Friday, December 01, 2006
Chiang Mai to Krabi
Nov. 21st
Today was another travel day. The morning and early afternoon was spent in Chiang Mai. Since we had not done anything within the walls of the city, we headed into the old city for the morning. With time for only one major stop we went to Wat Singh, which means the Lion Temple and the central Buddha image is referred to as the lion Buddha. To
honest I am not sure why this temple is referred to as the Lion Temple. There are images of small lions in front of temple as opposed to Nagas and the Buddha has a large halo-like mane behind him. So one or both of these probably has some importance, although when I asked about it no one there could really explain it to us.
The grounds of Wat Singh are quite extensive and include several smaller tem
ples and a school. Also, there was a small shaded picnic area with tables that had signs on all the trees. My favorite saying is pictured right. If only I could remember this on a daily basis. Maybe if we had anxiety warning labels like cigarettes. I guess that is why they have temples.
Wat Singh is centrally located within the walled city so finding a restaurant for lunch was no problem. We ate a nice noodle shop that was very p
leasant and hit the spot. Inspite of the looks of this photo, the kids were having fun. Trust me. Now the trick was getting back to the hotel and of course we choose a cab driver that was clueless about where our hotel was. Did I mention we had to catch a flight to Krabi? Anyway after the third or fourth hotel the cab driver finally got us to our hotel. We then grabbed our bags and caught a cab - a different cab driver - and caught our flight to Krabi.
Now while I have no photos of our travels to Krabi, because we were running most of the time, they were not without excitement. (See anxiety sign above.) We were flying the budget airline of Thailand, Air Asia, and we had to fly Chiang Mai to Bangkok, then Bangkok to Krabi. Well as it turns out part of being a budget airline means you only check bags point to point. That is, we had to get our bags in Bangkok and checked back in for our flight to Krabi - IN AN HOUR! The new Bangkok airport is not the Corvallis airport, or Eugene or Portland for that matter. Well the story has a happy ending (we made it) and we laugh about it now, right? Tomorrow the beach will be glorious. Anxiety shortens life, anxiety shortens life, anxiety ...
Today was another travel day. The morning and early afternoon was spent in Chiang Mai. Since we had not done anything within the walls of the city, we headed into the old city for the morning. With time for only one major stop we went to Wat Singh, which means the Lion Temple and the central Buddha image is referred to as the lion Buddha. To
honest I am not sure why this temple is referred to as the Lion Temple. There are images of small lions in front of temple as opposed to Nagas and the Buddha has a large halo-like mane behind him. So one or both of these probably has some importance, although when I asked about it no one there could really explain it to us.The grounds of Wat Singh are quite extensive and include several smaller tem
ples and a school. Also, there was a small shaded picnic area with tables that had signs on all the trees. My favorite saying is pictured right. If only I could remember this on a daily basis. Maybe if we had anxiety warning labels like cigarettes. I guess that is why they have temples.Wat Singh is centrally located within the walled city so finding a restaurant for lunch was no problem. We ate a nice noodle shop that was very p
leasant and hit the spot. Inspite of the looks of this photo, the kids were having fun. Trust me. Now the trick was getting back to the hotel and of course we choose a cab driver that was clueless about where our hotel was. Did I mention we had to catch a flight to Krabi? Anyway after the third or fourth hotel the cab driver finally got us to our hotel. We then grabbed our bags and caught a cab - a different cab driver - and caught our flight to Krabi.Now while I have no photos of our travels to Krabi, because we were running most of the time, they were not without excitement. (See anxiety sign above.) We were flying the budget airline of Thailand, Air Asia, and we had to fly Chiang Mai to Bangkok, then Bangkok to Krabi. Well as it turns out part of being a budget airline means you only check bags point to point. That is, we had to get our bags in Bangkok and checked back in for our flight to Krabi - IN AN HOUR! The new Bangkok airport is not the Corvallis airport, or Eugene or Portland for that matter. Well the story has a happy ending (we made it) and we laugh about it now, right? Tomorrow the beach will be glorious. Anxiety shortens life, anxiety shortens life, anxiety ...
# posted by Joe Spatafora @ 6:44 AM 
