A Day out in Chiang Mai

On Wednesday last week I spent a lovely day in Chiang Mai with Melinda.

Melinda is an Aussie who is a dorm assistant with OMF at Grace International School in Chiang Mai.

 I began my day out by catching the song taew in our small town of Doi Saket. They leave every few minutes to take the half hour trip into the city of Chiang Mai. I really enjoy chatting with the locals on the journey.

On my journeys in the song taew I have met a Danish/Thai girl who grew up in Denmark, who is taking a gap year to come to her mother's homeland to learn Thai.

I also met an older woman, who tried to speak to me in Thai. Of course I couldn't answer but told her I liked her hair (It was just like mine!). She said, in really good English: "I like yours too!". Thus began our lesson as she tried to teach me Thai all the way into town!

 While I was waiting for Melinda I saw this guy selling brooms from his pushbike along the side of the road - as you do!

Melinda and I ate lunch at a very traditional Thai restaurant on the second floor of the Warorot market. Was good food.

Then Melinda and I decided to take a cruise along the Ping River in a rice boat. Reminded me of cruising the French canals with Mal. Lots of happy memories there.

And today was another day for making good memories.

Dom, our driver, was such a lovely guy who spoke good English - learned from the tourists - and told us about the things we saw along the route.

We stopped at a Thai Farmer's house - well, it used to be a farmer's house! Now it is more like a museum of farming equipment with rabbits and ducks, a great garden with many herbs, all labelled, plus a restaurant where we were treated to delicious fruit and cool drinks.

We asked our boat driver, Dom, to take a photo of us and he wanted us to sit on the water buffalo! So we did!

 

There is also a Thai cooking school at this venue and if I return to Chiang Mai sometime in the future I'd love to do a one week cooking class here.

 When our boat cruise was over we walked some of the streets of Chiang Mai, browsed, bought a few gifts for family and checked out an art gallery.

Then it was time for me to go to meet the rest of the Embark team to go teach English to the Chiang Mai YFC staff - our usual Wednesday evening activity.

It was my last opportunity to catch a tuk tuk while I am in Chiang Mai, so I couldn't resist!

I really enjoyed my tuk tuk experience. The driver was so helpful and showed me photos of him with his son and his mother! I needed donuts for my English students to party at the end of our classes and so he took me to the supermarket, found donuts for me and we continued on our way. Another very positive experience in Thailand.

Meeting the girls at the Holiday Inn was a bonus. I was able to have a wash and refresh after a long warm day on the town and before heading off to our last English class!