Chaing Mai

We've been in Chiang Mai since Wednesday and will probably be in the city or surrounding area until the first. Chiang Mai is the second biggest city in Thailand and located in the beautiful setting of Northern Thailand so there is plenty to keep us busy. So far we have spent most of our time getting acquainted with the area and some of the local history. On Thursday we visited a Tribal Museum - very organized and informational.

The native tribe is Lanna ("land of a million rice fields"), but several tribes have immigrated from nearby Burma, Laos, Vietnam, and China. It was interesting to learn not only about the tribes and their cultures, but also the way the Thai government managed to peacefully encourage progress, honor and respect their native cultures, incorporate them into Thai society, and recover native forests. Not sure how much is propaganda, but it was certainly a progressive approach to working with native inhabitants.

We have also invested a great deal of time in search of food that, as Nicole says,"hits the spot." It has been a difficult task, but we finally found an Israeli resturaunt,
Jerusalem Falafel, today that was amazing and it definitely "hit the spot."

Last night we watched Blood Diamond in the theatre - good movie despite the painful subject. Speaking of the king, before the movie we were asked to pay respects to the king by standing during a two minute video presentation of various pictures of the king. It was kind of like standing for a pre-game national athem - everybody in the theatre was standing and the soundtrack was very inspiring.

We've also been cautiously scootering around the town - actually, we usually just walk it on the sidewalk and I'm not sure why we rented it.