Before the crush of Payap work and teaching set in, Dianne and I have been sampling the sights and smells of Chiang Mai's old town. You should know that we have resettled at Prince Hotel in the old town part of Chiang Mai, the result of being forced out of Int'l House Res Hall, due in part to our own naivete and sins of omission. But disappointments have their own rewards, and we are enjoying Prince (with a wonderful swim this pm) and merchants and street foods with full abandon.
The pictures you see here are of the Warorot Market, attended mostly by local Thais, the Night Bazaar, very much a farang (foreigner) affair, and the wonderful Wat (temple) Saenfang. The wondrous flowers are from the wat!!
Tuk tuks (small gas powered wagons with passenger seats in the back) heavily populate the streets when motorbikes, scooters and cars are not whizzing by. Indeed, one takes one's life in one's hands in crossing streets. Like in Saigon and Hanoi, one must navigate a street crossing with the full assumption that drivers will steer around one.
Without venturing out into traffic and hoping for the best, one gets nowhere. Often the gas fumes themselves are enough to persuade us to just keep walking on what passes for a sidewalk.
I will let the pictures speak for themselves, with two exceptions. The first picture is of Dianne and her new friend Rose, whom D. has fed every morning after breakfast at Intl House. Please don't tell Haley. The third picture is of the Buddha himself, whom we caught crossing the street just two doors from our new hotel Prince. The Prince...the Buddha, Siddhartha himself? and which prince? Hal by chance? Something funny going on here?
Absolutely amazing, TK.
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