Hope you enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfnZj6unoxM

Next Stop - Koh Samui

www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1lYXynzucM

Enjoy! Part 2 coming soon.

1. Thai people are super nice, they always have smiles.

2. Nobody shakes hands

3. Thai people greet by lifting the hands which join fingers to fingers,bending the head and say”sa-wad-dee-kah”.

4. If you like spicy food, the food here is the best in the world!

To get to Chiang Mai, we took a driving tour from Chiang Rai, it was about 4 hours with various stops on the way.

Our fist stop on our drive brought us to the White Temple which was deigned by a very famous artist in Thailand. Kind of looks like something in a movie. They even have white fish swimming in the water behind us.

Our next brief stop was at some hot springs. There are people walking around selling bags of eggs to cook in the springs, we joined in and boiled some. All the eggs here are brown eggs and you see people selling them everywhere. They sell hard boiled eggs in the shell on a stick at some of the street vendors.

This is the entrance to our hotel. The hotel property was huge, over 60 acres. Most of the rooms here were villas. They were basically small 2 story homes scattered throughout the property. The place had incredible scenery and manicured  grounds. Our villa was overlooking a rice field.

The next morning we woke up early,  had a big breakfast and headed out for a day of touring with a guide. Our first stop took us high up in the hills to visit a tribe of people called the Meo. The  Meo originally came down to Thailand from China. This village was made up of about 500 people.

As soon as they saw us, the kids came running out with a table and their wares to sell (you may be one of the lucky recipients of an elephant purse or pillow case)!

This sight definitely brought a huge smile to our face, even though the dog didn’t look so thrilled.

They invited us in to one of their homes to see how they live. This one had a poster of David Beckam in it.

The tribe and us and their souvenirs.

We look like we are doing humanitarian work here. We should have brought toys with us or something

We stopped along the way to a government funded agricultural project where they grow coffee. The government many years ago implemented the growing of new and different crops to discourage against growing opium.

Our next stop was to a temple called Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. This temple is 3500 feet up in the mountains.

Here was are circling the Buddha 3 times. (Luckily we had our guide Ung here to tell us what to do)!

We lit incense and candles as well, and offered up a lotus flower.

This tells you which Buddha is yours based on the day of the week you are born. That is very important here, as it determines a lot of things about you.

Here is Jeremy standing with some young monks. Most, if not all males, become buddhas at some point in their life. Even if it is only for a week. These guys are probably on school break and so they are doing theirs now. Women are not allowed to touch or get to close to monks, so we had Jeremy get in the picture.

Back at the hotel….

Overlooking the rice paddy….

This is very young rice…the whole process takes about 5-6 months.

Finally found the water buffalo we heard was here. He helps with the rice.

I’m sure this guy is enjoying this.

Video Highlights coming soon

For you history buffs here is a little something about Chiang Mai:

The city of Chiang Mai was capital of theLanna Kingdom after its founding in 1296. During the same period of time as the establishment of the Sukhothai Kingdom. From then, Chiang Mai not only became the capital and cultural core of the Lanna Kingdom, it was also the centre of Buddhism in northern Thailand and King Meng Rai built innumerable temples.