Bangkok/Chiang Mai - Tuesday – October 30, 2007

We arrived in Chiang Mai early afternoon and met up with our guide and headed to our hotel. It is a charming hotel and reminds me of a tropical hotel. There is a beautiful garden and a great pool although I don’t think we will have any time for swimming. We had our group orientation – there are 25 people in the group and probably half of them are from the Bay Area. Most of the people are retired and have a variety of interesting backgrounds and seem to be very well-traveled. Our group leader, Matt, is an Australian who has lived in Chiang Mai for four years and teaches at the local university. Matt will be with us for the whole trip. We also have a local guide Thai guide, Benji, who will be our guide for the Chiang Mai part of the trip.

Chiang Mai is located in the north of Thailand and has approximately 200,000 people living in the city area but about 1.5 million in Chiang Mai Province (2nd largest in Thailand). Chiang Mai means “new city” and was founded by King Meng Rai in 1296 as the capital of the Lanna Kingdom…Lanna means “A Million Rice Fields.” It was conquered by the Burmese (present day Myanmar) and then later by the Thai king and became part of Siam. It managed to retain much of its Lanna culture due to its inaccessibility…being only accessible by river and elephants until a railroad was built in the 1920s. It is clearly a very modern city today although clearly retaining some of the charm from its past…especially in the old city…more about this later.

We learned the basic Thai greeting, Sawatdee ka/khrap (followed by ka is you are a woman or khrap if you are a man). This can mean good morning/afternoon/evening and is spoken while putting your hands together in front of your face…fingers pointing up and bowing your head. We became quite proficient in this greeting by the end of our time in Chiang Mai as everyone greets you this way and you respond accordingly.

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