Dave and I are currently in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand.

We spent 5 days in Lampang while Dave and I recovered from stomach illnesses. We felt better after a couple of days and were able to have a wonderful Christmas there! On Christmas Eve, Dave and I set out to be Santa's helpers! We went to a 7-Eleven and each bought lots of candy and chocolate for stockings (which were Dave's waterproof socks) Christmas morning, we found our stockings full!! Eating so much candy so early in the morning may not have been good for my recovering stomach. We ate pizza for lunch on Christmas (Mmm! Greasy Western food!) For dinner, we went to another restaurant that served Western food and feasted! Dave had a filet mignon that cost $4 (although you could say that you get what you pay for!) and we even shared a tiramisu.

Actually, I thought the filet mignon was quite good considering it came from local beast. It wasn't your grain fed, USDA choice, melt in your mouth, top steak house cut, so one had to be sure to chew, but the flavor was different, maybe a little game'y, and good, wrapped in bacon and topped with mushrooms and everything.

We left Lampang the next morning and headed up to Chiang Mai. On our way, we stopped at an elephant conservatory. We saw a bunch of elephants "perform" for us; they demonstrated their working skills such as rolling and lifting logs. They could also bow, raise a flag up a pole, ring a bell, and 2 painted. At the end of the show, everyone got to feed the elephants sugar cane. There were other elephants in pins. Some elephants were old work elephants, or elephants who were hurt and not able to survive in the wild. There was also a mom and its baby. It wasn't a new born and could definately eat sugar cane or bananas, but at one point it did try to nurse. We were petting both elephants and Dave starting giving the mother a head massage. She really seemed to like that!

Chiang Mai is much more touristy than any other place we've been to (except maybe Bangkok, but we didn't visit there too long). There are tons of travellers, tons of restaurants of all ethnic cuisines, tons of bars with music blasting! We found a really nice place and decided to stay a week! The owner of the guest house is so nice! We asked simple questions about what to do in the city. She pulled out a box of pamphlets and had a map, a menu with pictures just to introduce us to the cuisine. We mentioned that we want to go to Laos and needed to get a visa. She had the applications and told us exactly what to do, drove us to a place to get passport photos for our visa, made copies of our passport for us! Everything!! We got a chore done in no time!

We took a Thai cooking class one day! We had a great time and ate lots. It started with the chef taking us to a local market and introducing us to a lot of the foods and ingredients that he uses in different dishes. He also bought a lot of fruits for us to try. Some really tasty, others kinda strange. Then we made about 6 different dishes and ate them at lunch. After lunch, he demonstrated some food carvings to us. It was a very full day!

The Chiang Mai zoo stays open from 6pm to midnight twice a year at New Year's. So we went to the zoo the day before New Year's Eve. That was really great because we saw a lot of nocturnal animals who were so active at night! The cage restrictions were not as tight for some animals at this zoo as they are at zoos in the US. There is a platform you stand on to see the camels. A fence keeping the camels in, comes up to your waist. The camels easily stick their heads over the fence looking to see if you have any food for them. We were able to feed them and one started gnawing on my hand. We also saw a tapir (I had never even heard of one before) which looks like a predecessor to an elephant. It's body is shaped and about as big as a small bear. It does not have a tail and it's nose is about 1 1/2 feet long with nostrils like an elephant. They were behind a stone fence about waist height. There would run up toward the fence and put its snout over it to smell you. We could pet them - very coarse fur. I also fell in love with a slow loris, which is a small primate. It was behind glass, but could see us and was very interested in what we were. It had an old log with a lot of limbs for it to climb on. Once it saw us, it moved (slowly) toward us and started climbing on the ledge next to the glass. I put my hand on the glass, it it tried to touch my hand. We moved and it followed. And the way it climbed was so human/primate like. It was fun to watch it manuever!

We found out where a movie theatre in the area was. We went and saw 2 movies during the week - Lord of the Rings and Monsters, Inc. They are in English with Thai subtitles - pretty sweet for us! Going to the movies in Thailand is an event! It reminded me of going to the theatre. You have to choose your seat number when you buy your ticket. There are ushers to show you to your seat. The theatres are stadium seating but with much more leg room and just a larger feeling in general. The walls are decorated with lots of fabric like a nice, classy theatre. Before the beginning of the movie, everyone has to stand and honor the king while they play the Thai national anthem.

