We Give Thanks

We are very thankful for the friends that we have found in our new home and the friends and family that we have "back home".

This year Thanksgiving and Yee Peng/Loy Krathong fell on the same day. This is a coincidence that may not happen again in our lifetime. Thanksgiving falling on the third Thursday of November and the Thai festivals happening on a specific full moon.

Northern Thailand is descended from the Lanna Kingdom, while southern Thailand is descended from the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which was a kingdom of Siam. Lanna has its own language and distinct culture, although the official language of the country is Thai.

Yee Peng or Yi Peng falls on the second full moon of the Lanna year, which coincidentally is the same as the Loy Krathong or Loikrathong, which falls on the full moon of the twelfth month of the traditional Thai calendar. The different spellings are typical here. English language spelling of Thai words varies considerably.

Both festivals have the idea of sending your troubles away to have a prosperous new year. A Loi Krathong means a floating basket so they put a floating (Loi) basket (Krathong) in the river, or farther south, into the sea. In Chiang Mai they also float a lantern or khom loi. I was kind of disappointed to learn this only goes back about 125 years and was probably introduced for the tourists. Still, it is very, very pretty. It’s also a hazard to air travel and flights in and out of Chiang Mai are cancelled during the evening of the holiday.

Our Khom Loi launched from the Iron Bridge over the Ping River. It's called the Iron Bridge because the Japanese originally built it from iron during the occupation of World War II. It was later blown up by the Allies, but rebuilt again as an iron bridge after the war.

We should have good luck next year. Our khom loi went up and out of sight.

We learned from the mistakes of others. In the video below you can see what happens if you rush things. Slowly, slowly is the mantra of Chiang Mai. You have to let the lantern fill with hot air before launching.

Before we went to the Iron Bridge we had a semi-traditional American Thanksgiving feast that we shared with our American friend Jason. The food was excellent and included such things as roast lamb, salmon and pork ribs in addition to the several turkeys. What was conspicuously missing was the dressing. I'm not sure why. An American runs the place and there are plenty of bakeries here. Nonetheless it was really good to have a taste of home.

There is quite a mess made by this festival and it takes them a while to get it all cleaned up. The little boy in the group above is Nai. He's the four year old son of Lek and Pai. We are Grandpa Ed and Gramma Barbara to Nai. That's a first for us, we've always been Auntie and Uncle to the little kids. Lek told me that's what they say here until you turn 60, then you get promoted.

Below is one last video showing that these lanterns are pretty flame resistant and also what it take to get one lit.

So far, all of the above happened on Thursday. Going back to Wednesday, we went in to see how they decorated the old city. We had a pizza at our favorite joint for that kind of activity, the Mad Dog Pizza and then walked up the road to the Thapae Gate. This is the front door to Chiang Mai and they put quite a show on there. We happened to watch the contest to see who would become the King of the festival. I guess the Queen was chosen the night before.

Jumping forward to Friday, Barbara was the wiser of us and stayed home, but I couldn't resist on more trip into the old city to see the grand finale parade. I rode the bike in and parked it at the On On bar. It was quite pleasant and fun to see the parade, but Saturday I was so wiped out that I slept 15 hours starting in the afternoon. I want to acknowledge our friend Auilwan Hsmnut who took some of the parade pictures I included below.

That brings us up to date with the holidays, but not with the adventures this week. On Tuesday I went exploring with the motorcycle. I'd seen a white temple on top of a big hill/small mountain on my previous rides so I went up to take a look. It turns out to be an unfinished pagoda. When I arrived I had the place completely to myself.

When I drove back down I stopped at the temple below it. This is Wat Ban Pong, or at least one of them. We also went to a Wat Ban Pong up in the Phrao valley. Of course this is the same name as the city that Mom and Papa Chai live in. It is a beautifully maintained place with lots of inspirational signs all around in English. I spoke to one of the monks there. He's a young guy who had to leave to go to his University classes. He invited me to come back and meditate with them. I'm going to do that in early December after our trip to Phrao next week and the extension of our visa's which will happen on December 4th.

After the visit to the Wat, I drove up to the Royal Rose Garden, passing the elephants who were out walking again. The garden is beautiful and free to the public.

After visiting the Rose Garden I was in the mood for an espresso. Despite seeing many signs for open coffee shops, they were in fact all empty. Maybe everyone was getting ready for Loikrathong, I don't know. This one was particularly beautiful and had a very friendly dog, but no one serving coffee.

Later I followed the signs to "The Coffee Addict". Good thing I'm not, because this one was closed too. It was down a dirt road that opened up into a beautiful valley. It's called the Lanna Rock Garden for obvious reasons. After I got home I discovered that Facebook was tracking me and suggested I might like to go to a big music festival at Lanna Rock Garden for my birthday in February. Kind of eerie, but yes, I think I would like to go.

Still looking for coffee, but took a short detour to a lookout.

I finally found a cup not too far from home. It was in fact, a great find and Barbara and I went back for lunch later. They grow their own vegetables at the restaurant and you can really taste the freshness. It is home to Jungle, a very, very friendly kitty. A little too familiar though. He was comfortable enough around us to go catch and eat a mouse in the restaurant while we had our lunch.

A funny story about that place is the road sign. I took the picture to show Jason where we had stopped. He said the sign says they sell cow shit and then tells the price. I guess you can buy lunch and fertilizer there.

Well it has been a busy week. I take you back a couple more days to last Sunday, just a week ago today. Barbara made an appointment at the Chiang Mai Thai Traditional Contemporary Massage (TTCM) center of Chiang Mai University. This place was recommended to us by our insurance agent. It's in the old city and specializes in combined eastern and western approaches to massage. They avoid the painful positions and focus on a more medically disciplined approach. It's been good for her, but we were happy to find a chiropractor not too far away from us to augment the massage treatments. Anyway, while she got her massage I looked around one of the city's many, many Wats and then walked through a small and very pleasant city park.

One thing I forgot to mention is that we rediscovered the Dash restaurant last week. This was a place we found during our last visit in 2016 right at the very end of our visit. The owner is Thai, but used to live on Mercer Island in Washington. The food is exceptional, as Barbara said, a five star restaurant by American standards. He told us anytime we want to come just mention that we are friends of his and we'll always get a table. It's good to be connected. The funny thing is we were there because of our connections. Lek told us that a lot of people like this place and we might want to try it before coming to watch his team play billiards.

I'll leave you with one more picture. This one from our front yard where we have a very messy and very pretty tree.