One More Night in Bangkok

We spent New Year's Day traveling from Ko Tao to Surat Thani to Bangkok. We had one day in Bangkok before flying home to Bahrain on the evening of 2.Jan.2007. We visited Wat Phra Kaew and saw the Emerald Buddha (no pictures allowed of the Emerald Buddha).

The Grand Palace is located in the same area as Wat Phra Kaew. We got our obligatory "palace guard photo," saw the guest palace where presidents of other countries stay when they visit, and enjoyed walking around the palace grounds on our last day in Thailand.

The Islands of Thailand

We flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok to Ko Samui on 26.Dec.2006. We stayed one night on Ko Samui at a place on the beach.

We arrived a day or two after some pretty heavy storms had come through the area. As a result, the sea was still pretty rough and the beach was fairly quiet.

After our night on Ko Samui, we took a boat to Ko Tao - a smaller, less populated island. Here is the view from the restaurant of the "resort" where we stayed.

We spent a lot of time snorkeling, reading, eating, and doing nothing on Ko Tao. It was great. Here are some pictures of our "Corona commercial" setting.

We stayed for three days on the southern end of the island, and two days on the nothern end. The sea was very rough on the northern end, so, rather than snorkeling or swimming, we opted for an extremely exciting kayak excursion followed by lots of reading, tea drinking, and coconut shakes.

Chiang Mai - Highlands of Thailand

Sara and I spent our first week in Thailand in Chiang Mai. The weather was great (if a little cold at night) and the scenery was even better.

Here is a shot of Sara enjoying the flowers at Mae Sa Valley, where we stayed for three days.



Here are more photos of Mae Sa Valley:






The Queen Sikirit Botanic Gardens were right down the road from our bungalow. The vegetation was a nice change of pace from Bahrain, or Brohwnrain, as I have come to call it.













One of the highlights of Chiang Mai was our visit to the Mae Sa Elephant Camp - a preservation-minded habitat for Indian elephants. We were able to feed the elephants, ride them, watch them put on a "show", and see the paper that is made out of elephant poo.

Sara soon learned that elephants don't care if you leave the peel on the banana.





































Here is one of our elephant friends. Sara wanted to name him "Stampy" - (see Season 5 of "The Simpsons").








Our visit to Chiang Mai also involved a visit to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep - a famous Buddhist temple in the mountains that requires climbing a multitude of steps to reach. The temple holds all sorts of sacred Buddhist artifacts and is surrounded by a sizable community of food-sellers and amulet dealers.

This is a shot of us at the foot of the steps leading to the temple - ahhhh, I can smell the incense now . . . .

The structure you see below is the "Golden Stupa" - you need sunglasses just to look at it! Next to that is a picture of Sara standing next to one of the retailer stalls near the temple grounds. We grew accustomed to hearing the proprietors saying "have a look, sir-mam".

Buddhist artifacts in the temple, along with people burning incense and offering flowers.

We followed the visit at the temple with a visit to a Hmong hilltribe further up the mountain. Below is a shot of two Hmong girls in the surrounding village, and also a shot of me chilling with the folks from whom Sara bought some jewelry.

Enjoying the view of the mountains. Cheers!

After our stay in the mountains, we packed up and headed to the city of Chiang Mai. We visited the ruins of the old city (about 600-700 years old), enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner in a German restaurant, and celebrated Christmas morning with a sunshine-bathed breakfast next to the Chiang Mai river, followed by a trip to the zoo.