New Year's was kind of weird. The Thai new year traditionally is in April, although their calendar year changed from 2544 to 2545 as ours went to 2002. There was a stage set up at Thae Pei Gate in the city where a bunch of Thai music groups performed. (Since then I've heard some of the songs they played on the radio here, so I guess they were popular groups.) All night long you could see these helium filled lanterns with a small fire under them being released and rising into the sky. They would float up and just get smaller and smaller, but they looked like large orange stars. There were probably 20 or 30 of them in the sky at a time. (Dave and I thought they were so beautiful and were trying to guess how to make them. With further thought, the fire marshals probably wouldn't like it if we released an uncontrolled burning object into the air in the US, huh?) At midnight there were a few fire works. Mainly farangs were dancing and cheering. The Thai people just stood around watching the celebration. We danced a little, but then cut the night short and went back to our room. We are exactly 12 hours ahead of EST (16 ahead of Alaska).

Just wanted to add to the description of the flying lanterns we saw on New Year's Eve, as they were especially beautiful. The fire under them was pretty large, you could see the flicker while they were high aloft. They would acend slowly, and at some point they would a firework would activate, and a shower of sparks would rain down from them. With the glistening firework light falling, and the lantern slowly rising, they almost looked like a fleet of space bound travelers, narrowly escaping Earth's gravity. It was nice to see a slow motion firework, and their numbers in the night sky was something else.

Oh yeah, and I got my fill of dancing anyway. After an hour and a half a gyrating, my under-exercised bod' was feeling it!

We just got back from a 3 day trek into the hill tribe villages of northern Thailand. Along with 6 other people and 2 guides, we hiked to a waterfall and to a hot spring on the first day. Eggs were boiled in the hot spring and were a welcome treat after a few hours of hiking. The hiking was pretty intense and we quickly understood why they are called hill tribe people. The first night we stayed at a Karen village. There are many Karen tribes who originated from Tibet and mainly live in Burma. They live in bamboo made shelters on stilts in the hills. This village had 8 families. They also owned a bunch of pigs, chickens, dogs and farm their own vegetables and rice. Their village is so small that the kids walk 2 hours a day to get to the next Karen village for school. The next day we hiked for another few hours until we got to an elephant camp. From there we rode an elephant for about 2 hours, through the hills and across a river a few times. That was a lot of fun. Dave got to sit on the elephant's neck (which I guess was rather comfortable.) We spent the night at a Lahu village the second night. This village was right next to a river. The natives homes were up a hill from the river and our home was right on the river. The next day, we took a bamboo raft and rafted down the river for about 2 hours. We are 2 months into their dry season, so there weren't too many rapids, but it was fun! You have to stand up the entire time, so there is definately balancing involved.

Trekking is a very touristy thing in northern Thailand. Some find it weird to "invade" the tribe's village for your own pleasure. (As did I before setting out.) You have to make sure your guides are licensed and the tribes are expecting your arrival. We did learn a lot about the tribes and how they perceive the tourists. Allowing trekkers to come and stay the night is one way they make a little money to use when they decide to go into a town. In years past, some tribes were getting involved with the selling of poppies and opium. The tribesmen would then get hooked and villages fell apart because they didn't have people to work the land. Trekking is considered a respectable source of income for them. The hilltribe people were also looked down upon by the other people of Thailand as being uneducated and unrefined. Since the boom of the trekking industry, the tribes have been given a lot of respect. Visitors realize that the tribes choose to live this way, and do not do so because they are not educated enough to live in the modern world. Many tribes people can now speak up 2 languages - their tribe's and Thai - and some can even speak English. They also appreciate the education their people get from the tourists coming in and out of the village. Trekking has forced the Thai government to acknowledge the hill tribes more and has allowed them to be a larger influence. Although the hill tribe elders do not disapprove of trekkers visiting, younger tribe members did have to explain to them, by way of analogy with their own fascination with the city, why people wanted and were willing to pay money to spend the night in their village!

We just got a 15-day visa to Laos and are heading to the border tomorrow. We are planning on taking a 2-day boat ride down the Mekong River toward Luang Prabang. We have not yet planned further adventures in Laos, which is suppose to be very different from Thailand with many fewer travellers. Apologies for the lack of pictures. We are forced to update our webpages from internet cafes because of the lack of access to outgoing phone lines. When we can, we will include pics.