Well Come to Thailand!

We came well. I'm still looking for the collage...

The hotel is great, though, and they can spell English a lot better than I can spell anything in Thai! The staff is very friendly and the rooms are nice. AND, check this sign out... it makes me love Maninarakorn Hotel even more...

That's right... no DURIAN allowed!! In case you didn't believe me before, that should tell you something about the aromatic fruit...

So on our first day, we went on a scavenger hunt type thing to get to know the city a little bit. It was positively grand. Here's some of the peeps from my group. Charles, on the left, is 83 years old... he is basically my hero! He has been trekking all over the place with us.

Here's me with an elephant at Chiang Mai University. There are elephant statues and other elephant paraphernalia everywhere!

Thai and Joe played peek-a-boo in the lobby.

Robin, I thought you might appreciate this next photo:

The Gathering is where we went to church on Sunday. Ted Dekker anyone?

And here is me and my roomie, Maranda! The wall behind us is part of the old wall that went around the city. The moat is still there, too. That's right. I said moat. I'm staying in a city with a moat. I say that's pretty rockin.

We got some squid on a stick at the Sunday market! It really didn't taste too bad. It was pretty rubbery, though, and the fact that I think of it as crabbing bait didn't help it to look appealing. The way the tentacles dangling out of your mouth didn't help either.

Mmm mmm

This guy was awesome. He was selling all sorts of handicrafts from the hilltribes in Thailand. He posed for some pictures for us and played some cool instruments.

Ok, so meet Pat.

(Pat is the one in the blue shirt. I don't have a better pic yet.)