We depart the Riverside Resort promptly at 9:00 AM. Driving out of the town of Mae Sariang you can see every place (school) that the Princess had visited because it's completely decked out in her colour purple and with huge photos of her. Thais sure do spend a lot of money on their Monarchy and by most accounts they love their King. His photo is seen a lot around here. For mlles and miles down the highway the purple flags stuck in the ground provide proof th...

Preface: Spent 2.5 hours typing this post only to have had the system log me out somewhere along that timeframe and there wasn't a single word saved! After a night's sleep, let's try again. I'm typing this on Dec. 25 at 6:40 AM and am sick with a full on cold. Our day starts at 9:00 AM and we head on down the road only about 15-20 minutes or so and we reach our first adventure of the day. We are going to take a long tail boat up the Pai River towards Burma to...

Thought I would post for yesterday and today but yesterday's post (Saturday) took me so long to type that I will post for only a single day. If I awake early enough in the morning I'll tell you what I did today. Let me just pique your interest and tell you today was the hi-lite of the trip thus far. Yesterday (Saturday), my guide Sutthi picked me up at 8:00 AM sharp. He took me on a very quick little tour of Chiang Mai and we visited a very large Temple that ...

Sutti picks me up promptly at 9:00 AM. I tell him that my throat is very sore and I hope we an stop at a pharmacy so I can get some ointment or something to rub on it. My throat has been sore since I came to Thailand. It started, of course, with the recycled air on the plane but it has been getting worse every day. There is a constant scent to the air everywhere in Thailand: incense mixed with burning fires that they use to cook over and to keep warm. As...

Arrived in Chiang Mai, finally, at 9:30 AM -- a full 33+ hours after I locked my door in Vancouver. I paid 120 BHT for a taxi to my guest house. First impressions on the car ride were that Chiang Mai is somewhat reminiscent of Mexico with Mom and Pop stores but that's pretty much where the similarities end. The traffic here is much more horrendous which makes it hard to imagine what Bangkok traffic will be like. Twists and turns down windy narrow Sois (side...