Goodbye winter

Posted under Thailand 2008

Well—to start at the beginning we left Vancouver at 0 dark hundred on a Cathay Pacific 747, bound for Hong Kong. Cathay obviously did not take their air operations training from Air Canada as the stewardesses were actually quite pleasant. Not only that but we also received not one, but two hot meals during our flight. Add to this, the no charge headphones and a selection of probably a dozen different movies and suffice to say the trip was very pleasant. Took a stop over in Hong Kong for three days and quite enjoyed our short stay. HK is very clean although I believe that the city planner laid out the road system by following his favorite goat about the mountain side. Little twisty roads scattered about in all directions. The high rises were built to follow the roads so you end up with beautiful tall buildings looking off in all directions. Hong Kong is also very vertical and I do believe that if we had spent our entire holiday in HK I would probably look like a Whippet. On the upside we did manage to eat dim-sum every day. Thank u J & K. Took a harbour tour at Aberdeen (other side of HK island). Very interesting. Many live-a-boards in many variety of vessels of varying sizes. For example, if u took a dinghy and covered it with a red, white and blue plastic tarp, you would have a dandy little accomodation for one or two. Made “Tawny Port” seem good. Carried on to Bankok via Cathay and yet again, another hot meal.

Did not stay in Bangkok as we intend to stay a few days at the end of our vacation. On to Chiang Mai with Thai Airways and lo and behold yet another hot meal. Maybe it is an Asian thing.

Sawasdee krup. This is the all around general greeting in Thai. It means Good morning, Good afternoon, Good evening, Good bye and probably several other goods that I am not yet aware of. It is generally given with the warmest smile. Very friendly and helpful peoples. Got to our hotel, nice and clean and has a sit-down toilet. It’s a happy Bonnie. The only slight draw-back is that I believe that the interior decorator may have been the Marquis de Sade, as the bed is just slightly harder than the floor. The Thai are a very hard working and industrious people, usually working 12 hour days and often 7 days per week. Then again, it may be that their bodies cannot take any more of the bed and if they are going to be about, they may as well work. Took a tour out to the manufacturing area of Chiang Mai. Big mistake. Too many beautiful items — bad place to take Bonnie. Oh well, they will deliver. Took another tour to the elephant farm. Very enlightening. They put on quite a show, ending with several of the elephants painting pictures. Some of the pictures actually quite good. We also took a ride on the rascals. Much like riding in a 1956 International Harvester 1/2 ton. Definitely an experience, not the smoothest.

Bonnie is off at the market, (go figure) and tomorrow or the next day we are heading south to Phuket, but we will update this from time to time.Oh yes — hot, hot, no wind and no rain. Ya gotta luv it.