Monthly Archives: December 2012

We traveled from Chiang Mai on the night train. We left Chiang Mai at 5 pm, arrived Bangkok at 7 am. All in all, a pretty pleasant experience. A supper on the train (not as spicey as we are used to but Kasma could not convince them to spice it up for us) and an upper and lower bunk in a sleeping car.

Chiang Mai was great. A lot of shopping … The Shan market on Friday had some unusual snacks (sticky-rice-flour donuts and pancakes, both sweet, savory turnovers (one with chickpeas, one with chicken), samosas, red-bean cakes). Also notable was the wood carving museum on Thursday.

Today when we arrived Bangkok, we walked the Chinese market (largest China town outside of China) and tried to get into a dim sum place (opened too late for us), saw a 5.5 ton solid gold Buddha, took a long-tail boat ride on a canal, visited the Royal Barge Museum, a village making special bronze bowls (last one in Thailand), and a temple being built in the shape of a royal barge.

In the evening, we met Amber and Aron from Mountain View, who will journey to the south with us. Tomorrow we leave at 5:30 am (yawn) for Ranong, where we’ll stay one night on our way down to Krabi.

I want to give a special shout-out to my neighbor Trudy who has been caring for our sweet orange cat Petey who suddenly went blind on Wed (Dec 5th). He’s pretty distressed by it (who wouldn’t be?) but Trudy seems to be helping him through it. Thank you so much, Trudy.

We are currently in the outskirts of Pai at a charming resort. It is raining here, which is very unusual this time of year, the cool dry season. We stopped at a fish cave, a Lisu village, and another cave (reached by bamboo raft).

Yesterday, we tasted tea in the Yunnan village and bought some “milk” tea, which both of us liked. It is made by soaking the tea leaves in milk before drying them.