Last updated on November 21st, 2025
We are in LA now, after about 24 hours in transit from Cambodia yesterday. Whew! But what an awesome trip.
Thailand
November 5
We Are Off!
A good start to the trip thus far, with a First Class upgrade from Minneapolis to LAX. Oh how I am going to miss that Elite status next year!
The week has been so hectic that I’ve barely had time to think about the trip – a little research a couple of nights, but that is about it. I feel rather disorganized and fragmented, but that’s ok. I don’t HAVE to organize anything myself for this except travel to the flower show and shopping. Lane can figure out the dinners. Heck, he can figure out how to get to the flower show too. That just leaves just shopping to think about ?
That’s the nice thing about guided tours, you don’t have to do a lot of organizing in order to have a good trip.
November 7
Arrival in Chiang Mai
In the Market and Around Chinatown
November 8
Around the Neighborhood in Chiang Mai
This ancient city boasts many of Bangkok’s amenities, including excellent food and accommodations but without the frenetic pace of modern city life. From its origins as a small northern town, it has become a city representative of modern Thai culture with a beautiful personality of its own represented, in part, by the many temples found here.
Lane and I started the day with an early morning walk in the area around the hotel. I really want to head across the moat to the old town with its traditional teak homes mixed in with small shops and glittering temples. Of course, I didn’t get up early enough to allow enough time to do that. Instead we walk up the street on one side, cross over the moat, and then walk back along the other side.
Even this short jaunt provides enticing glimpses of life here.
I particularly like the spirit houses and our hotel has a lovely trio of them near the entrance.
Doi Suthep
The Jade Factory in Chiang Mai
There is a big tourist shopping area just below Doi Sethup and we are to visit the “Jade Factory” located there. It looks like a tourist trap.
It seems like it might be better to remain here and watch the vendors fly their paper butterflies as they seek buyers for these and other trinkets.
But, of course, I don’t.
At the “factory” they offer us lovely iced teas and usher us in for a presentation.
I really want to hate this, but the presenter (the wife of the owner, but obviously an active participant in the business herself) is knowledgeable, erudite, and funny. Besides providing scientific information on jade and other materials that often masquerade as jade, she tells stories (with examples) about some of their own spectacular failures (stone that were purchased because they looked to be valuable and turned out to be worthless) and successes (a worthless looking stone that when cut, proved to be incredibly beautiful, rare, and very valuable lavender jade). Throw in a few Burma jokes and she has me totally won over. By the time she is done, I’m actually eager to give her some of my money in exchange for a beautiful bauble or two.
Unfortunately, everything seems really expensive. Furthermore, while most of it is exquisitely worked, I just don’t find it particularly interesting. I’m actually thinking I’ll leave without spending anything when I stop by to see what Annette is looking at.
There, laid out on the counter, are a pair of exquisite necklace and bracelet sets (one each in white and yellow gold). The clean, modern design incorporates multiple colors of jade. Annette is right, they’re perfect. Even a bracelet costs way more than I should spend, but there is no doubt that it is going home with me – which, Lane assures me, means I am paying too much for it. (I hate having to bargain.)
Despite the time it takes to actually make up my mind and make my purchase, I am not the last one to finish shopping, leaving us with time to sit out on the shady patio drinking ice tea and admiring the orchids and other interesting items standing about. (I think the money tree is a good luck thing.) It is a lovely place to relax.
A spirit house stands at the edge of the parking lot.
I love these small structures erected to placate the spirits of the land for the intrusion of a house, business, or other activity. The range from small, simple homemade constructions to the large elaborate figures found outside prosperous businesses. Some properties sprout multiple spirit houses – often added when bad luck strikes or in order to ward off potentially bad luck. In most cases the spirit houses are freshly dressed with flowers, fruit, and other offerings. Seldom does one seem neglected or poorly maintained.
Below the parking lot a stream tumble away from us down the mountainside.
There’s something lovely everywhere I look.
Wat Suan Dok
Orchids Orchids Everywhere
November 9
Elephant Camp
Bai Orchid Farm
Back to the Flower Show
An Evening Out in Chiang Mai
Out for the evening in Chiang Mai.
