Chiang Mai, February 13, 2018

Today is my brother's birthday! Happy Birthday, Michael Latting!

Bay, our guide, is the first of five or six we have had who actually listens to our needs. Yesterday as he reviewed the plan for today we told him that in our travels we have recently experienced plentiful local markets, temples and the "canned-type" craft factories with a demonstration of a craft but moreover a huge retail outlet targeted to tourists and tour groups. We have even received personal blessings from Buddhist monks and had an opportunity to talk with them about the aspects of his religion and his personal life. Strange, but each location seems to offer very similar types of activities. We explained we surely don't want to be difficult but it's better to say upfront what's on our minds rather than just to accept the plan and be less than satisfied. He agreed and suggested we visit the Royal Park Rajapruek. This picturesque 12-year old park was created as the site for the Royal Flora Expo, on the occasion of His Majesty the King's 60th anniversary of coronation. Over 60 countries participated in the expo and built individual gardens stylized to represent their home country as a gift to the king. The park is named for Thailand's national flower, Ratchaphruek tree, (Cassia fistula or golden shower tree) with its beautiful yellow blossom which unfortunately was not currently in bloom.

I should note, we are visiting during the dry season. While the weather is very nice and there are plenty of flowers to admire, but the sky is hazy pretty much every day - from the burning of rice fields in prep for spring planting. And it's still too early for grand displays of flower. Rainy season, we have learned, means rainy weather, of course, but the rain falls only for a short while each day. After the rain, the skies each day are said to be much clearer; you can actually see the mountains. Our next trip to Southeast Asia will definitely be during the rainy season.

The park is really large; we walked through beautiful gardens from Japan, China, Cambodia, Tibet, the Netherlands, Belgium and more. We visited the live butterfly exhibit and the bug exhibit - they have some big, truly terrible-looking black beetles here. Bay said his son and his friends like to catch the fighting beetles and have war with them. Boys!

The morning and our outing at the garden was a welcome change. Thank you, Bay!

The afternoon was ours! At the hotel, we had some Tom Yum soup at the hotel with big chunks of vegetables and thin slices of chicken in a light stock (the description Tom Yum means spicy soup--they say it's spicy; we say it's fire-y). We spent the next couple of hours relaxing by the serene pool.

We have Thai cooking class tonight. It should be fun.