Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Thai Me Up


We’re just wrapping up a 2 week vacation in Thailand. It has been a bit of a marathon with an itinerary that had us moving all the time but we have seen a lot, from Phuket in the South to the Golden Triangle in the North and quite a bit in between. We have taken over 1,400 photos. Most of them are somewhat large files so I wil only post a couple of them here. The first is a bit of tsunami debris on Phi Phi Le Island, the only computer on the island I'm sure. It’s strange how the wave completely wrecked some areas and others were more or less untouched. Generally anything facing Southwest took the full brunt of it. The beach where we found this monitor was spared and just trapped some debris. Seeing as how I work on a computer everyday and how much I needed this vacation, this is just the way I liked to see a monitor. I worry about the fate of its owner though.

We found this on the same beach; a colony of monkeys. They didn’t appear at first but as we were puttering around on the beach they came down from the surrounding cliffs to see what we might have to offer. We had brought along some bananas and other fruit in anticipation of seeing them and so everyone was satisfied. We were entertained and they ate pretty well.






My favorite place on the whole tour was a hotel on a working tea plantation in Chiang Rai province, called Phu Chaisai. We all had (did I mention there were 10 of us? Two families of 4 plus two single ladies.) individual cottages built in the Lana Thai style with teak floors and teak panel walls. Our cottage had its own swimming pool with a waterfall feature.

Of course a visit to Thailand would not be complete without seeing lots of temples. One of the most beautiful of all is Wat Prathat on Doi Suthep, the mountain above Chiang Mai on the West side of the city. Here’s a picture of the Happy Campers on the steps (306 of them) leading up to it. And now, alas, it’s time to pack and head for home.

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