Loy Krathong at the River in Chiang Mai

Thailand time is coming to a close, and I have not been very good about telling you about it!  We leave for China in 4 days, and there is a lot to do.  Today we went to the train station to buy tickets to Bangkok only to find out that they were all full.  We moved on to Plan B, which was to take a bus instead.  Honestly, I prefer the bus.  They are smaller and somehow more personable.  I also enjoy the scenery from the bus more because you actually see towns and people and their homes because you are using the same streets they are.  AND on a bus you get to stop at the crazy Thai rest stops with tons of food!!  Nik prefers the train because they are safer…which is true…but I don’t think we should be scared of crashes and horrible things because we can’t predict the future.

So what have we been up to since we left India??  A lot and not much, all at the same time.  We have started to prepare for re-entry into the real world, which I am looking forward to.  I’m ready to have an income and a little responsibility.  We are still hoping to find work in Shanghai or Tokyo, and hopefully we’ll find out if it’s possible soon.

We have also been preparing for our trip to China.  Our itinerary is set…Beijing-Shanghai-Gulin-Hong Kong…and we have places to stay in Beijing and Shanghai.  We’re still working on Gulin and Hong Kong, but those will happen soon.  Our month in China is much less ambitious than our India trip because we feel like each city has so much to offer.  We have heard from several fellow travelers to stay out of the big cities…but you know what?  We like big cities!  We can’t help it.  We love wandering around for days in the midst of all kinds of people and getting lost.  We love finding the little respits of calm in the midst of chaos.  And I love the buildings, and the food, and the shopping, and the music.  So we’re sticking to our guns, and if you have any suggestions for the 4 cities mentioned…pass them our way.

Despite all of this prep work, we have also gotten out a bit.  I think we’ve visited four different waterfalls at least twice each.  We drove out to Hung Tung Tao Reservoir for lunch twice…once by ourselves and once with some couchsurfer friends.  We participated in the Loy Krathong festivities, some of which you saw with the 10,000 Wishes post.  We spent a couple afternoons reading in the park.  We went on walks.  I found a modern building in Chiang Mai!!!  It is a designers’ studio off of the Canal Road near Huay Kaew Road.  I was too shy to take many photos because people were working.  We have also quenched our hunger for sweets…at Dunken Donuts and the Milk Zone…among others.  And just today, we drove out to Bo Pang to see the handmade umbrellas.  More than anything, we’ve been enjoying our time together in an amazing city….what more can a girl ask for?

Oh, and I almost forgot!  When we were in Bangkok, we saw the current King of Thailand, Rama IX!!!  We happened to be there on October 23 which is King Chulalongkorn Day (in honor of King Rama V) so we went to the Dusit Palace hoping to observe some activity when people started congregating on the sidewalks.  At first we thought they were waiting for a parade, but found out that they were waiting for the King!!  We decided to wait with them, and right at 5:00pm, the motor brigade drove up, the King paid his respects, and the motor brigade drove away.  We waited there with the crowd for at least 4 hours.  All to see the King step out of the car for 2 minutes.  I was impressed by the Thai people’s devotion.

King Rama V Memorial in Bangkok

Crowds await the King's Arrival

Our favorite waterfall off of Huay Kaew Road

Near another waterfall

The kids' area at the river during Loy Krathong

Princess Galyani Vadhana memorial at Tha Pae Gate

A little taste of Modern Architecture...and a water tank!

Sweet Tooth Recognized

Sweet Tooth Recognized again with a Banana Split at Milk Zone

A couple days at the Reservoir

The unfortunate result of Loy Krathong is that we now see Khom Loy littering the sidewalks, roofs, power lines, construction sites and open spaces.

The Physics Building at Chiang Mai University...a study in details and color

Red for emergency circulation

Green for public spaces

Blue for classrooms

Bo Pang Umbrella Village Welcomes You!

My favorite part of today was having my everyday moleskine cover hand painted by a local artist

Of course, Nik has done much better keeping his blog up to date, so you can find several posts about our last month in Chiang Mai, and here are the links to those:

Minor Moments, Tiny Waterfall

Flu & Fire: Loy Krathong in Chiang Mai, Thailand

The Secret Waterfall on the Way to Doi Suthep

Hanging at Reservoirs, Waterfalls and Restaurants

Enjoying the Little Things in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Bangkok Before India, Bangkok After India

This question was posed to me by the editor of travelblogs.com: Which book, movie or album inspired you to travel in 2008?

For me, I am most inspired by books, so I decided to write about one that Nik’s father gave us last Christmas called The River at the Center of the World: A Journey up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time by Simon Winchester.  He gave it to us in preparation for our trip to China (which starts next week!!!!), and it was perfect.  We have both read it now, and I am actually sad because we shipped it home before we left for India, which means we don’t have it with us to reference.  Luckily it was a great book so I remember most of it!

