Big bad box sale

 Time to stock up all the 'expensive' cookery books instead of my usual fiction.

 Books chosen by alia

For irfan..all books sumbat masuk 1 kotak besar...price RM99.90☺☺cheapest books that I got so far...

Holiday in Chiang Mai

We went to Chiang Mai during the last weekend of February. This time my mother followed us too. We took the first flight there and reached our hotel around 9am Thai time.

Since we know our room is not ready, we just ask to put our luggage there. The receptionist was kind enough to recommend us to go to a morning market nearby, just 2 minutes of walk down the road.

I didn't know strawberries are very cheap here...packed according to their grades 1 bag cost 50-80 baht. apalagi, beli la satu bag- terus makan.

Lunch time I just ate roti pisang in a restaurant near the hotel

 sebelah petang father & daughter went for Flying squirrels

 some of the activities there...while my mom, irfan and I pegi jalan2 near our hotel

 they seem to be enjoying this

 malam makan dekat anusarn street...banyak halal restaurant here, but i chose they one with a good review. memang sedap Tom yam udang tu...sampai licin suma kuah.

lepas makan,  jalan jalan dekat night bazaar...

view of the anusarn street  market

 Next morning we took a tour package to Chiang Rai. Stop for a toilet break after 1 hour journey at Hot Spring.

After one and a half hour later we reached the White Temple, supposedly the only kind in the world.

the only yellow building here -- the toilet ;-)

Thenit took us about another hour for us to reach the jetty to go to Golden Triangle. you really can't go very near the Golden Triangle-- police is always watching this piece of land. If you look at the photos above ( the small map at the bottom left corner) the Golden triangle is actually the small island in purple in between the three countries.

One photo- three countries, Thailand on the left (Buddha statue), Myanmar at the centre (the small red building is the casino) and Laos on the right (the yellow building). Right in the middle is the Golden Triangle (too small to see in the photo)- no man's land. Where is our next destination???

Don Sao island, Laos!

We did some shopping here - mostly T-shirts and shawls/pashminas as there are cheaper compared to Chiang Mai. 

snakes, scorpions in a bottle - a rare sight for western tourists. We spent 30 minutes here, then we went back to Thailand.

Going into Myanmar? Get in line...the blue building at the back is the immigration checkpoint to Myanmar. According to our tour guide, the prices at the market is cheap but of a lower quality. we didn't buy anything here, just take a few shots and the driver made a u turn. You need 500 baht and a passport to enter Myanmar.

The last stop...Mae Sae, to visit the Karen- 'long neck' tribe

 I'm sitting next to the most beautiful woman in the tribe ; the ones with the longest/heaviest brass coils. The heaviest is 5 kgs- she's wearing  4 kgs of brass

 kecik-kecik pun dah start pakai...they started wearing it at 5 years old. the process actually does not lengthen the neck, it suppresses the shoulder. This tribe is actually from Myanmar and according to the guide they are happy continuing the tradition here... I'm guessing the money is better here.

this is what they produced...beautiful scarves, the colours are amazing...

 another tribe in the village.. after this stop it was a 3.5 hours drive back to Chiang Mai. We reached our hotel at 8.30pm. For dinner I just bought food from the pasar malam along the halal street beside the hotel and had that in our hotel room as mom and the kids are too tired to go out.

 DH meanwhile had his own dinner earlier as he wanted to see the muay thai nearby

sampai berdarah2...i can see the stadium from my room and it went on till late at night. i was already asleep when DH came back..next morning - to Elephant camp!