Today... oh man today... the train ride was... long. The trains in Cario were smaller, but more private. The trains here had four to a room, and just curtains around each bed. Still really small. It waas a decent sleep... until i threw out my back... again. However - later in the day, I went to a massage place and got all the kinks worked out. Now, I'm using my handy-dandy bengay to keep the kinks from coming back tonight.
After the 16 hour train ride. yes.... 16 hours... longer than my flight to Dubai, we got to Chang Mai and went to a temple (which the name escapes me at the moment). It was really interesting.
In Egypt all the buildings are ancient ruins and made from rock. In Europe the older stuff is made from marble or granite... well here, everything is being restored, back to gold. It's stunning in the sunlight. The Royal Palace from yesterday was all decked out in gold too.
This temple had about 300 stairs to walk up to get to it. I think that's a testament to all the monks and locals who do it every day to give offerings. My legs were burning, I was winded. It was a reminder that I have not been active since softball ended in November.
In the temple, I got blessed by a Buddhist monk. There is a string they give you and if you are male, they tie it around your wrist, if you are female they drop the string into your hand for 4 or 5 inches about your hands that are facing palm up. It's a violation of their vow of celibacy to even touch a woman. In turn, Tara ended up tying them all on our wrists, and we went on our merry way.
This hotel is very nice. We all got a shower, it was delightful. Then off to explore. I ended up with some stomach problems and returned promptly. I took it easy for the rest of the afternoon and got ready to go to the Thai cooking class!
It was a great time. We went to the market with the chef, and he explained what to look for in spices, rice (dry rice very sticky rice) vegetables and explained how to use them. We ventured off to his kitchen, and each of us had our own station. We created a traditional Thai soup, chicken and cashews, and pad thai. It was really good. We even got a cook book of his recipes at the end. That should be way helpful when i attempt to make you all Thai food.
Tomorrow, we go to the tribal people's home. These are the people that had the women who where gold un removable necklaces on their necks. I'm interested to learn more about really Thai culture.
We are going to a Thai discotech in the evening, and we/ve all decided to dress up in some sort off mish-mosh of 80s style.
All is well.
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Uploaded and sent from an iPad that's exploring Southeast Asia. Please try not to mind the typos and spelling errors. Autocorrect does some funny things.
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