A Day and Night in the Sky

Our flight from Chiang Mai didn't leave until early afternoon, and Jeff and I still hadn't seen one of the most famous temples in Chiang Mai, Wat Chedi Luang.  Vivian had also expressed an interest in pancakes for breakfast.  Since the mornings were nice and cool, I figured the three of us could have a nice morning walk to the temple, and then find a good breakfast place.  It took a little research, but I found a route and a restaurant for us.

We retraced our steps from Sunday night a bit, turning onto Ratchadamnoen in front of Wat Phra Singh.

In the light of day, we figured out how the evening street market gets electricity to light itself up.  There are electric outlets attached to all the light posts.  There are even some attached to trees.

It's a wonder the Sunday market doesn't short circuit the whole city.

We also walked by the Chiang Mai police station.  Jeff and Vivian felt the need for dramatic poses in front of the sign.

They also got a kick out of the statue of an officer rescuing someone and attempted to replicate it.

Some of the funnest sight seeing opportunities are not in any guidebook ;-)

The wats are great too.  Wat Chedi Luang has a large stone ruined part from the 15th century, 

but I liked some of the newer surrounding wats even more.

After a little more walking we got to a restaurant called Good Morning Chiang Mai, attached to a small hotel.  They had outdoor seating near the hotel's pool.

The pancakes did not disappoint.  They were huge, fluffy, and served with syrup, which can be hard to find in Thailand.  Vivian was very happy.

We only had one small hiccup with breakfast.  The waiter who took our order did not speak very good English.  Jeff ordered an omelet, and then we ordered three sides of bacon, one for each of us.  Instead of one omelet and three sides of bacon though, we got one side of bacon and three omelets.  We found someone who spoke a bit more English and sorted it out.  They didn't charge us for the extra omelets, but we felt a little bad about wasting food.  Other than that though, it was a lovely morning and a nice way to say good bye to Chiang Mai.

I'm choosing to remember Chiang Mai that way, and I'm going to try and forget the airport which was incredibly crowded and where Elena finally lost it, having an epic meltdown as only a toddler can.  We all got home in one piece though, but that was far from the end of our day.

I really wanted my family to be able to see Bangkok all decked out for Christmas, and the shopping area has some especially spectacular lights.  They also really liked the roof top bar we went to last time they were here.  Since we were running out of nights, I decided we should have the same van that brought us home from the airport take us downtown for drinks at Red Sky.  I may have been pushing things a little, but we made it work.  The view was great, and they loved the lights (no photographs though, sorry, lights at night don't photograph well).

Even though it was a success, and we were home by 9:00 pm, it was still crazy, because we were getting picked up at 5:30am the next day for a day trip to Kanchanaburi.  Yes, I'm a crazy over-scheduler, but man is it a lot of fun.