Sunday in Chiang Mai

Day 6 – June 19, 2016

Sunday

They served us breakfast at the house today. It’s part of the accommodations. It is unbelievable. Just our family in an intimate table by the kitchen with homemade mueslix and yogurt and honey, freshly baked croissants and nutella and freshly picked bananas, made to order eggs, fresh papaya juice, etc, etc. The ladies who take care of the house are so nice and always trying to make us so comfortable. I can’t believe we get to do this every morning! The kids ate loads of Nutella. They just can’t help themselves! ;)

After breakfast our driver took us in to church in Chiang Mai. Everything was in Thai but they had a translator and headsets and we sang along with the hymns in English. The talks were really thoughtful. The Branch President shared thoughts from a talk in General Conference and one thing he said really stood out to me. “Wherever you are, be there.” I feel like I’m often not “present” and enjoying the things that are happening right in front of me. I’m busy thinking about other things, distracted with my phone or trying to “get things done.” I want to do better at making people and relationships a priority over lists and distractions.

We met some fellow Americans at church. Some expats living in Chiang Mai, some traveling, some BYU students there on an internship, a family working for the US Embassy in Chiang Mai. We talked to Peter for quite a while and he gave us some great tips of things to do in Chiang Mai. We took his advice and headed to BuoTang Waterfall, about a 45 min drive outside of Chiang Mai. I had read about them on Trip Advisor. It’s the “sticky waterfall” where the waterfall runs down a type of limestone and the rock is totally sticky so you can climb up the waterfalls. It was cool and refreshing and so much fun. We changed into our swimsuits in 007’s van (our driver calls himself “007”) and spent the next 2 hours exploring the waterfalls and climbing up and down. We finished off with popsicles and “Magnum Bars” (a delicious Haagan Daaz type ice cream bar that is super cheap here in Thailand. It’s our new favorite treat!) Isaac of course bought his plain lays and orange Fanta.

After the waterfall we had a few hours to kill before the Sunday Walking Market opened so we went to the Royal Park Rajapruek, a sort of Royal-Thanksgiving-Point-Gardens-type place.  It was almost eerie. The park was mostly empty and looked almost abandoned in some areas but there was 1930’s Sinatra type (in Thai) music playing over the loud speakers throughout the park, but with the sound quality of an old megaphone on a telephone pole. It felt like we were visiting a propaganda village. The palace area was immaculate and beautiful and full of Chinese and Thai tourists, several of whom wanted to take our picture or have their picture taken with us. We kept the kids busy with 5 baht treasure hunts like “if you can find a statue of an elephant, you get 5 baht” (equal to about 14 cents in USD). Since they knew we were going to the market right after, the boys were eager to earn a few extra baht.

The Sunday Walking Market was HUGE! It must have been over a mile long. Full of little table top shops selling everything from t-shirts and soap carvings to Buddha statues and painted elephants. There were street performers and endless amounts of yummy street food. And everything was so cheap! The kids were in heaven! We all bought little souvenirs and treats and seriously shopped until we dropped because we were so exhausted by the time we got to the end of the street after 9pm. It was wall to wall people and Mikey walked the entire market barefoot because he had blisters on his feet from his water shoes.

Climbing the sticky waterfalls.

Popsicles, Magnum bars, plain Lays potato chips and Orange Fanta are everywhere so we seem to buy them everywhere!

Royal Park Rajapruek.

Everywhere we go people want to take pictures with our family. This time I gave them my camera and had them take one for us too! 

The kids loved all of the Banyan trees. They looked like miniature forests.

Mikey barefoot at the Sunday market.

Hand-carved and hand-painted soap flowers. 100 baht (about $3.25)