"What is it"? asks Nu. People made strange and disgusting suggestions as to what this might be.

"Durian!" says Gypsy as she releshes her candy with a slightly wrinkled nose. That Gypsy will eat anything!

Since no one wanted a second candy... or even their first.... except Gypsy.... Nu presented me with the remainder of the bag. If you would like to try this dubious treat... email me and I will send you a taste!

We travelled to the nesting ground of Open-Mouthed Asian storks... who came from all of Asia to breed here. Interesting, but a bit smelly (could this be the reason for the open mouths?).. and noisy... and you really had to watch where you stepped.

Then to a temple, Wat Chantaram, that defies description. All the temples are as ornately decorated as possible and lots of mirrored tiles are used inside and out. But this one was completely covered inside with mirrors and mirrored tiles. It was like stepping into a crystal! I got my first clue when I stepped through doorway and saw a glass case containing a Buddha with his robes entirely covered with diamonds. The Gyspy loves anything that twinkles and sparkles... and Cuz finaly had to drag me out... I could have stayed all day just enjoying the sparkle.

Here also was a glass case containing the body of a monk.... one of those things where the body does not decay and miracles happen. But honestly, I couldn't see it well enough to tell if this was true or not. The temple did seem miraculous to me, though.

We had lunch on a rice barge... cruising down the river. It is so interesting to see the activities of the locals along the river. We saw people washing clothes and bathing in the river. The women here bathe (I mean "wash" not "swim") fully clothed. I saw a woman bathing herself on the porch of her home.. and she had her clothes on. No, I cannot answer your questions about this... I have too many unanswered questions of my own. If you have questions... here is a site on toileting and bathing that will probably tell you all you want to know... and then some. We even passed an elephant camp where an elephant was bathing (nude) in the river. We also got to feed monstrous catfish as we passed a temple. The fish congregate there because the people will not fish in front of the temple... it would offend Buddha.

I bought a pair of waterproof sandals for the Thai New Year (figger THAT one out) for 50 Baht which is about $1.30; and we got some treats to hand out to the hill tribe children when we visit them on another day.

One interesting thing we learned was that during the summer vacation, when children are out of school. Many parents send their boys to the temples. They pay for this as if the kids were going to summer camp. The boys dress in saffron robes and live under the tutelage of the monks for a few weeks. They receive religious and moral training and the parents are surely hoping they will be better behaved boys on their return home than they were when they first went to "Buddha Camp".

There are Buddhist nuns also, but no one seems interested in them. The idea being that they are nuns because of some unhappiness in their life, while the men become monks for spiritual reasons.... doesn't that sound familiar?   The nuns wear white robes and the little girls at "Nun Camp" wear pink.

After shopping, we travelled to the historic park at Sukhothai, The Dawn of Happiness. It contains the ruins of the early kingdom, and you could imagine the grandeur that was one here when you view the many ruins. This is the largest collection of historic ruins in Thailand. Clck here for some very nice thumbnail photos of the ancient ruins.

Here at Sukhothai, there was a bus of Buddha campers along with their elder monks and a number of mothers arriving for a field trip.   The boys scampered around and all had a group photo taken by the enormous, beautiful old Buddha image. Then they hurried off to see other things. While they were approaching and investigating another huge and ancient Buddha... the mothers were chattering at them like monkeys! Nu laughed and interpreted the mothers words.... "Don't run! Take off your shoes! Show respect". Some things are the same where ever you go.

Tonight we are in a hotel in Prae... it has furniture and a tv and no water running under the floor. But we do have a cheerful lizard on our wall.. he chirps throughout the night., sort of like those bird clocks!

The next day we visited a silk and cotton textile shop where I started my vast collection of Thai clothes. What wonderful things they had! This is where I bought my first pair of "fancy-pants" I will have a hard time with this description... Thai clothing seems to have no closures except ties and occasional frogs... they are draped or folded. These pants are enormous and shaped like an upside down U. But when you fold them over and tie them on... they look a lot like culottes or a skirt. Very flattering. Both local man and women wear them. Fortunately Gypsy is relatively short... as are Thai people... so things fit well. These pants were so funny looking, when you held them up, that Gypsy was the only one who was brave enough to buy them... or wear them. Then others liked the look and in the following days... it seems like everyone was wearing them.

