Thailand: March 2010

We finished up teaching at the end of February and after saying goodbye to our home in Chaiyaphum we headed for Chiang Mai on an overnight bus to meet my parents. We spent almost a week between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai (both in Northern Thailand). Chiang Mai is an incredibly beautiful and relaxed city. We spent our time there wondering around the city, eating so much food, and seeing some of the beautiful surrounding areas. Chiang Mai has a beautiful mountain, Doi Suthep, about a half an hour outside of the city. We spent one day seeing the Wat Pharthat, which is a beautiful wat set into the side of the mountain and overlooks Chiang Mai. This month happens to be the biggest month for hill tribes to set fire to their crops so it was a pretty smokey view but it was still a very beautiful wat, it had more gold than any other wats I've seen. We then went to the Bhuping Palace, which is where the Queen spends part of the winter season. The gardens were absolutely amazing. I know very little about gardening but could easily tell that these gardens were some of the most exquisite. The next day we went to an elephant show where the elephants were not only impressively well behaved but actually played harmonicas, danced, played soccer and darts and even painted pictures. After we got to ride the elephants. In both Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai we went into small hill tribe villages and in Chiang Rai we actually went far out of the city into the rural hills where the whole tribe lives. It was great to be able to show my mom and dad what we've learned about the culture and try to teach them a little Thai but also explore a new part of Thailand with them.

The weekend in between parents Dylan convinced me to try mountain biking and contrary to what Leah and Mike think (because I don't have a bike in the picture) I actually biked down pretty much the whole mountain, had a couple falls but with all the pads they gave us came out barely scratched.

P.S. Check out the photo Album, we put new pictures up a few weeks ago.