Welcome 2019!

What a New Year’s celebration! We welcomed the new year in about 12 – 15 hours earlier than most of our friends back home. We found our way to the East Gate and enjoyed the old town, moat, and gate. To our surprise, there was quite a street celebration in progress. There were lots of people from around the globe enjoying the evening together. When I say ‘lots of people’, I’m not describing Time Square. There were great front seats to be had and we found a coffee shop/restaurant just in front of the main event and enjoyed the view, chatting with fellow travelers, for several hours. It was the evening of the Great Lantern Release. With each lantern released, it is said that a wish is granted! We were able to add ours to the night sky just at midnight! The thousands of lanterns across the night sky were surreal and we felt like we were being visited by friendly folks from another planet! OK, OK, since the event, I have read what a bad idea this festival is for the environment, and that it is a safety hazard and a fire hazard. Still for the moment, it was epic! I wish we had photos to do it justice.

Before the great evening, we spent the day exploring the old town. Two of the most famous Buddhist temples were on the agenda! Wat Chedi Luang and Wat Phra Singh were both impressive. As most temples, they are comprised of intricately carved teak interiors and colorful exterior mosaics. All are bustling with monks, worshippers, and tourists. Small markets are outside. It is quite important to remove shoes and cover shoulders/knees before entering. This time, George andI were prepared.

AI always enjoy visiting local stores. Well, how local is a 7-11? We went there for a few basics we can’t do without any longer. We also visited a local pharmacy where everything we asked for is available without prescription. I picked up some antibiotics and cold medicine, and cough medicine. Thank-goodness for the English speaking pharmacist!

Lunch, down the street from the temple, at the Writer’s Club, proved to be a great people-watching spot. It seems Chiang Mai is brimming with Chinese tourists. From this area, we took a break from walking and experienced both the tuk-tuk- a motorcycle-powered taxi- and the local red taxi which is a shared taxi placing its riders on a bench in the back of a covered truck. (No pics yet.)

My prayers about luggage were answered! My no-longer-new-looking suitcase arrived with all contents safely inside. Unfortunately, not the same news for George. 24 hours have passed and his luggage did not make the next days’ flight either. It seems to be a screw-up between Delta and China Eastern. We are about to go shopping for him. You might ask, “How many days can a man wear the same clothing”? We’ll George is on Day 5. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

Smelly clothes and all, New Year’s Day has been a great start to a great year! Today we visited a local restaurant around the corner called Khao Soi. There, we had Khao Soi soup,a noodle-soup, famous in this area. It has both hard and soft noodles and all kinds of accompaniments. Two bowls of soup and two cups of Louts Tea set us back a grand total of $120 Bahts. That’s about $3.60US. I could arguable say it is the best soup I’ve ever had. We had to stand in line and with good reason!

Then we went to a Thai massage studio and we both had our first real Thai massage. It proved to be a little more active than most massages but great, just the same, and provided by ex-women prisoners.Yep! For real. That was a great total of $7.50 US each for an hour!

While most of our readers are soundly sleeping, we are about to go flag a red-taxi , the shared back-of-truck variety, to visit the local mall for some new clothes for my smelly husband!