This book follows Simon Winchester and his Chinese companion as they  travel along the Yangtze River and back in time through China’s political, social and spiritual past.  Their journey begins in the Pacific Ocean outside of Shanghai and continues through the heart of the country until they reach the river’s source high in the Tibetan Himalayas.  Along the way, Winchester tells anecdotal stories about their encounter with proud entrepreneurs gazing at Shanghai’s Pearl TV Tower, a pack of swimmers traversing the waterway in memorial to Chairman Mao’s triumphant swim of 1966, Tibetan roadblocks in which bribes are the only way cross and much more.  Winchester weaves these stories seamlessly with the history of China in a way that you nearly forget what is part of his journey, and what happened hundreds of years ago.

A close second on my list of inspiration was Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I had never heard of this best seller when I saw it on my good friend Jessica’s coffee table two days before I left Tennessee to fly to Thailand.  I still needed a good book for the plane, so I went to the used bookstore in Hendersonville the very next morning to pick it up.  It was the best book that I ever could have started reading on the day I began 6 months of travel!

The somewhat distant third, but still good, on my list is Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.  It is a fictional story about the life of a boy born at midnight on the day of India’s independence from Great Britain.  It was recommended by a local bookseller in Varanasi, India as one of the must reads for Indian literature.  The book gave me a wonderful insight into the culture of India as it has struggled with its independence, and was great to read as I was traveling through the country.  However, I found it hard to read.  The structure of the book was awkward to me, and the way he explained things was off.  I think my struggle was with the cultural differences between most American/western authors and Indian authors because I have had the same difficulty with other Indian authors.  It just takes some getting used to!

The discussion should be up on the travelblogs site around December 1, so if you want great book ideas from other travelers, check it out!!

**All photos were taken by Nik.

Fifteen hours later, and I am still in awe of watching 10,000+ lanterns float through the sky.  I suspect that I will still be in awe of this moment 15 years from now.  In fact, I think I might look at these photos every single day for the rest of my life.  And the most amazing part is that not only did 10,000+ lanterns float through the sky; 10,000+ people launched them into the sky, and Nik and I were among them!

The Buddhist tradition states that when you release a lantern, Kome Loy, into the sky, you are releasing your misgivings and are to make a wish.  This cleansing ritual makes it difficult to think of anything but how beautiful our lives are as we watched everyone’s wish float toward the heavens.

My wish is to celebrate Loy Krathong with my entire family through the act of releasing Kome Loy into the sky!

I also took a short video of the main release that Nik put to music.  You can watch a high quality version here on YouTube.  It is amazing!!!!

Nik also posted a lot of photos from our day of beauty: Fire in the Sky

The Floating Lantern Ceremony is part of Northern Thailand’s Loy Krathong Festival, also known as Yee Peng, and is held at the Buddhist Meditation Center, Tudong Ka Sathaan Lanna, behind the Mae Jo Agricultural University in San Sai District, Chiang Mai.

Poster by Yee Haw Industries in Knoxville, TN

You can buy one of these posters for your own collection here at Yee Haw’s website.

Fresh mountain flowers have been planted throughout Leh giving the town. They contrast sharply with the whitewashed earthen buildings making it feel like you're walking through a painting!!

Here are the earthen bricks I mentioned above. Also beautiful in their own right!!

We started our day every day at Gesmo's. They have an amazing breakfast of eggs, toast, hash browns and coffee.

We spent several hours a day wandering through the narrow streets of Leh looking to see what we could find. The architecture of this town is so simple but when you see it as a whole, it becomes quite complex. I could wander here forever.

More buildings we wandered around.

I presume that this might be the door the family cow enters at night to sleep. Almost every home had one.

There are a few commercial streets in town that are filled with handicrafts, sweets, trekking gear and rooftop restaurants.

Guest House Guest House...there must be a million guest houses in this town!! If the two we stayed at are any sign, then the quality of accommodation is top notch!!

Pad locks are the norm here in India. Most doors only have one, but some have three or five.

Indus River Blue...as you will see in a photo below, the color of the Indus River has inspired the color palette of the town.

Prayer flags drape across the Buddhist Stupa to the south of town.

The view of the river valley from the top of the stupa. These tall skinny mountain trees were stunning.

Nik enjoying the beauty of the Indus Valley.

Prayer flags of all shapes, sizes and colors.

This is the entry side to the Leh palace. It was built in the 17th Century and is now in a general state of disrepair. It was fascinating to walk through the rooms and imagine what it must have been like to live or work here.

Leh, as seen from the palace.

Green Water Can

A palace made from the mountains.

Leh View Restaurant...Nik and I went here twice for lunch. The food was good, but the view is why we came back.

Shanti Stupa. We came up here one day to watch the sunset, and we barely made it in time.

Sunset over the Himalayas.

We took the local bus a couple times to nearby villages. This one took us to Basgo.

We got our best view of the Indus River on the bus...as it twisted and turned around the mountains. See...Indus River Blue!

The Chamba Gompa in Basgo.

A door to no where. A door draped with prayers.

The view from the plane as we left leh. We will be back soon for another adventure in heaven!

Click here for my previous blog entry about Leh: Shey and Thiksey, India

Nik’s Blog: The First Two Days in Leh, India

Nik’s Blog: Trips to Chamba Gompa and Shanti Stupa