Tag: Travel

I met the most interesting mannequin today. She was nice enough to take a photo with me.

While we are here to work, Carole and I don’t really start working until we get to Bangkok, which is late Saturday evening. So we spent the afternoon touring a small village and temple at the top of a mountain here. 

It was a 30 minute drive up the mountain on a narrow road most of the time, and lots of twists and turns. It was at times a little hard on the stomach, but around the time I started to feel sick we arrived. 

The village has a small group of people that make their money by creating clothing and other items that they sell to the tourist. Life up there is clearly very simple, and most notably low stress. People there (and everywhere so far) were very friendly and welcoming, and were more then happy to share details about their life with you. We had a tour guide that would translate for us and them. 

After spending about an hour in the village, we headed back down the mountain and part way down stopped at one of the more famous temples in the area (Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep Rajvoravihara). While we were then, both Carole and I received a “good luck” bracelet from the temple, and were blessed by a monk. The whole experience at the temple made me more interested in reading about Buddhism. I’ve always been curious, since it seems to be a religion that promotes peace and harmony. 

We got back to the hotel around 6, and I made the big mistake of taking a nap. That is, and 8 hour nap. So I woke up at 2am and was wide awake! We’ll see how far I make it through Friday now before I pass out again. I’m going to try to make it until at least 10pm this time. 

Anyway, there are a few photos here, and more on Flickr. 

This will be brief, and I’ll post more photos and details later. But the short story is that although the universe almost seemed to conspire against us making this trip, we are finally here!

As I already indicated, our bags did not make it, and will not until sometime tomorrow. 19 checked bags are all still in LA, but that’s another story for later. I swear this trip would have made a great reality show episode. I felt like I was on the Amazing Race a few times. 

I have just enough time for a quick shower, and then we’re all heading out for some clothes shopping since nobody here has anything except the clothes they’ve been wearing for nearly 2 straight days. It goes without saying, we all smell pretty bad. 

More updates, photos, and a short movie clip from our welcoming part at the airport later tonight (we’re 12 hours ahead, so for you it will be the morning).