New Years Eve

Chiang Mai is a terrific place to ring in the new year. The main street is closed to car traffic. Theres music, food and fireworks at midnight. Thousands of these lanterns are launched. This last image (sort of) shows a tank full of little fish munching the dead skin from a womans feet and legs. This was banned in Seattle.
OKAY, we are up to date. The tains all booked until Jan. 5. I'll be going south to meet Keith and another Mike. Manchester Mike and Gene from Canada will follow.
Bye for now, Doablah

More fun

Heres yours truly feeding sugarcane to a young friend. John and me, the Top North swimming pool, and John and sweetie Tee. The weather has been lovely. It reaches about 80 in the day. In the evening it's shirtsleeve weather.

Chiang Mai Christmas

Hi. I arranged the previous blog photos to be two rows of two. Upon review they are single file. I'll revert to small images and see what happens! Heres a party at Ole and Apples bar. Pim big John and Keith. Mike at KMC bar and the boys again.

Pims place

Pim and her Danish boyfriend Kenneth (Kan Do) have a lovely restrauant outside of town. By various modes of transport, about 10 of us trooped out to enjoy a delicious Christmas eve lunch. Local delicacies kept coming and coming. We must have eaten for three hours. This sink is carved from a single block of wood. Here is our hostess in her chefs hat with Manchester Mike. Our entire bill was about $18. It couldn't have even covered her costs.

Ko Samui

I enjoyed Samui on the last trip. I didn't take a lot of photos this time. Those interested can scroll back to previous posts. The wind was strong which made a rough surf with a nasty shorebreak. Two serious thunder and lightning storms were a bit of a damperon outdoor activities. This is grandfather rock. Nearby is grandmother rock, that looks like female genitalia.
It's very expensive to fly from Samui. I organized a minibus, boat, big bus, car and two flight marathon to get to Chiang Mai.

On the train

So, how do you like these bigger photos. The images can be clicked on to enlarge, but the small ones get alittle fuzzy. Traveling by second class sleeper car is a great way to go. It begins as a day coach. Passengers can order and drink to your seat or visit the dining car. Or, you can snack and sip on stuff you brought on board. About 8 P.M. the steward makes the seats into bunks with clean linen and a blanket. The down side is that the equipment is old and breaks down ALOT!

Asia winter part two

Halloh!I have had a tough time with Blogger. I gave it my BMI address and got locked out. It wouldn't let me try a different one. I had to start all over. Argh! And these gottam passwords. I've got passwords for BMI, Google, United, Alaska, Chase, Facebook, and Classmates. They all want different combinations of letters and numbers.
Anyhows, My Tokyo to BKK flight was late because another group from Chicago was late because some Autistic kid pitched a fit and wouldn't turn off his electronic game. The airplane had to return to the gate to throw him and his family off the plane. I got through customs at 1 A.M. The shuttles stop running at 11:30, and a taxi into town is expensive. Shaun told me about a hotel near the airport that picks you up and takes you back to the terminal for free. I got a good nights sleep and got a shuttle at noon staaight to Hualampong station for my afternoon train south. This station was designed and built by a Dutch architect about 1905. It's a glorious old building with lots of food and drink outlets for snacks on the train.
OKAY, lets try to post this.
Doahlah