Chiang Mai 12-19-11

 Shopping’s not usually my favorite activity, but I could spend weeks haggling at the Sunday Market in Chiang Mai. The streets are packed with vendors selling colorful flowing pants and swanky decorative lights, handmade leather bags, and artistic jewelry, everything I would ever want to wear or eat or give to a friend at a fraction of what I would pay at home. There are bands of blind musicians and a temple courtyard crowded with numerous stalls of spicy noodles, deep fried crispy chicken, spring rolls, coconuts, waffles.... It’s a little hard to hold myself back, but I only want to carry around so much... I might end up mailing a large box home.

We spent most of the day at the zoo yesterday, the highlights being Ling Ling the panda bear, the floating hamster wheel like thing the kids ran around in, and the moment when our zoo bus died, and the whole load of us pushed the bus uphill, trying to get it going, yet unsuccessful. We are staying at Awanahouse, in a fourth floor room with bunkbeds for the wee ones. Our room opens onto a roof top lounge that is mostly vacant, an excellent dawntime yoga location.

 Chiang Mai is a relief, after the crazy big city adventure of Bangkok. I am starting to get a sense of where things are and how to get around using the excellent public transportation. The song taeuws are basically red pick up trucks with a canopy over the back and two benches for seats. Its like a shared taxi, with people hopping in and out all day long.

 We worked on feet this morning in my massage class at the Sunshine school, and I dropped right into dreamland while my new friend from Colorado kneaded and twisted and stretched my adventurous little tootsies. Definitely heaven.