November 10
Heading North from Chiang Mai
After breakfast, depart Chiang Mai and drive through mountains, valleys and the lush landscape of northern Thailand to Mae Chan, with its Yao and Akha hill tribes. Continue to Mae Sai, the northernmost point of Thailand, separated from the Burmese border town of Thakhilek by a small river also called Mae Sai. Take a stroll through the local market where you’ll find jade and other Burmese jewelry and handicrafts, then continue to Chiang Saen, a small town on the bank of the Mekong River, on the border with Laos.
We appear to have a very busy day ahead.
Leaving Chiang Mai I have another opportunity to observe rush hour here as we cross the Ping River and head out of town.
While there are relatively few cars and trucks on the streets, there are large numbers of scooters and tuk tuks!
I especially like watching the traffic back-ups that occur at each stop light: As the cars and trucks wait in line for the light to change, the scooters carefully work their way between and around the larger vehicles until they are massed together at the front of the pack. Once the light changes, the whole pack moves forward. At the next light the scooters will again work their way up to the head of the line.
I also like the street signs here. On major thoroughfares they are elaborate creations featuring a temple with a large golden chedi and intricate umbrella – although most of the umbrellas seem to have broken off over time.
We pass a variety of businesses as we travel through town, but perhaps the most picturesque and uniquely Thai are those offering spirit houses for sale.
Outside the city, we drive through a variety of landscapes. All are lush and green. It is a beautiful drive. All along the way we pass interesting little towns and many beautiful sparkling wats – most of which are obscured by trees and power lines and, thus, impossible to photograph from the moving bus.
The love of beauty seen in the gorgeously detailed temples is also evident in many other aspects of life – such as the golden markings on the tank trucks we pass along the way!
It is a long morning, but Chris fills much of the time with historical, political, and cultural information as we travel. Sometimes she plays music and, as always, she has purchased a few local treats for us to try.
She also has purchased armloads of lotus buds.
She distributes the pink and white buds to all of us and then gives us a lesson in Thai flower folding. This is a common activity for Thai Buddhists, as buds are often embellished this way before being offered at the temple. It is pretty simple, but I struggle to keep my blossom looking balanced while most of the rest of the group whizzes through the lesson. Still, it is a lot of fun and the folded lotus blossoms are beautiful.
Hill Tribe Villages
Lunch in a Garden
On the Mekong
Evening in a Border Town
November 11
On the Mae Kok River
Elephant Safari
Snake Handling in Thailand
I have dawdled too long taking pictures of the returning elephants. Now Chris is trying to gather us up to continue the day’s activities, but we still haven’t done our snake picture!I plead with David to join us as our photographer. He thinks we are crazy (he is probably actually horrified at the mere thought of wearing a large snake), but he is also a good sport and agrees to document the event for us.
It takes awhile for them to arrange the snake.
The large Burmese python is soft and warm in the sun (it feels like a good leather handbag), but it is surprisingly heavy (about 130 pounds) and has its own ideas of where it wants to be (probably anywhere else besides draped around tourists).
When the snake starts squeezing us together, I’m told to just give him a little twist in the opposite direction. It works like magic, as the snake immediately relaxes. He is actually a pretty cooperative creature and soon we have our pictures.
A Hill Tribe Rice Festival
Back on the River
Chiang Rai
The Karen
Back at the resort we have some free time in which to relax before taking the bus up to the Karen village.
We increase that time by skipping the village visit.
I have mixed feelings about the Karen. Not only do they raise the usual questions of Western voyeurism and exploitation, but the impacts here are more obvious and – I believe – more negative than usual. I say that because the group of Karen we would visit are the long-neck Karen. This is the group where, beginning as children, some women wear layers of rings to lengthen their necks.
The long-neck Karen make for wonderful, exotic photos. The kind of photos I would really, really like to take. But the long-neck Karen exist today solely because of Western tourists.
The use of neck rings, which has to be uncomfortable if not actually unhealthy for the women who undergo it, had all but died out until tourists discovered it. The practice was revived only because it could bring in tourist dollars.
Perhaps my objection is hypocritical. After all, I have always been supportive of efforts to keep textile, costume, handicraft, and dining traditions alive. I was ok with visiting and spending money at the Akha and Yao villages. But I see a line between making money from sale of traditional items and making money through practices that are unhealthy, painful, or needlessly dangerous. I’m not always sure where that line falls, but a visit to the long-neck Karen seems to be on the wrong side of it.
As much as I want the pictures, I can’t bring myself to participate in this.
Evening in Northern Thailand
Instead of visiting the Karen, we hang out at the resort for a couple hours, napping, editing photos, working on this journal, and walking through the gardens.
