Back in Bangkok last night and today we walked up to the top of the Golden Mount for great views across the old part of the city. God I love Thailand.
Big news, very proud: today Louie cracked using chopsticks :-)
Big drama today: we left Oslo's bag in the back of a song thaew (a cross between a taxi and a bus). There are hundreds of these vehicles in Chiang Mai and the chance of getting the bag back was pretty small. We lost it on our way to leave our bags at the train station ahead of our evening train, so reported it to the very helpful railway police. They didn't look hopeful. But when we got back to the station later that afternoon they'd managed to track it down! Lots of photos taken, one very happy boy.
Back in Chiang Mai we visited the huge Wororot Market. I have discovered that the key to keeping kids happy while I get to indulge my love of Asian markets is to make them a scavenger hunt. Works brilliantly especially if you include things like 'squashed pigs heads' (although we sadly didn't see any of those here).
This was a big hit at the place we stayed in Soppong (highly recommended by the way - Little Eden). I can officially report that getting beaten at pool by a seven year old is not a good feeling.
This is another cave near where we stayed in Soppong called a 'coffin cave'. There are several of these in the area and are so named because they have found wooden coffins thought to be 2000 years old in them. No skeletons to be seen though, much to certain people's disappointment and other's relief.
Breaking with convention I'm sharing two more photos from Boxing Day. This one from inside a cave we visited where you had to go in on a bamboo raft and then climb up inside cathedral sized caverns to see the stalagmites and stalactites...
... and this one that gives you a better idea of where we walked. We crossed the river in the background about ten times at different points which was a major highlight for the kids. I thought it was pretty cool too until someone mentioned they'd seen a snake in the water.
We stayed overnight in a Hmong village in the hills and the next morning we 'helped' the villagers make sugarcane juice. The juice is then boiled down into blocks. There are three revolving presses in the middle of the circle, which used to be turned by a buffalo walking round and round in circles. Now they use the modified ploughing machine you can see in front of Ed. You have to sit on either side and feed the cane through the press. Most importantly, you have to make sure you don't stand up at the wrong time and get whacked in the head by the turning arm.
This was our first stop on day one of a two day walk through the hills, the jungle and across rivers. Fried rice wrapped in banana leaves. Christmas lunch!
It seems we are unable to have a family holiday without motorbikes being involved at some point. We stayed in a very small town called Soppong about five hours from Chiang Mai and pootled around the hills on scooters. It was a lot of fun, despite one small incident involving a hill and lots of gravel. The area is best known for its caves. More on that in a moment.
The food in Thailand is out of this world: I'd forgotten. We ate and ate and ate. I wished afterwards that I had done a food diary and photographed everything we had - it would have been pretty impressive. You name it, we ate it - as long as it was (more or less) vegetarian. The street food is incredible. I knew that, but I'd forgotten how brilliant it is. Such a joy.
Today we visited an elephant sanctuary. There are hundreds of places you can see elephants around Chiang Mai and it's all a bit touristy, but we felt better about visiting this one as they don't offer any rides, no performing of any sort and all the elephants (except a few who have been born there) have been rescued from various sad fates. The elephant on the left in this photo stepped on a landmine on the Burmese border - you can see her back right foot is pretty mangled. Others have dislocated hips from logging, others have just been rescued from abusive owners ... it's sad but they seem happy here. They're allowed to roam around the large park, and the groups of tourists walk with them and bathe them in the river. This is the website in case anyone is interested.
We had a night in Chiang Mai before we headed for the hills. This is the famous 'Sunday walking street' market.
I'm back! Photos from Thailand coming up ... first stop between the airport and the train station: Khao San Road! Just as crazy as ever, if not crazier. Always nostalgic to go back. We didn't stay here luckily - on our way in we jumped straight on a train that evening to go to Chiang Mai, and when we were back in Bangkok we stayed in another nearby neighbourhood. More on that later.
Oslo's birthday party today! Harry Potter themed, complete with broomstick races and Harry Potter bingo ... and also a Harry Potter wordsearch in teams - top tip for kids birthday parties: it kept them quiet for quite a while and they loved it!
This is an art installation near Nehru Place - the best place in town for buying fabric. I looked at it for a while but I'm not sure I came to any conclusion about what it was trying to say.
It's been a while since I found a new one. I quite like this one though!
Another little street dog puppy has appeared in my life (see Day 616). This one is outside my office. He's really teeny tiny though. I'm not sure he's going to make it.
Rice krispies and cornflakes get a whole different savoury spin on the snack stalls of Delhi. It makes eating them with milk and sugar seem quite strange.
Modi has begun a huge campaign called 'Swachh Bharat' or 'Clean India' and there are posters everywhere calling on everyone to clean up the country. My original understanding was that the 'cleaning up' was going to be metaphorical (i.e. cleaning up corruption etc.) as well as literal, but I think that may just have been wishful thinking. It would be nice if it worked though and especially if men stopped peeing everywhere. I've never understood how come so many men in Delhi can't manage to hold it in while women never appear to have to pee on the side of the street.
I'm happy to report that we kept to schedule, although the 'cup of tea' and 'present time' overlapped slightly more than I would have liked.
In response to the question "what would you like to do for your birthday tomorrow?" Oslo came back with this. I'll be giving him a tutorial on using Excel for Christmas.
