After checking out the ruins, we headed (by bus) to Chiang Mai, a medium sized city in Northern Thailand.

Chiang Mai is charecterized by an old fortress wall which goes around the area of the old city. Here's a shot of Robin standing outside of one of the walls. The wall is divided by gates, of which there are four gates and four corners of the wall. The remainder is moat, or what used to be moat. We came here to see some of the temples, hang out and take a cooking class. The class was fun and we learned some good Thai recipes!

Here's a shot of the Chiang Mai Sunday night market taken from a rooftop bar...

Robin and Matt met with Dr. Duongchan Charoenmuang, who manages a non-profit dedicated to promoting quality development and reduced reliance on automobiles...She was super nice and happy to chat with us about planning in Chiang Mai. For those planners reading, they have comprehensive plans, with little teeth, and zoning which is not strictly enforced. She pointed to Luang Prabang, which is in Laos, and is a World Heritage Site within a working city, as having strong zoning. Hope I get to meet up with a planner there....Thanks to Kirstin Greene for setting us up with her contact information.

On Cynthia and Andrew's strong recommendation, we headed farther north, close to the Burmese border, to Soppong. We stayed at the Soppong River Inn, which was on the Lang River. Our room was above the River, and you could hear it from our balcony. It is a pretty remote and beautiful part of the jungle.

In Soppong, we visited Lod Cave, which, according to what we read, is a cave with the largest opening in Asia. We went at dusk, and watched the swallows fly in and the bats fly out.

We rented a motorbike for one day and headed up into the very green mountains to Pai. On the way to Pai, the mountains were so beautiful and dotted with rice paddies, small thatched roof huts and green leafy trees. The road was narrow and winding with lots of fun turns for Matt to lean into when he was driving the bike... Pai is a great little town and we saw hot springs, elephant camps (very touristy, kinda depressing) and waterfalls.

Now we're back in Chiang Mai for a day or two to get our visas for Laos together...