Chiang Mai

After flying into Bangkok late, I flew out early to Chiang Mai for the TESOL Conference in the morning. Later on I flew back to Bangkok to get a visa to go to Yangon, Burma (Myanmar), where I spent three long days. It was quite an adventure-more on that later.

I’ve been to Chiang Mai twice before, first in 1997-1998, which was my first year in Japan. I went there with my friend Brendan and we did a three-day trek into the hill tribes and spent some time with other friends from the JET Program who were in town at that time. I believe it was three years later that I spent a New Year’s Eve (2001?) there with my friend Michael after we had spent some time in Laos. It hasn’t changed much, but it seems busier, with more traffic and pollution. It is much more manageable to navigate than Bangkok and, since it is up north, much cooler as well. In addition, prices are more reasonable, but then again all of the prices are more reasonable in Thailand. I met up with a Japanese teacher, Yamato, View this photo that I had taught with about 8 years ago when I first came to Japan and taught on the JET Progeam in Koshigaya. He has retired and moved to Chiang Mai. And I had some fun nights out on the town with some new friends, Sil (sp?/from Malaysia) and Lilian (Swiss) View this photo-who both live in Chiang Mai, as well. Lilian (on the right in the photo) has her own blog about Thailand as well.

The elephant above was in front of the Karinthip Village, where I stayed while in town. I spent an afternoon or two down by the pool. View this photo Below is a picture of a temple in town.

Comments

[phatrick]

Glad to hear you're back and had a good time. How was your mission to Burma? Too bad you didn't stick around Seattle longer - you missed our nearly record breaking 30 straight days of rain. Makes me want to jump.

[MC]

Well more about my Mission to Burma in later posts, which wasn't so great. I also got the chance to miss snow in Tokyo while in Chaing Mai as well.