The Teak Garden Spa Resort is a beautiful place, so I wish I had the more time and energy to make use of the pool and the lovely grounds,
but the sun begins to set far too soon.
Evening always catches me by surprise here. Being from a northern place, I guess I expect the hot sunny days here will last as long as a hot summer day at home. Every day the onset of evening surprises me again.
Chris plans to take everyone into town to shop at the night market and eat dinner at the hotel where we had lunch. I plan to visit the Hill Tribe museum (which my guidebook tells me has a great gift shop that is open late) and then eat at Cabbages and Condoms, conveniently located on the main floor of the museum.
Chris and I have a bit of a showdown over this. I plan to take the bus into town with the rest of the group and then get a tuk tuk to take us to the museum and restaurant. (We’ve convinced the Angelinos to join us.) After dinner I figure we can return to the bus or, if we stay out later, arrange transport all the way back to the resort. That seems simple enough.
Chris, however, insists this is a horrible idea.
First, she checks to affirm that this is a waste of time because the museum will be closed.
I’m bummed about the museum, but I still want to eat at the restaurant.
She again recommends the hotel restaurant.
I insist that we don’t want to eat at the hotel again – it was boring and expensive.
She says I should wait and eat at Cabbages and Condoms in Bangkok because that one is fancier.
I tell her there are plenty of other places to eat in Bangkok, but there are not many places to eat here . . . and this is where I want to eat.
Once she determines I’m not going to back down, Chris becomes all sweetness and good will. In town she leaves the rest of the group at the market near the hotel (with strict directions on where it is safe to eat) and escorts us via by tuk tuks to the restaurant. Once there, she arranges for the tuk tuks to return in time for us to catch the bus back to the hotel. (She really is quite a little mother hen.) It’s more help than we really need, but it is kind of her.
The restaurant is busy and noisy (the group behind drinks a prodigious amount of hard liquor over the course of the evening and gets increasingly boisterous), but the inexpensive Thai food is lovely and delicious. (My fried rice dish is packed with flavorful seafood and beautifully presented in a hollowed out pineapple.) It is a wonderful way to end the day – with a little wine, good food, and a few friends.
November 12
Early morning at the Teak Garden Inn
We are up early for breakfast, so I wander around the Teak Garden‘s grounds as the day quietly begins.
Rice fields begin immediately across the dirt road that bounds one edge of the resort’s manicured grounds. Wild vines with bright yellow flowers clamber up taller plants, forming a delicate fence at the field’s ragged edge.
The surface of the field is itself ragged, an uneven plain of interwoven patches of standing and cut grain. I can’t discern a pattern, but even now a few workers are slowly making their way out into the fields. Soon the workday will begin in earnest and I’m sure the closely cut areas will continue to expand as the sun makes its way through the sky. For now though, the fields are still and wet with dew.
Near the road, a lone man carries a bundle of the grain from the field to a cart that is already piled with brushy stalks.
When he tries to add his armload to the cart, the whole thing flips back like a see-saw, making it impossible to add more to the load.
He tries a couple times, studies the cart for awhile, and then sets down his bundle and turns his full attention to the cart.
First he tries balancing the cart against a pole. It slides loose and flips back away from him again. He tries to brace it with a rock. That doesn’t work either. Finally, he finds a split piece of bamboo that slides neatly under the cart’s handle. Perfect.
He adds his bundle and slowly heads back into the field.
Wat Rong Khun (The White Temple)
The Wrong Attitude Can Cost You
There are a number of checkpoints along the roads in Northern Thailand, many of which seem rather informal.
Since they are searching for illegal cargo and immigrants, we generally move through quickly, often with little more than a wave of the hand. Today, however, we come to one where we seem to sit and wait a very long time amid the local trucks.
Eventually our driver emerges from the makeshift station, clearly angry. Chris makes him tell us what happened:
Since there was such a big back-up, he tried to move ahead of the others, which is usually allowed. (The tourism is a really important part of the Thai economy, especially now, in the days immediately after the ouster of a democratically elected leader.) However, he was told to go to the back of the line and wait. Apparently he made a couple of attempts to hurry the process along, impatient with the officials who were slowly sorting through loads of livestock and building materials. In the end, he was not only made to wait, but given a lecture on his “wrong attitude” and a very large fine.
Now, able to get back on the road again, he is able to laugh as he tells us the story, finding at least a little humor in getting a fine not for a safety or legal violation, but for having the wrong attitude.