On our way to the Golden Triangle, we stopped at a home industry indigo dying shop. It was interesting to see how the dye was made from indigo plants and how the dying process was done. Indigo garments is the popular dress for the people of Northern Thailand... so here we all went native! I bought several items.. which will wow the people here in Maine this summer, I am sure. But wait till they see my "fancy pants"!

The celebration is beginning, because today I received my first New Year Blessing. A shop owner sprinkled us with scented water and dribbled some water down the backs of our necks. This is a ritual purification for the New Year and is done to ensure happiness in the coming year. If nothing else... the Thai people love to be happy.

When we arrived in Chiang Rai, one of our party was not feeling well. Nu was going to drop us off at a temple and then take our tour-mate to the hospital. Well, we had already seen temples... we wanted to go to the hospital too. So he took us all. Our tour bus drove into the hospital drive and received lots of surprised attention from the hospital workers. Of course Gypsy waved and smiled and they all waved and smiled back.

Some of us wanted to see the hospital and so we trouped in. It was much like any clinic... not as fancy as most hospitals are here. But it was less crowded. And it did not take six hours for our patient to be seen... she was registered, examined, tested, and released all within 30-minutes. Her bill was about the equivalent of $4.50. We all wandered around the hospital and looked at things... everyone just smiled at us and went on about their business. Our tour-mate was diagnosed with dehydration, no surprise.

The next day, in Mae Chan, we met our songtaew taxies for the ride to Mae Salong to meet the hill tribes people. This taxi is a small, beat-up pick-up truck with a shell cover over the truck bed and a bench along each side. A piece of cloth hangs over the entrance as a "door". By then, New Year's celebration was in full swing.... and the tender ritual blessing had been turned into a water war by the young people. They stood by the side of the roads and streets with monster water squirters, buckets, or hoses, to drench everyone passing by. Our taxi had an open part near the front and every bucket full of water found its way inside and soaked us in our seats.

Nu suggested that when we encountered the first tribe, the Akha, we might find the children a bit dirty and "fierce". Un-huh. As we turned into the dirt road to the village, the children left their water dousing posts along the road and climbed onto our taxi wanting handouts even as we drove to the village.

It didn't take long to distribute a bag of goodies... there were many children and they wanted many treats. Even old women came with babies on their backs wanting treats for the little one. Some of the babies were covered with sores and scabs. The kids lost their initial interest in us after the treats were gone... but then wanted our empty plastic bags. It is hard to imagine a society where an empty plastic bag is a prize, isn't it?

We looked at their ghost gate before we entered the village. The ghost gate is for spirits only... no humans allowed to touch or pass through. The decoration by the gate was an interesting, primative, wooden carving of a copulating couple... Hmmm... I think there was a lot of wishful thinking in the mind of the wood carver when he did this!

On New Years Day (the next day in this case), they would kill a dog and place its body on the lintel over the gate and I guess that would be a very lucky thing.. if you are not a dog.

Unfortunately, the people of the tribe were not dressed in all of their elaborate native costume, as it was not practical in the intense seasonal heat. There are some good photos in the links to these two tribes... so I won't include my own here. We found the children of the Mien tribe only slightly less fierce than the Akha. The Mien had all sorts of things to sell... saying the items were made by them personally. However, the things for sale were exactly the same things that we saw in every street market in Thailand.. I suppose if you were able to go way, way back in the hills... the tribe people would have been less "entrepreneurial" and the crafts more genuine.

Then to our room at The Imperial Golden Triangle Hotel... a lovely room. But we had to change it, because the air conditioning was less than optimal... in fact, it didn't work at all. Gypsy was in the shower bathing and doing those intimate laundry duties when Cuz pounded on the door and shouted, "We're changing rooms in five minutes!" Poor Gypsy almost had a stroke! But fortunately we had 30-minutes before the bellmen trouped in to move our hastily repacked luggage. I put some "fancy pants" over my jammies and tagged along behind. What a strange parade we must have made. Each room of this lovely hotel had a balcony where you could look out at the converging rivers and see Thailand, Laos, and Burma. Our second room was even better than the first because we didn't have a palm tree blocking our vista.