Posts From Thailand

In yesterdays post I forgot to explain the Shompoo in the title. Not surprisingly it is the name of the Tour Company that runs the cruise. The boats resident guide made a point of telling us that is was not "Shampoo", and that it was the word for "pink" which was the color of the soft furnishings on the boat.

This is our only day in Chiang Rai and we were scheduled to see "some temples" and an "old house". But as it turned out this was a very inadequate description. But before starting on our tourism activities for the day the first 2 photos are of a plant at our hotel called a Cannon Ball Tree

There is not much to say today. We were able to relax at the hotel this morning awaiting our 13:00 pickup for a drive of about 3.5 hours to the city of Chiang Mai. The quality of the roads were a positive surprise and as much of the drive is through mountains also scenic and interesting. As it turned out our hotel in Chiang Mai is downtown, just outside the large square area of the old royal city. It is Banthai Village

Today was billed as one of the highlights of this trip and so it turned out. We visited one of the 100s of Elephant Sanctuaries in the Chiang Mai area and really did not know what to expect. At a roadside cafe overlooking a vibrant fruit and veg garden we met our host Dom and after a short wait and coffee we got started with a ride of 10-15 minutes on a bamboo raft which took us to the Elephant Sanctuary. Later in the day we would discover that these rafts are a popular afternoon entertainment with the local young set, and by the time we finished our elephant visit, many groups of locals were riding rafts and stopping for beer and food at one of the many riverside impromptu cafes.

Today was a sort-of city tour and started at two inner city markets. The first was the wholesale food market and the second a large drygoods market. As is typical with such market visits we got to see all the obvious foods as well as some not so obvious.

Arriving in Bangkok was a bit of a culture shock, it is a big city (almost 11 million) and with traffic that is widely known for being terrible. Even at mid day it lived up to that reputation and our drive from the airport was full of waiting and then darting.

I have to admit to being a bit slack today as I declined the days tourist activity and sent Nina along with our guide Saruda out on their own to partake of the "city tour by walking and public transport".

Today was programmed as a rest day for us older people. We spent it mostly lazing around the hotel with a few short excursions when we got bored. These included near by Santi Chai Prakan Park and Fort

Today could have been called a "day of waiting", a not unusual situation when travelling. The task today was to fly from Paro, Bhutan to an airport hotel in Bangkok to be in a position to catch a late afternoon flight to Sydney tomorrow. Because the flight was international we had to be at the airport at least 3 hours before flight time. Thus we left the hotel at 9:00am, arrived at the airport 9:20am (Paro is a small town and traffic is/was light). The airport is small with few flights and small planes, so by 9:45 we were checked in, through immigration and security and just waiting. Of course the flight was delayed to 12:15.