And then we are back on the road again, Chris’ “Land of Smiles” CD playing in the background, perhaps in tribute to our driver’s determination.
Coffee Break in Phayao
As we drive through, it appears that Phayao is a lovely and substantial town with a number of lovingly maintained traditional teak homes surrounded by neat gardens. While the day is dark and gray, the town feels restful, rather than gloomy.
As usual, I find it frustrating to drive through such an interesting place without being able to stop, so when we park near a coffee shop (perhaps the Charin Garden) for a rest stop, I am eager to get out and explore. We’ll check out the neighborhood a bit and, by the time we have done so, the line inside the coffee shop will have subsided. The best of all worlds!
To one side of the bus the huge lake lies mirror flat under the gray sky.
Across the street, a few small homes are surrounded by colorful gardens.
I am admiring pastel hibiscus flowers when another bus pulls up and parks outside the coffee shop.
Oh oh. Maybe I should have given more thought to that sign posted by the bus stop before I wandered off!
Apparently this coffee shop is a well-known stop along the route and it looks like the line will be a little longer than I anticipated. . .
It is worth the wait though. I don’t drink coffee, but the fruit drinks and pastries are very, very nice. As an added bonus, a lovely garden wraps around the tables.
Acres of Pineapples
Wat Phra That Lampang Luang
Evening in Lampang
November 13
- A Hidden Gem
- Rice Fields
- Sri Satchanalai
- Ancient
November 14
Cambodia
November 18
Entering Cambodia
After saying most of our good-byes last night, those of us headed for Cambodia and Phuket gather in a scraggly little group at 5:30 this morning. The streets of Bangkok are still pretty quiet and Suvarnabhumi Airport gleams in the early morning light. (It is an attractive facility, even if inordinately large and cavernous inside.) It’s a quiet transition.
There are just seven of us now: Annette, Joe, and David; Dave and Carolyn; and Lane and I.
The flight on Bangkok Air is short and pleasant enough, taking us over a flat, wet, very green landscape.
When the plane comes to a stop, we disembark and walk across the tarmac to Siem Reap International Airport – a cute little place beautifully landscaped with tropical plants. . . . which has been replaced by a much larger modern airport.
Inside, we get our visas processed – standing first in one line where we hand over our passport, visa application, and a photo, then moving to a second line while our visas are put together by a line of blue-suited agents, passed down to the end, and handed back to us in our passports.
Beyond the immigration area, our guide, Choeun is waiting.
The airport is a bit outside Siem Reap and I am increasingly delighted as we make the journey into and through town. The scenes unfolding outside my window looks EXACTLY like I thought Southeast Asia would look – somehow it matches the picture in my mind far more closely than Thailand did.
I am ecstatic. Three days in this place with a few people I really like and our own guide.
This is going to be awesome.
On the Water: Tonle’ Sap
A Few Minor Temples as a Starter
November 19
November 20
On the Road to Banteay Srei
We again agree to an early start, but then lollygag in the restaurant until a little after 7. It’s nice to have a small enough group that we can do that.
Choeun is eager to get us through as many temples as he can today – our last day – so we start off for the most distant of those on today’s itinerary, Bantealy Srei.
Our driver plunges into the morning rush hour – a few cars and trucks mixed in with lots and lots of scooters.
It is rather chaotic.
We pull over briefly at the side of the street outside a shop where our driver buys water for the day. While he is buying the water, the police pull up. After paying a small fine for the parking ticket, we are on our way.
The traffic thins out as we leave town.
Along with modes of transportation not usually seen in Minnesota, there are road signs that bring to mind a reality that is hard for me to imagine – grim reminders of how this peaceful-looking country has suffered and continues to suffer.
Choeun tells us that Banteay Srei is only about forty kilometers from Siem Reap, but that it will take an hour to get there. As soon as we turn off the main road the reason for the longer travel time becomes immediately obvious – the paved road is a mess, with an uneven (or absent) surface. Evidently this road was paved just a few years ago, but a large number of trucks use it for hauling sand. Choeun gives the trucks credit for tearing the road apart. The fact that the road itself seems to consist of nothing but a thin layer of bituminous over sandy clay is likely to have contributed to the road’s fast deterioration.
When we aren’t being too thoroughly shaken up to enjoy it, the scenery is very interesting.
