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in search of enlightenment

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

this morning as i was getting ready for the day, the peace and quiet of the little road i’m staying in was shattered by the loud banging of drums and “lion dance” music which seemed to be right outside my door! i wasn’t able to get changed in time to see the actual lion dance, but this served as a reminder that today is chinese new year! all the markets have colorful red decorations and little treats, and i keep hearing lion dances going on around town but always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – i still haven’t even caught one! maybe tonight… =)

after the lion dance music in the morning i decided to call up good old eddie from chiang mai to pick me up so that i could visit the bo sa umbrella village a few kilometers outside of town. he came to get me and told me stories along the way – he’s leaving for chiang rai on friday to take his family to watch his son’s muay tai match! the umbrella village was ok – sort of touristy, but i did enjoy walking around and watching the craftspeople at work. i hung out watching this smiley old man for a bit – he was putting all of the umbrella’s spines into place and securing them with string, then later a woman would apply the mulberry (sa) paper, and others would paint intricate designs on them.

such a happy smile

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happy coincidences

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

sometimes there are random events that lead up to you meeting someone new… and yesterday jess and i had one of those moments. we were trying to flag a saengtaw to get to the arcade bus station so that jess could book her overnight trip back to bangkok. the first saengtaw we tried didn’t understand and/or wasn’t going that way (with saengtaw, you tell them where you need to go and if they’re going that way, you hop on) and so we flagged a second one and the driver nodded and sped off in the direction of the bus station.

once we arrived there, we tried to give him the 20baht fare but he told us, “no, i wait for you – you come back to chiang mai?” and so we agreed to pay him later. jess booked a ticket with another front row seat (lucky girl!) on the overnight bus for less than $20US and we went back to find our saengtaw waiting for us.

our driver’s name is eddie – “eddie from chiang mai” was how he introduced himself, using hand gestures to supplement his limited english. he asked where we were headed next and we told him we were thinking of doing a mae ping river cruise, and he ran to grab a flyer from his dashboard describing a two hour tour and offered to take us there. of course, once we got there eddie ran in with us to make sure we got on the cruise and asked them how long it would take so that he could come back to pick us up! by this point we realized that we had our own personal chauffeur for the day!

eddie from chiang mai
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cavities!!

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
i've heard that dentists in thailand are very good and more importantly, very cheap! so i looked into getting my teeth cleaned while here in chiang mai, as i've been without insurance for quite awhile now and dental work back ... [Continue reading this entry]

who had money on day 2?

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
hey y'all... so we're back in chiang mai. =) i say all bets are off though - even though we stayed only 2 days at the monastery, i think both of us definitely could have done all 10. but gee, ... [Continue reading this entry]

chiang mai @ night

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
here's a video of what it's like to ride in a tuk-tuk (very bumpy!) and join us for a stroll through the chiang mai sunday night street market - jess ... [Continue reading this entry]

baan thai cooking school

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
check out jess's technique and our cute teacher kim:

here's a few pictures from our class - check out the flickr page (follow the link on the right side for ... [Continue reading this entry]

i heart chiang mai

Monday, January 28th, 2008
oh my goodness, i LOVE chiang mai! so far, i think this has been my favorite of the places we've been on this trip... we left bangkok last night on the VIP sleeper bus around 8:40pm, which was kind of fun. ... [Continue reading this entry]

what’s cooking?

Sunday, January 27th, 2008
so tonight we're catching the vip sleeper bus up to chiang mai. we both packed up this morning and if you thought our suitcases for the trip were small, you'd be totally impressed with the amount of stuff we're taking ... [Continue reading this entry]

supersize me

Saturday, January 26th, 2008

ok so jess and i are not exactly what ... [Continue reading this entry]

a place to call home

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
i think it must be a quality that most human beings share - the desire to find a "home." we're getting to the age where more than a few of my friends are now official homeowners and even while we ... [Continue reading this entry]