The competition is furious. We have taught the girls how to play hearts. They have taken to it like Anna to a Margarita Pizza in a foreign country. Having a deck of cards has been one of our most valued items as we travel. We get them out pretty much every day, especially at restaurants while we wait for our meals to arrive. Ron so far is behaving. He is known as a ruthless hearts player knowing no mercy and no patience for casual players. I have refused to play with him for years…but I’m getting over it. I am keeping track of really important stuff like; how many flights we’ve had (16), how many countries we’ve visited (9) and how many flip flops Sadie has gone through (4).
We arrived in Chiang Mail on Halloween night. Our only small celebration was buying fuzzy peaches and Toblerone at the Bangkok airport en route. Our taxi driver was doing everything but actually driving as he talked on the phone, tried to look up fellow Canadians in his scrap book and talk all at the same time. Fortunately at least he drove at a snail’s pace making it feel a little less dangerous. Our guest house called Yourhouse Guest House was right in the thick of things in Old Chiang Mai, along the eastern border of the moat. The city was teaming with people, some of
them foreigners dressed up to celebrate Halloween and most of them geared up for a big night. It was the first night of the Chiang Mai Yi Peng Festival. Yi Peng is a Buddhist holy day and falls on the full moon day of the 2nd lunar month of Lanna. It is double barreled as it also celebrates the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the cold season. And as all good celebrations should, it is dragged on for days before and after the actual full moon. The Old City was festooned with beautiful coloured lanterns and lights strung up by the hundreds over the streets and market squares. The feel of the city was intense, fabulous and immediate. Oh, and we weren’t hot any more. Chiang Mai has cool evening air, even after a hot day. 
We only had one day in Chiang Mai before heading to the Elephant Nature Park so we decided to rent motor bikes and explore. One of the best decisions we’ve made. Motorbikes in Thailand are plentiful, cheap to rent, quiet and available in automatic. The city driving was also much more reasonable than anywhere else we had been making it perfect for a newby driver like me! We have since given up our Thailand Guide Book in exchange for ones for Laos, Vietnam and Bali…which means I may be a bit sketchy on the names of places and details. But whatever! I had so much fun driving a motor bike! Shhh, don’t tell my sister Gaye or mother-in-law Judy, especially since I had Sadie on the back. Yes…we all wore helmets.
Once I got tuned up on how to start, go and navigate the bike we headed through town and towards the mountain which promised a nice road winding up to a view point. One of the first things we noticed was how many mountain and road bikers we saw, many with numbers on their handles bars. We saw more and more riders as we drew closer to the mountain road. Apparently there had been a morning race up the mountain and what we saw were the racers (hundreds of them) heading back down. It would have been a grueling climb for sure. The road was beautiful and pleasant to drive with lots of little places to stop along the route. More than once we saw locals buying coconut ice cream wrapped by white bread from a bike trolley. Eventually we came across the Royal Palace (one of many in Thailand) and a very local style food market where we had lunch in a stall. The Royal Palace can be a great stop if the flower gardens are in bloom. However it was the wrong time of the year so we decided to skip it. Instead we visited the Buddhist temple on the way back down. The temple gave us a wonderful peek at Buddhist worship. It seemed especially busy being a holiday. We watched people lighting candles and incense, offering lotus flowers, rolling numbers for good fortunes and walking clockwise around the temple. We were in awe of the intricate design, bright colours and shining gold of the temple itself. There were groups of children performing dance and music all around the grounds. It was very peaceful. Sadie and I got kind of “lost” in it all taking a very loooong time to finish and using up a lot of digital photo space.
Being Sunday AND the festival we were able to enjoy the Sunday Market. There is a Night Market on every evening but we had heard the Sunday Market is far superior. It was packed. The stream of people was thick making it hard to jump in and out if you saw anything of interest on either side. We were starving and the food stalls were mouth watering. We sampled small
dishes served in leaf bowls until we were stuffed. The craft market was immense and varied. We bought t-shirts and a few small things to add to our growing (again) load in our backpacks. We’ve actually been pretty conservative in our shopping. Most things are small and light weight, but it all still adds up and we do have a bag stuffed full stored at a hotel in Bangkok! Our wander eventually led us into the main square where hundreds of people were lighting huge paper lanterns, making a wish and letting them go into the sky. It was an absolutely magical sight to see all the people, colours and lit lanterns gracefully floating up into the night sky. We of course bought one and let it go too. It was all a bit hard to leave, but we had an early rise the next day so with some regret, we eventually made our way back to our guesthouse and went to bed with the sounds of the night as a lively background (have I mentioned another of our most valued items are earplugs?). Fireworks are also a big part of celebrating the Yi Peng festival which also reminded us of October at this time of year at home.
If you are going to stay in Chiang Mai, I would definitely recommend Yourhouse Guesthouse. They have various levels for rooms and prices with a brand new building which is spotless and bright. The older parts are equally as clean but less bright, however the price is less. The location in excellent and there is free Wi-fi. The host Sin is very friendly and helpful booking anything from travel, tuk tuks, cooking lessons to tours. Had we stayed longer, I would have definitely taken a cooking class. We came across a number of people who had and they really enjoyed them.
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