laugh at the 5-7-month-olds’ antics. That wasn’t even the best part- we got to see three (and, sometimes, all four) of the big tigers play after we had our ice cream and pineapple drinks. They destroyed all the toys that got in their reach, though.
  5. M.D. House- Where we swam. It only rained for about three minutes total today.
  6. Boutique della Pasta- An Italian restaurant for supper. We all shared the appetizers: caprese and bruschetta. I had pumpkin-carrot ravioli, my dad had cheese ravioli, Ethan had an orange sauce with his pasta, and my mom had a pesto sauce with hers. We all had dessert. Ethan and I had a sort of chocolate pudding (Panna Cotta), Mom had tiramisu, and Dad had, I think, a scoop of chocolate ice cream. That was when we heard the fireworks, reminding us to celebrate our country’s independence from Britain.
    We asked the lady who worked there what the fireworks were for, and she said some sort of festival. Mr. Boon had explained that tonight all those who wanted went the 15K up the hill to Doi Suthep. It was a traditional Buddhist Chiang Mai celebration of sorts.
    Still, I’m sticking with it: some Americans set those fireworks off knowing today was the fourth of July.

 Ciao!

When in Chiang Mai

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So, we arrived in Chiang Mai last Sunday and have found our place of residence; the B.D. House in the inner city.

Our accommodations are situated right inside the moat that surrounds the old city. It is a fairly large place with two pools, but it has only a small breakfast menu. We are in the second building, on floor 3, and we are one of the few people on our floor.

Let me fill you in on what happened since I left you in Bangkok:

  • We got to the train station around 4:30 PM on Sunday after we had gone to 3 different malls in the center of town. On the train ride, we had first class seats (did I say seats, I meant bunks) that were in adjoining compartments. On the train ride, we had supper, which was good, and breakfast was pretty sparse, the only part that most of us ate was the toast with butter. It was a bumpy night, but most of us slept all right, but still, we were all tired in the morning.
    When we got to Chiang Mai, we went to our place by a taxi man (who had a long Thai name, so he called himself “Mr. Boon” and said that Daniel was his brother) and went to the park at the corner of the old town after a time where we just sat on a couch for a while. Then we tried to go to an Italian resturaunt, but found out that it was closed, so we went to a place a little ways down the street from our place that served good food, and both Eryn and my mother commented on how great the iced tea was.

Today:

  • Today, when we went down to breakfast, Eryn, my mother, and I all got “french toast” which was little more than glorified toast.Then we went to the Airport Plaza Mall and went around the food court, eating coconut ice cream and fried bananas. When we came “home” Eryn and I swam, and met a 13-year-old girl from Brazil named Louisa. When we got out of the pool, we went upstairs and got our schoolwork done, before going out to supper in a tuk-tuk. It took us about an hour to get there, because our driver didn’t know where in the world (Chiang Mai, that is) our resturaunt. The food there was o.k. But it wasn’t my style. It was a curry soup that you got to put your own condements on, such as cabbages, challots, fish sauce, coconut milk, sugar, lime, pepper paste, and banana slices. As it turns out, when we got a tuk-tuk to go back, it only took us about 5 minutes to get back.

Tomorrow, we are going to go on a ride with Mr. Boon and go to tourist places. Then, on Thursday, we are going to the elephant farm. And that is as far as we have planned ahead.

Our 2 days in Chiang Mai have been very nice and interesting ones, and we hope to have many more.

Taking M.D. House by Storm!

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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 walls that were built to protect it from Burma, which was a constant threat to the Thais who lived there. Chiang Mai was Chiang Rai’s successor as capital of the Lanna Kingdom. It was also another replacement- the replacement of the old city called Wiang Nopburi, which was once a bustling city on the same land as Chiang Mai is today. The walls are ever-shrinking because of erosion and people.

The park itself was full of teenaged Thai couples just out of school (It seems like Thai kids go to school every day of the year, even now, in July, and on Saturdays and Sundays.) and male pigeons trying to get a girl. Ethan took the oppurtunity to ride the swings that were chairs (they had backs), and the rest of us just sat and soaked up the shade. Ah, what a life! And then our stomachs growled.

We had had next to nothing to eat the whole day, just some water, juice, hot chocolate, and two slices of bread for breakfast on the train. Oh, and a handful of Jelly Bellies. Can’t get much better than that!

So we returned to our hostel and found the perfect place for supper: Boutique della Pasta. Yes, it is Italian. Well, we never tried it. After we finally found it on the alley we had passed ten minutes earlier, we discovered it was closed. But we kept going, knowing there were more Thai restaurants nearby. We finally found it, a place with a name that we can’t remember, where we found young coconut curry, spring rolls, mango curry, glass noodles, banana curry, and the best iced tea I have ever had. (I don’t usually have iced tea.) It seemed like it was sweetened with honey, but it just had condensed milk and sugar in it. It was mostly ice in the cup, yes, but ohsogood.

After the bill had been paid, we returned home and swam in the less green of the two pools. The waterfall had sadly been turned off, and the water seemed almost frigid, but we got numb and got used to it.

This morning we ate a meager breakfast and planned our two weeks here. Our plan for today had originally included the Dok Mai Garden, but it got shortened to just the Central Airport Plaza. Now that’s a plaza. (Haha. It’s a mall.) We only did the first floor and the below-ground floor. There’s a Northern Village section of each floor with handicraft items from some of the villages here in northern Thailand. On the food court floor (below-ground), there was a HUGE Thai food section, and we enjoyed two sticks from Banana Grill and coconut ice cream in a coconut. The sticks had three flattened slices of banana that were grilled and dipped in a delicious sauce. The coconut ice cream was just coconut ice cream, except for it was topped with nuts and it was in a coconut with real coconut shavings in it. Yum!

While swimming after all that hard shopping, we met a Brazilian girl named Louisa. She’s (obviously) staying at our hostel, speaks a good English (especially as a second language), and is thirteen. She likes One Direction too! And pink! And she helped me attack Ethan. She tickled his feet as I flipped him over in the pool.

Supper was at the suggestion of our renters, the Hernandezes: Just Khao Soi. When we finally got there after a few wrong turns in our tuk-tuk, it teaches you how to eat northern Thailand’s dish that binds “oil-splattered mechanics” and “polished secretaries” together. It’s very interesting- you have a bowl of soup with noodles in it and seven food items you can use to fine-tune the soup to your taste. The options were coconut milk (for texture), sugar (for sweetness) , cabbage, shallot (for “tanginess”), peppers (for spiciness), lime (called lemon here), and fish sauce. The vegetarian soup came with soy sauce instead of fish sauce (for saltiness). It was very, very good. Now I’m writing from the Computer Room here at our hostel. It’s getting late. Ciao!