I wake up at 6:15 to watch the SuperBowl. It is the regular USA network broadcast, but on a local station and with Thai announcers. I watch the entire game while eating breakfast and drinking lots of coffee. No, I missed the half-time show and controversy. I think I went outside to get some fresh morning air!
At about 10:30 S picks us up. She is taking us to Queen Sikrit Botanic Garden, which is northwest of town. On our way we pass several signs indicating that Mae Sa waterfall is ahead, and when we reach the entrance I suggest that we go in and see it since we are already there. We do, and it is nice, but I can see that it is much better during rainy season. The waterlevel is quite low. The park is very nice though, with good facilities, and signs in both Thai and English. There are 10 waterfalls all together.
We then continue up the road, which is also going uphill, to QS Botanic Gardens. T wants to see this. The gardens are mostly indoors, in large sheds each containing different types of plants, such as medicinal, desert, Thai native, aquatic, etc.
We then head back into town. It is lunch time, and we stop at a small corner place where we have soup with fish balls and noodles and veggies. It is OK!
We then went to Bo Sang, in San Kampeng, which is southeast of town. It is a center for the making of paper umbrellas and fans and other similar articles. We went to a place that makes these from scratch. You can follow the process from the making of the paper all the way to the painting of the final product. Very interesting and very pretty. I get some place mats for my sister L and Mom.
S then takes is to near the CM Zoo and drops us off. From here we take a minibus to Doi Suthep, which is a Buddhist temple high on a hill that looks down on CM. The ride up is quite steep, and you can see the view getting better as you go up. We finally get to DS. You can walk up the stairs, but we take a cable car that runs on a track inside a long shed. DS is really wonderful. Beautiful temples and shrines, beautifuyl grounds, and beautiful view. Very much worht the effort to get here.
We then take the minibus back into town. It drops us a few blocks from the hotel and we walk the rest of the way.
At 7:00 S and B pick us up again and we go to the Riverview Restaurant, which is on the eastside of the Mae Ping River, which runs north and south on the east side of town. Our hotel is just 3 block west of the river. We have a very nice dinner sitting at an outdoor table. B is the manager of an insurance office, and he does both sales and claims. As we are eating he is handling an auto accident claim that just occurred via his cellphone. We talk about Thai hospitality, and I finally get B to agree that it is OK if I pick-up the check for tonight's dinner. The restaurant also has a couple large longtail boats that appear to provide dinner cruises. B tells me that the river is not a working river, and the only boats on it are the restaurant boats. The water can get very shallow, and is not deep enough for commercial boat traffic. I tell B that the restaurant reminds me of all of the waterfront restaurants in south Florida.
Monday was a long day, especially with the early rise for the football game. So, I sleep a bit later, and don't get downstairs for breakfast until about 9:40. Luckily breakfast is served until 10:00. I sit outside. It is still quite pleasant, almost but not quite cool. Chain Rai has great weather this time of year. It does not get warm until mid-day, and the evening are very pleasant, and at night it actually cools. Too bad it is not like this all year round.
T finds me on the patio and we talk about where to go today. We have decided to go to Chiang Rai, which is about 110 miles north of Chiang Mai. We will take a bus, and so our first stop today will be the bus station to get the necessary info and buy our tickets. Then we will visit three temples, wats, in the old city poart of Chiang Mai.
We take a minibus to the bus station. Unfortunately for us, there are 3 bus stations in Chiang Mai, and this is not the one we want. So we then take another minibus to the correct bus station. Each of the three bus stations serves different destinations. We need the bus station that serves Chiang Rai. Well, we finally get there, and T makes the necessary inquiries at the ticket window. Yes, there are buses tomorrow for Chiang Rai. Reserved seats on an air conditioned bus are 139B each. So we pay for our tickets and select our seats--front row so I can see where we are going. Our bus will leave at 8:45 AM. We will have to get up early!
We then take a minibus to Wat XXX. Before entering we walk to a restaurant about a block away, where we have the Thai version of chinese dimsum. Very good, and each dish is only 15B. We had 9 dishes! After eating we walk back to the Wat. The rest of the afternoon is taken up with our visits to 3 different wats. Each is very nice, and also different. See the photos. We walk from wat 2 to wat 3, and then from wat 3 back to the hotel (this was a bit longer than we expected, but we did it anyway!).
I was a bit tired so I went to me room and relaxed for a while. T also rested and also went to the market and walked around some. Later we met for dinner. Where to go? T had heard that there is live entertainment in the food court area of one of the market areas, so we go there to find out. Yes, there will be Thai dance show beginning at 8:00PM. So we walk around the market area some more, and then shortly before 8:00 we go back, get a table, and get some food. There are many different food booths, similar to a shopping mall. You pay by getting tickets/coupons that each have a stated value. You spend the coupons for the food, and you can return your unused coupons for money back. The show started a few minutes after 8:00, and we watched the first half until 9:00PM. The dancers were quite good, and the costumes also very good. We could have stayed for the second half, but I wanted to get back and start packing for tomorrow's trip.
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