April 16, 2007
Travel Log Part 5
Sunday, March 4, 8:30pm
This has been quite a day. After breakfast, we packed our things and drove around Chiang Mai, where we saw an amazing garden planted in honor of the king's 60th anniversary of being king. Thailand loves their king. In honor of the king's 80th birthday this year, everyone wears yellow polo shirts on Mondays. Every Monday. Everyone participates, too: young, old, farmers, businessmen...I'd guess about 75% of the population, which is pretty remarkable. There are pictures of the king everywhere and it's illegal to say anything negative about him. (*As an aside, as we were flying to Bangkok at the end of our trip, I read an article about a European man who had just been sentenced to 10 years in a Thai prison for defacing billboards of the king. No joke. The writer of the article seemed to think he got off easy. Here's an AP version of the story.)
I got carsick riding around Chiang Mai (just woozy - I didn't throw up or anything dramatic like that), which made for a long drive to Lampang. Lampang is an interesting city from what I've seen so far. We met an American guy who teaches ESL here. He was very helpful regarding language and customary issues.
The house we're staying at is not the nicest. The bathroom is disgusting. M and I are sharing a room for the next three nights. K is at a hotel by herself. I don't know which situation is worse. The family we're with has only one person who speaks English at all. Should be an interesting three days.
We also went to the night market last night. It had quite an array of, um..."aromas". I don't know if I'm overly paranoid from reading too many guidebooks, but I feel very vulnerable at the night markets, since we farangs (foreigners) stick out so much. I hold on to my purse tightly and keep a close eye on the people I'm traveling with so none of us gets separated from the group. Thankfully, my team is a pretty responsible group.
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| From Thailand Marc... |
Mannequin from the night market in Lampang (many mannequins there resemble this one).
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| From Thailand Marc... |
Night Market in Lampang
Posted by christin at April 16, 2007 06:20 PM | TrackBack