At first we travel through open fields dotted with a lot of small, poor-looking homes and a few lovely, large homes.
Then we enter a wooded area where homes tend to cluster together near the edge of the road.
These villages seem to be little more than a few homes grouped together near a stand selling baskets or other handicrafts. I seldom see any sign of a school, temple, or store. Not that there isn’t retail activity occurring. We regularly pass stands with glass bottles – the local gas stations, selling bottles of petrol for the ubiquitous scooters.
We don’t stop at any of the villages now, because Choeun is eager for us to get to the temple before most of the other tourists arrive.
Soon we are there.
Banteay Srei (The Temple of Women)
Village Visit
Now Choeun says we have time to visit a village.
We stop at a spot with a mixed collection of houses and a large stand displaying merchandise for sale. This village looks much like others we have passed, with a mix of housing that ranges from dilapidated shacks to beautiful, lovingly maintained homes. Like most houses here, these are generally traditional wood structures built on stilts. They are open and airy and the TV set is often clearly visible inside.
Being able to walk around lets us examine the village more closely, providing an opportunity to view some of the details of village life, such as the well,
a laundry “room,”
a sunny kitchen,
and well-maintained fish traps.
As Choeun leads us around, explaining these things to us, children break away from their chores – and even from their play – to check us out.
Choeun tells us this village is different from others, in part because they are trying to develop a business making palm sugar. The sugar is fine, but not as nice as the amazing palm sugar we had in Thailand. As I watch them make it, it is easy to see why there is a such a difference – the high level of precision that went into the production of sugar in Thailand is largely absent here. Still, they have developed a unique product to add to the other local crafts and tours of their village to bring in additional income. I hope they do well in their endeavor and that, over time, they will develop the expertise to make palm sugar as fine as their Thai counterparts.
I do my part before we leave by buying a lovely woven purse and some wooden mobiles.
Banteay Samre’
East Mebon
Neak Pean
Winding Down
Lane and I would like to do some shopping. (I found the shopping in Thailand disappointing and am still hoping to finish off my Christmas list.) Choeun offers to take us to a crafts center and the others are willing to go along. . . But first, of course, we must first tour the workshops.I’m prepared to be bored, but the tour is interesting. Artisans of Angkor is a program established to keep traditional Cambodian crafts alive while providing work to the disadvantaged.
It seems like a well-run program and produces lovely items. On the tour we see people doing silk painting, lacquer work, and carving in wood and sandstone. All of it is interesting, but I particularly like the carved wooden statues dressed in their paper patterns as they await the final carving.
The silk workshop is in another town, but in the shop I find lovely nubby silks in rich jewel tones – none of which are for sale by the meter. Dang! The silk is so beautiful here. It is not as light and fine as the silk in Thailand, but it is far more lively and interesting.
Back at the hotel, the pool awaits.
But first, a call to the front desk – our air conditioning has gone out. Someone arrives almost immediately and checks the power (which has already gone out on several previous occasions, due, I suspect, to the ongoing construction in our wing). My guess is a blown fuse, but soon we have a worker crawling around in the ceiling.
Not thinking this was a problem that would take long to address, I hadn’t first changed into my swimsuit. Now, I pace the floor, impatiently watching the sparkling blue water beyond my window.
I want to be out there!
I finally decide I am not going to spend my last precious afternoon pacing in my hotel room. I’m sure the hotel workers are mortified, but I grab my swim suit and a change of clothes and duck into the bathroom. When I emerge again, one workman has completely disappeared into the ceiling while the other has gone to fetch something. They don’t appear to be making a lot of progress. . .
Soon I’m in the pool. The water is perfect, refreshing and wonderful.
November 21
Taking Leave
My plan for the morning is to sleep in a bit, join the others for breakfast, and then hang out in the pool.
In the end, only Joe actually gets in the pool, and even he doesn’t stay there long. Instead we convince David to join Joe, Lane, and me in a game of cribbage. David cooperates grudgingly, (although later, on the plane, he sounds like he maybe enjoyed it – or maybe it just doesn’t seem so bad when compared to the interminable flight). We play cards until we can’t avoid the reality of the situation anymore: The time to gather our bags and leave has come.
I wish we could spend a few more days relaxing here by the pool. I bet we would even be ready to explore a few more temples after resting up!
Alas, that is not to be and soon Choeun delivers us to Siem Reap’s cute little international airport. It is the start of a very long day that will end many hours later back at LAX.