Another email from this morning:
Greetings from Chiang Mai, Thailand. and Feliz Ano Nuevo!
All is well. Marcia and I are really enjoying Chiang Mai. It’s
gorgeous here and the town is so welcoming and friendly. It’s bursting
at the seams with vacationing thais, here to celebrate the new year.
At first it made things a little hard like hotel reservations and
trekking and the traffic is pretty bad, but it’s absolutely wonderful
to be up here in the midst of so many thais, i wouldn’t say it’s hard
to spot us farang (non-thai) tourists but you definitely don’t hear
english on the street at all and 99% of the faces you see are thai. In
otherwards it’s great! It’s most certainly an experience that I didn’t
expect, but we are so glad to be here.Yesterday we took a small day trip tour up to the highest peak in
thailand, stopping along the way at waterfalls, a “Karen” village
(tribal minority from Burma) and a “Royal Project” where the king has
set up a working community to teach the various tribes in the area
sustainable farming of cash crops in place of growing poppies. It was
pretty amazing. There are thousands of thais camping on the mountain
and the whole thing is a wonderful scene.Last night, there was a handcraft festival, a million vendors and
booths, all selling handmade goods (it continues today as well).
Several large boulevards, closed off to traffic and each stall
different from the next. No fake designer goods, only a handful of
chinese knock-offs, just really intersting handcrafts of every
conceivable sort. we walked and walked and ate pad thai and mango
sticky rice and walked some more. On each corner, there were rows of
chairs set out for foot messages and we unconsciously chose the one
with the big lazy boy chairs. We got a half-hour foot message as we
watched the throngs of thais perusing all the incredible vendors.Tomorrow we’ll most likely do another day-trek in the golden triangle,
an area where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet, lots of tribal minorities
up there (I say trek, but it’s less walking and more cultural
learning). and then on tuesday we’ll probably fly on to Luang Probang,
Laos, which from what I hear is the “crown jewel of the entire
indochina area”.well, Happy New Year, folks. We love you all and where ever you are,
we’ll be thinking about you, tonight.much love,
// masha y mundo
