Grand Adventures and Household Chores
Reflections on our family’s adventures as we live, work, and play around the world
With fancy baked goods, homemade ice cream, and boutique style clothes and jewelry, the Ping Fai Festival in Chiang Mai felt very much like something we might have found in Oakland, California. (But with lots more Thai food.)
Continue reading “Playtime and S’mores at Ping Fai Festival”
We started 2015 in Zagreb, Croatia (with lots of snow) and ended it in Chiang Mai, Thailand (with no snow.) Theo keeps asking when the snow is going to fall from the sky, and we keep explaining that it’s unlikely, since the high regularly nears 90 F.
There are both markets and supermarkets near-ish us in Chiang Mai, but the markets easily win in terms of better produce, cheaper prices, and more interesting sites.
We stopped by this temple as part of a trip with Chiang Mai Biking. I’ve seen dogs at many temples and fish at some, but this one also had a rooster, cats, and rabbits. “Not for eating,” our guide assured us.
These bamboo sticks are filled with sticky rice and beans and then sold by the side of the road. Super yum.
Chiang Mai reportedly has over 300 temples (Wats). Thus far, I have visited 7 of them.
Most of the temple complexes within the city are open daily, making it easy to wander and appreciate without a plan. Since there are so many temples, it’s also easy to assume that wherever you are, you’ll likely be near one.
Continue reading “A Photo Tour of about 2.3% of the Temples in Chiang Mai”
In many cases, elephants are treated quite badly in Thailand – used for illegal logging, tourist shows, or street begging. The Elephant Nature Park cares for more than 30 elephants, many of whom were previously mistreated. Groups of visitors can feed and interact with certain elephants, but the elephants otherwise spend their time wandering relatively freely within the grounds of the sanctuary.
My Chiang Mai taxi driver was excited to learn that I recently lived in San Fransisco (Oakland, actually, but SF has better name recognition) and told me he was a huge 49ers fan, even though they apparently aren’t very good anymore. He started naming quarterbacks and such until it became clear that he knows at least 1,000 times more about American football than I do.
Sometimes, I’m a disappointing American.
