Blogs from North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 477

Today is Dec 15, 2005 (Thursday) We arrived in Sukhothai on Dec 11. On Dec 12, we took a walking tour of the old city of Sukhotai and saw a lot of ruins. Sukhotai Historical Park is a UNESCO site. Lots of wats (temples) from the Sukhothai period. Some are very impressive. We visited only the big wats within the old city wall on foot, and took about 400 photos. (Some must be good, I hope) Please check on this site for good information on Sukhothai: http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=574 On Dec 13, we rented a motorcycle (125 cc with 4 gears) and toured the outskirts of the old city of Sukhotai. This is just to continue the discovery of the old city of Sukhothai and the rest of the ruins. It costs 150B (About $4) to rent a ... read more

What a day...14 hours of touring the Northern most region of Thailand. I joined a few other travelers and drove to the northern point of Thailand where it meets with Laos and Burma and is called the Golden Triangle. It got it's name from the furious optium trade back in the day where the currency wasn't dependable so Gold was the only way to properly buy the drug in large quantity. Today it's a tourist attraction where 3 cultures diverge into one and on the Thailand and Burma side, there are markets galore. We took a very short boat ride up the river into Burma, then stopped over into Laos and did alittle shopping. The boarder patrol allows this if only a very short visit and Baht 20 transfer fee (for what, I have no idea). ... read more

Another great day in and around Chiang Mai. I rented a motorcycle and decided to drive out to a temple called Wat Rampeong to learn meditation from some English speaking monks. The motorcycle rental costs $3.50 for 24 hours....cheaper than the whole pizza and beer I had for dinner tonight (that was $4.00). Wat Rampeong is about 25 miles out from the city of Chiang Mai but pretty much a straight shot and easy traveling roads. On the way there I kept thinking about meditation and what I'd be asking the teacher and thought, I should stop for a bit of lunch before I arrive. So I stopped at a roadside restaurant which was not much more than a shanty with some tables. The people were wonderfully polite yet could not speak English any better than ... read more

I made it to Chiang Mai this afternoon, checked into the hotel, and hoofed it around town. Chiang Mai is more of a resort type town than Bangkok....more intimate, with lush green mountain jungle surrounding the city. This also the place where if you want to get up early, you can get out in the street with rice or water or fruit or candy and wait for the monks to come by. All their daily rations are from food donated by the towns people. In exchange they bless you with good luck. There's also a night market here that's basically more cheap street food under lights. I had a big plate of Chicken basil over rice for 50 cents. Even though the tables were so close to the road you can feel the cars blow past ... read more

Another week has flown by here in Chiang Mai. We thought we would update you all before we head off to Laos via the slow boat. We will head up to a place called Chiang Rai and then to the border where we will board a boat on the Mekong River down through Laos to Luang Prebang. Last Thursday was Nick's 27th birthday which was kicked off with the best present any traveller could want: toilet paper and M&Ms. In the massage class everyone sang happy birthday and in the evening we went out for a very nice and fancy dinner at a restaurant called "The House". All in all the beginning of 27 was good for Nick. We continued the massage class through last Friday. Nick was having a bit of a harder time bending ... read more