We appear to have been blocked - lost all access to blogspot.com for some days and we also think we suffered a road block yesterday on the road back from a National Park when the highway traffic ground to a complete halt about 30km from Chiang Mai. We only got away through our minivan driver taking a u-turn and then some rough country roads. Even so we were held up again near Chiang Mai airport and there were large numbers of traffic and other police about and a lot of police cars. Not a normal road hold up we thought and I read in today's paper that three of the 'Red Shirt' protest leaders have been arrested in Chiang Mai so maybe it was connected with that.
And the blog block? Well blogspot gets blocked in China and sometimes in other places as people use it as an alternative means of getting the news out. It was certainly a major source of information on the corruption in Sarawak.
But apart from these inconveniences we have been enjoying life in Chiang Mai- its too hot by far, despite the fact that we are at least partially acclimatised to the tropical heat, we do find ourselves looking forward to the relative cool of Japan next week. But yesterday we experienced some real cold right here in our minivan trip with a small group to a national park containing the highest mountain in Thailand. We first viewed waterfalls, a really interesting small Burman village (where the residents did not appear to mind us poking about their place of living and work) and then a very impressive Royal Research Station where huge amounts of flower and other crops are grown to get everyone to stop growing opium poppies and then up to the highest peak at over 2,500 metres. And course it was into the cloud, thick cloud which then became a howling wind and driving rains. We at least had our cagoules (the first time we have actually had them with us when needed!), the visit to Buddhist stupas became virtually an impossibility, we could barely see them in the clouds and rain.
We treated ourselves in the evening to an excellent Italian meal (having had our more usual vegetarian Thai meal for lunch on the trip), real gnocchi and our first glass of red wine since leaving the UK! It must have encouraged Tessa to dream as she complained this morning that She had been dreaming of roast beef, gravy etc. Still she did do some cooking the other day at May Kaidee's vegetarian restaurant here. We met May at her Bangkok restaurant but there was no opportunity to take a cooking lesson there but she told us her sister, Duan, did classes at the restaurant here which is nearby. I will try to upload some pics including the array of dishes that Tessa cooked and which we both tried unsuccessfully to finish.
And the blog block? Well blogspot gets blocked in China and sometimes in other places as people use it as an alternative means of getting the news out. It was certainly a major source of information on the corruption in Sarawak.
But apart from these inconveniences we have been enjoying life in Chiang Mai- its too hot by far, despite the fact that we are at least partially acclimatised to the tropical heat, we do find ourselves looking forward to the relative cool of Japan next week. But yesterday we experienced some real cold right here in our minivan trip with a small group to a national park containing the highest mountain in Thailand. We first viewed waterfalls, a really interesting small Burman village (where the residents did not appear to mind us poking about their place of living and work) and then a very impressive Royal Research Station where huge amounts of flower and other crops are grown to get everyone to stop growing opium poppies and then up to the highest peak at over 2,500 metres. And course it was into the cloud, thick cloud which then became a howling wind and driving rains. We at least had our cagoules (the first time we have actually had them with us when needed!), the visit to Buddhist stupas became virtually an impossibility, we could barely see them in the clouds and rain.
We treated ourselves in the evening to an excellent Italian meal (having had our more usual vegetarian Thai meal for lunch on the trip), real gnocchi and our first glass of red wine since leaving the UK! It must have encouraged Tessa to dream as she complained this morning that She had been dreaming of roast beef, gravy etc. Still she did do some cooking the other day at May Kaidee's vegetarian restaurant here. We met May at her Bangkok restaurant but there was no opportunity to take a cooking lesson there but she told us her sister, Duan, did classes at the restaurant here which is nearby. I will try to upload some pics including the array of dishes that Tessa cooked and which we both tried unsuccessfully to finish.
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