WWCMTTT

Yesterday, Carol - my compatriate from IELI - left to go back to the States. Before she headed off to the airport, the three of us embarked on what we dubbed the "Whirlwind Chiang Mai Tuk-Tuk Tour". As is obvious from the name, our transportation was provided by tuk-tuk. Here are the fabulous places we visited in the 90 minutes we had available.

Wat Chedi Luang: This is one of the most famous wats (temples) in the city. It was built in the late 1300s. It's located within the old city, and the top of the chedi can be seen from our balcony. It is around 180 feet tall.

The front view

The side view with the Buddha statue

Closer view

Elephants coming out of the side of the chedi

An ornamental dragon at the foot of the stairs

A couple other temple buildings

After checking out the wat, we went to The Chedi, a hotel that used to be the British Consulate. It's pretty fancy now. When walking around this hotel, I felt like I had stepped into a Crate & Barrel catalog!

The entryway

Just up the road from The Chedi is an old, traditional Thai house which is now a museum. Here's a picture:


Then we had lunch and said goodbye - for now - to Carol.

End of Term 1

The students are taking their final exams this week, so that means we have officially survived a whole term over here!

Last night, Carol, Gus, Andy, and I went on the Mae Ping River Dinner Cruise. Here we are:

Gus and Angela on the cruise

It rained the whole time, but fun was had by all. The dinner was good, too!

Because taxi drivers usually have no idea what the name of our condo is, we usually tell them the name of the guest-house next door. Often, they don't know where that is, either. In that case, I tell them the general area of the city. Today, I got clever and took a couple pictures of our condo building; I plan to print out a picture and keep it in my purse. My hope is that, upon showing the taxi driver a picture of our condo, the driver will then know exactly where he's going, and he will charge us less for the ride. As it currently works, drivers usually only have a vague idea that our condo is somewhere on the northeastern side of the city, so they say, "Long way!!" and charge us an arm and a leg.

Here's what we'll show them:

Our condo building
on the banks of the Mae Ping

While I was taking that picture, I took another picture of our condo with a really pretty flowering tree in the foreground:

Condo, pretty tree

Closeup of the flowers