Merry Christmas from Thailand!

Mike and I took off for Thailand on December 24th and landed in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand just before the stroke of midnight. Before I get started on our vacation though, I thought I would share a bit of geography and pre-emptively answer the geography questions you might have.

Thailand is a long skinny country on a peninsula that juts off Souther China. It shares the peninsula with Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore. That is a alot of countries on one, relatively small peninsula. It is above the equator, so shares the same seasons with Korea and the US, but significantly South, so their winters feel more like summers to us. Note

Here is a map and the red line is the connection between Seoul and Thailand. Since Thailand is such a popular tourist destination, direct flights from Seoul are pretty widely available, although a rip-off during the holidays.

Here is a close up of Thailand. We flew into Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand and then flew out of Phuket in Southern Thailand. It was about a 2 hour flight between the two cities to give you an idea of distance on this map. Note that Bangkok is the capital city and you will find it in the center of the country. We didn't have a chance to visit Bangkok, but chose Chiang Mai as we heard it was smaller and more laid back.

Now that we have the geography lesson completed and you can picture where we were, let's start with Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is in Northern Thailand up in the mountains. It is a beautiful town, very well set up to cater to tourists. The people are kind, there are no large hotel chains and I think it was a great experience to feel the culture. We landed in Chiang Mai at almost midnight Christmas Morning, just in time to celebrate my birthday!

Chiang Mai is actually a walled city. The wall is still intact and
surrounds the city in a square. In fact, there is actually still a moat
inside the city walls.

Our first hotel in Chiang Mai was within the Old City walls. It was a quaint little boutique hotel called the Bodhi Serene. Doesn't look like much from the outside, but very nice inside the walls. It was a great location near the markets and temples, so we could walk and avoid getting hustled by the taxi cab drivers...they love to hustle tourists.

We arrived at our hotel about 1AM Christmas Morning and were greeted with fireworks in the streets outside out hotel, which continued throughout the night. Location of the hotel was great for sight-seeing, but not good for quiet nights. We would soon discover that fireworks are very poplar in Thailand and I don't think we had one night without them lulling us to sleep :-)

Our second hotel rocked. It was closer to the river, was quieter and so pretty.

They even did our laundry and gave it back to us in these great little packets for $2!

After a great night sleep in out first Thailand hotel, were off to out Thai cooking class...my choice as my birthday present.

Thailand is full of cooking schools that cater to tourists. Other than Southeast Asia, I don't think cooking classes are a norm for vacations, but since Southeastern Asian food is just soooo delicious and a bit exotic to Westerners, taking a cooking class is pretty much a prerequisite for a Thai vacation.

And...ours lived up to the expectations. Our teach, Yui, was a Thai woman and the class was at her house. We have two other Americans (that live in India) in our class. Small world looms again...one of the Americans grew up just 20 minutes from Mike outside of Pittsburgh.

Our class started at 9AM and we cooked through until 5PM with a total of 6 dishes and a trip to the local market in there as well. It was one of my favorite days and the best Thai food we had the entire vacation!

Enjoying out first dish of six that day...Pad Thai!



Preparing my Spring Rolls!



Yui on the right telling us about the fruits at the local market

Yui's house. The cooking school was called A Lot of Thai. I would
highly recommend it.

Mike preparing to cook Green Curry Chicken...yum!

The next two days were a mixture of massages, temples, lots and lots of eating and shopping in the local markets. It was wonderful.

Anywhere you go in Thailand, you will find massage parlors. I have no idea if all of them are legitimate, but both Mike and I indulged in a few massages...great deal for 2 hours of full-body massages for $20! How can you say no.

Every third store front was a massage parlor. In
Thailand, if you have a couple of comfortable chairs and
some space on the sidewalk, you had a massage parlor!

And...we ate. Warning: The following pictures may make you feel queezy or just leave you with a sheer curiousity of how we could have possibly eaten this much food in just 7 days!

My now favorite food in the whole world...
Sticky Rice with Mango. No joke here. It
melts in your mouth. Had it at every meal!

Pad Thai, Pad Thai, Pad Thai. Need I say more...



Thanks Mike for capturing me at most beatiful moments...with my mouth full of food.

Happy Mike! Why, you ask...Pad Thai, of course.

Happy Jen! Why, you ask? Fresh Coconut Water on the beach, Fresh Fruit Smoothies, Coconut Cream ice cream served in a coconut and curry masaman, of course! What more can a girl ask for?

No need to move from your beach chair in Phuket.
Pad Thai comes to you!
Thai Guy: "That will be $2 please."
Mike: "Gladly" 

Me, again with food in my mouth enjoying the
ribs at our New Years Eve Buffet

Yes, there was food, food and more food and it was delicious.

Then, after the food, there were temples and lots of them. I have hundreds of pictures of the temples and if you are interested in seeing more, check out our Picassa pages.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jonofray/Thailand?authkey=Gv1sRgCL-T14j1hMe0PQ&feat=directlink

Here, I will just give you my Top 5 (kind of).

Mike and I both felt like this after all of our eating...
Full & Happy! Praise the Big Buddha!

And...we enjoyed this. Sleep with no alarm clocks!
Yeah for the Sleeping Buddha.

This was a NO! NO! at temples, but you know Mike...
he is quite the crazy one! Trying to make a fun picture
at the temples.

Buddha...and lots of them.

And...your final cultural picture from Thailand...a Buddha!

 I think over 90% of the population is Buddhist, so you can imagine how many temples they need.

And, finally there was shopping. Clothing for $2, jewelry for $4, Pad Thai for $1, scarves for $1, tshirts for $2. It was glorious and Mike so sweetly came along for the ride. Chiang Mai had three major markets and we did 2 of them. The Saturday Walking Street is where hindreds of vendors line up on Saturday until midnight to sell their goods and the Night Bazaar which appened every night. Both were just a few blocks from our hotels, so it was wonderful.

There was so much more to Thailand, but in order to not make this too long...I will leave you with some self-portraits of Mike & I throughout our vacation. Our Thailand Photo Montage!

And...Mike's favorite!!!

More about Phuket in Thailand Part Deux!