thai1


Day 1. A market near Wat Po, Bangkok	Lunch? All of the ingredients can be cooked into your soup

The reclining buddha at Wat Po. This is bigger than it looks. The feet of this Buddha are about 12 feet high and beautifully adorned with mother of pearl inlay.	Erica resting at Wat Po at one of the many outdoor garden/fountain areas

A Banyan tree that has seen better days. I, Albert, felt drawn to this reverence for a tree and the effort to save it	through this incredible system of buttressing. This was a common sight at many shrines and temples.

A view of some of the temples and chedis within the Wat Po compound	Fortune teller (who was busy!) to the left. Chedi (grave) in the background

The next day on a visit to the Golden Buddha. Yes, it's made of gold! Years ago, once it was covered in plaster for protection. More recently, it was moved, and in transit, the plaster cracked, and what a surprise!	Erica at the Golden Buddha site

Erica enjoying our train ride later that day to Ayuttaya, World Heritage Site	Albert, enjoying sitting on what is left of an ancient Chedi in Ayutthaya

We were trying to capture the winged create in this picture in the top left of the frame. But, here you can get an idea of one of the many shrines at Ayutthaya.	A view of one of the Chedi/Temple areas of Ayutthaya

The Buddha enshrined in a banyan tree	The view down the street at our hotel in Bangkok, Suk 11, a great place to stay

with an old, northern Thai style, great breakfast and reasonably-priced, clean rooms	I loved Suk 11. To make a reservation there, one would just visit them on-line at www.suk11.com

Time to leave Bangkok and head to Chiang Mai. Moslem Praying room anyone?	One of the 120 Chedis and Temples in the much smaller city of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai has as many temple complexes as the much bigger city of Bangkok

A typical Tuk-Tuk, common taxi	A view of some dragon heads in one of the Chedis of Chiang Mai

Another great view of a temple in Chiang Mai, surrounded by elephants and dragons. This complex also had a monk chat. We spoke with one of the monks about his studies and decision to be a monk for a half hour under banyan trees	At the Lek Chaya massage school, this woman was busy carving a papaya. Though we have no photos of any of the massage schools, we visited about 6 of them, and received excellent massages at each one. Yum!

A view of the kitchen at the restaurant next to Lek Chaya. More rice noodles, please!	Sun-set visit to a Chedi near the night market in Chiang Mai

Street scene with Albert's buddha belly in Chiang Mai	A typical Thai license plate. The Thai script is so different from anything we're used to that it felt like art work a lot of the time.

Erica stopping for some medicinal tea. This tea is good for whatever ails you!	Evening at the market in Chiang Mai. These are bugs and grubs and grasshoppers, ummmm, crunchy!

The next day, we took at day trip which included a hike	Across this crazy bridge

into the mountains to visit a hill tribe	passing wonderful vegetation

viewing teak, banana, leechee and other plantations	and eventually to a village where these young girls played jacks with rocks. Then, we rode elephants! See page 2-4 for our elephant ride, visit to Pai, and beaches in the south.