I hardly took any photos in England, hence the slightly odd selection, but I thought some of you might appreciate this one. There are many drawbacks to travelling a lot, but there are perks in the form of air miles and upgrades which soften the blow.
Here in England we found this empty plinth outside the British Council HQ ... I wonder where the horse could have gone?
Meanwhile back in Delhi ...
I have shamelessly (that's for you Andrew) stolen this photo off my cousin's Facebook account - this is me and Lucy. We had a lovely evening and I am including this photo to remind me of our lovely evening but also because I spent the whole day walking around with very weird eyebrows after a visit to a beauty counter in John Lewis. They don't look that bad here but they looked VERY weird.
Ed spotted this German overland truck in the parking lot of a park near the kids' school. We've seen overland trucks there before but Ed was surprised to see this one, wondering which route it could have taken ... It reminds me of the fire engine - seems like a lifetime ago now. Perhaps one day we will grow wheels again ...
I left for London today but Mum and Dad are still in Delhi being very good grandparents :-)
Another day, another bike shop: incense sellers in Meher Chand market.
The weather has definitely changed in Delhi, and with it a new lot of fruit and vegetables appear on vendors' trollies. Oranges, pomegranates, cauliflower and mustard leaves are all in season.
Ed, Mum and Dad went up to Old Delhi for a little look around today. The trip involved five different types of transport: car, metro, auto, cycle rickshaw, walking. Delhi is particularly good for transport enthusiasts (not that Ed, Mum or my Dad are transport enthusiasts).
I was in Chennai today and all I managed to take a photo of was these statues in the hotel lobby. And it's not even a very good photo. And you can't see how big they are. They're quite big.
I love this. This is the 'choose your language' screen of an ATM. In most countries, this would have two options - the national language and English. Or one or two more if it's in a tourist hot spot. This is a normal ATM in Chennai airport and there are eight Indian languages offered. I can't name them all unfortunately but I think from left column down it's: Tamil, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, English, Hindi, something, something. Go India!
The boys have become slightly obsessed with this little puppy who turned up outside our house. Even I am quite fond of him ...
My parents are here! We visited the Qila-i-Khuna mosque in the Purana Qila (old fort) today - Ed discovered it during one of his seven cities group trips. It's one of the best I've seen - the mosaics look Turkish or Moroccan and are in really good condition.
You can hear the brand meeting when they came up with the name for these. 'Let's just call them ... chips!'
I've been meaning to include a photo of a street-side barber for a while ... it's such a common sight and presumably something that will disappear one day. I'm starting a new series called ...
I really love this photo of this bhel puri stand. Bhel puri is a snack made from puffed rice and, onion, tomatoes, coriander and tamarind chutney. Absolutely delicious, haven't had it for ages.
We found this lovely shrine in Sarojini market in Delhi today with loads of these oil candles. It reminded me of temples in Nepal.
Back from Colombo to Delhi today, with the two tallest of these funny people to add to my collection. Loving the hairy chests.
... and origami becomes the latest fad to hit our household. Mostly foxes in this picture, with frogs wearing samurai hats on top of the tub. Just in case you were wondering.
Meanwhile back in Delhi Ed and his 'seven cities' group (see Day 556)had their turn to take the others on a tour of part of Delhi. They did a little play about the First War of Independence (otherwise known as the Indian Mutiny) - everyone loved it.
Sri Lanka this week for a meeting about teachers' access to technology in South Asia. We went out for a team dinner on the first night to a restaurant serving traditional Sri Lankan food - I don't think I'd ever had it before. On the left is a hopper - a kind of dry, crispy pancake with an egg cracked into the middle - and on the right too many different things to list, but all delicious.
Bike shop #13. This one encapsulates what I love about India. This guy has set up a little business riding around residential areas with an urn full of hot chai on the back of his bike, selling cups of tea to the guards who sit around all day outside people's houses. Totally genius.
My birthday! Such a treat to be able to spend it in Bangkok with Jessica, and a double bonus to be able to celebrate it at Pan Pan. If only we'd had time for a spinach pizza...
Another one from Loi Krathong with some friends from the yoga retreat and Pun Pun. We went to the temple in the village where they had a competition to launch a sky lantern through a hoop held high up on bamboo poles - we very nearly got one through, but not quite. This photo is taken at the river where several more were lit and released. Ed has a big problem with sky lanterns and their environmental impact but there's no denying they look beautiful.
This is me and my lovely Jessica with our kratongs that we made for the Loi Krathong festival. This was one of my favourite festivals when we lived in Thailand. The kratongs are made out of banana trees - the base is a section of the trunk and the leaves are folded to make the petals. Then they're floated downstream in rivers to take away the bad and wish for the good. So beautiful.
This is Mae Ngat Dam which we visited one afternoon. It's part of Sri Lanna National Park and has floating guesthouses and restaurants. There's also another, smaller, dam close to the farm where we went swimming several times - it was lovely. I think we're planning to go back here at Christmas.
This is the house we stayed in. There are many houses on the farm, mostly built with adobe mud bricks. They're quite basic inside, but the idea of building a house out of the land it sits on is very appealing. They've started using concrete for the foundations and steel for the roofs now as in the long run it's cheaper. We did a tour of the farm on one day and looked at the evolution of the buildings that they've made, the gardens and the hut where they grow mushrooms. It was very interesting. They have a simple but large water filter system that provides clean drinking water - I think I only had one plastic bottle of water the whole time I was in Thailand which is quite an achievement.
