Chiang Mai, Thailand

We got up at 5Am on our 3rd day in Thailand for the 400 mile flight to Chaing Mai. The highlight of the day is snakehead soup and a snakehead fish dish that is super spicy.

Bennett and Ken spend the day taking us to mountain temples. There are as many temples in Chiang Mai as there are in Bangkok.

This remote mountain temple only had one monk. We had a conversation in English.

The Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep temple is at 3,500 feet in the mountains overlooking Chiang Mai.

The temple is very famous and draws lots of tourists like us.

The temple was built in this site after a white elephant trumpeted three times and died on the spot in 1368 A.D.

Chiang Mai from the temple overlook.

Chiang 

They Built a Rubber Monk

Saigon Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

We got up today at 0500 to catch a flight out of Chang Mai to Bangkok. We then flew on Qatar Air to Saigon and landed at what we used to call Ton Son Nhut Air Force Base. It looks about the same except for the new terminal. The old bunkers for the fighters are still on the field and are covered with moss. One had a big yellow peace symbol.

The grassy area between runways brings back memories.

I landed here on a sunny day years ago. The crew left me on the plane alone and they all went to fill out paperwork. Helicopters landed and left bodies on the grass in front of the airplane. The soldiers must have been dead because they were bloody, still and unattended. I went for a walk. There was a warehouse with a tin roof and no walls. It is filled with aluminum coffins stacked five high. I thought about the procurement process and the casualty estimates going into this warehouse. There were big profits for a coffin company somewhere back in the mid-west. I estimated that the shed had 6,000 coffins waiting for occupants, about a five month supply at 400 a week.




This morning a drunk American wandered up and asked if we knew where his guest house was located. Drunk, tired and hopelessly lost in a big foreign city at 5:30 AM....poor guy.



We visited evem more temples yesterday in Chiang Mai. This one had a lot of elephants at one time, but someone has stolen most of them. The temple had 5,000 pounds of gold plating 700 years ago, but it's all gone missing sometime in the last 700 years..

and its 1,2,3 what are we fightin for?

don't ask me i don't give a dam, the next stop is Vietnam,

and its 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates.

Well there aint no time to wonder why

WHOPEE we're all gunna die.

In some temples you take off your shoes and walk in to find one or two very wise looking old monks lost in silent meditation. It's very intimidating until you realize that they are made out of rubber.

For our last night Bennett takes us to a traditional Thai dinner with Thai dancers. It's interesting, especially the hill dancers. The food is dumbed down and relatively bland for the tourists.

Temples and Old Times

Chiang Rai, Thailand

Mountains, forest, the Kok river

mist in the sky

the golden rice field,

the Beauty that everyone is dumfounded with...

Here is a video snippet of Bennett playing as a featured artist at the Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic. It was Aaron Copeland's 85th birthday. We saw this concert live on TV when it happened.

We're  spending our last three days in Thailand at the Mountain View Guest House in Chaing Rai. It costs $20 a night. It's clean and has breakfast, laundry service and blazing fast free internet.

This Chedri is at the University for monks in Chaing Mai. There are as many temples here as there are in Bangkok.

Next to the temple and chedi are the royal tombs for the Thai princes and their descendants.

Dogs and cats are common at temples, but some have bad flea problems.

Carol and Ken discussing the royal tombs.

Old Chiang Mai was abandoned because of flooding. This chedi is at the site of the old city.

You can bang the gongs and ring the bells at Buddhist temples, but remove your shoes before entering the temple.

A food vendor in the old city.

Tree flowers.

A recently excavated old city chedi.

A cat in a Shan temple. This one was nibbling flower petals. There are an estimated 6,000,000 ethnic Shan. Some 2,000,000 of them have fled south from Burma into Thailand. In Burma the government siezes young Shan men in their villages and makes them work on road projects with no pay or food.

The most humble thatched huts tenf to have satellite dishes like this temple.

Bennett and Carol look at pictures of the grandchildren.

Bennett's home is wall-to-wall bookcases and media in all rooms (musical scores, books, video tapes, cassettes, vinyl, DVDs, Cds).

Carol, Frieda and Jil (left to right).

Bennett's fulltime driver is Sam. Sam has a motor scooter with a big tubular box for a sidecar that Bennett bought. Carol rides behind Sam on the scooter and Bennett and I ride in the sidecar to an Italian restaurant. It's all very strange. Now I'm sure that Bennett is never coming back.



Here are two of Ken's children. They are very polite, handsome and well behaved in the restaurant. They are only 6 and 5, but they have a very good headstart on English. They are playing a game on the Ipad that requires them to pick things with English names and put them on a train.



Bennett at the Lincoln Center in New York City.

Occupy the Tiger's Cage

Somewhere North of Chiang Mai

This post was delayed  from December 9 until I could work out some issues with the a new sim card.

We are moving up into the Golden Triangle this morning for three dayswith Bennett and Ken (our driver and guide). Yesterday we took a long ride on an elephant and Mrs. Phred spent 15 minutes in a cage petting a very large tiger.

Ken is our driver. Bennett arranged for us to hire him for a week to see the more remote areas of Northern Thailand. He's doing a great job.

We stopped in an orchid farm.

We stopped to see some butterflies and settled for a tub full of scorpions.