Leaving for bangkok on Sept. 12. Where we go from there is anyone's guess. Hoping to see Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Be back in six months or so if everything goes well. There really isn't much of a route planned - we'll see what happens.

Chiang Mai?

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Chiang Mai is comfortable. Maybe a little too comfortable. We haven't done too much since we arrived. Yesterday we deliberately did very little so we'd have the energy to check out the craziness of their night market. And craziness it was. It was an expensive day, and all my fault, i dare say.

There's this super-neat giant art supply store near here and i bought me a melodion (you know, the mouth blown little organ thingies? look it up.) I needed some sort of musical instrument as i was going a little batty. And at the night market i finally bought one of those plain cotton shirt thingies i've been craving and a Chiang Beer shirt... aaand a little backgammon/chess board. We needed a game or two. So i'm catching up with catherine or something.

Today it's raining so we're lazing about writing postcards and doing this. Sitting in coffee shops playing backgammon and eating banana splits. It's alright by me. We've got lots of time to see the temples here (and there are some 300, apparently - almost as many as bangkok in a much smaller city.)

The plan is to stay here and while and hopefully take a meditation course here - there's no shortage of courses around in everything from language to massage to cooking to meditation (actually, that's the four that seem to be everywhere).

So there's not much news. This is a very tourist friendly city (Yes, almost too friendly), but not as crazy fast as Bangkok so i can dig it. Now i post some pictures i didn't have a chance to before. Okay?

Moon Muang Street, Chiang Mai. There's giant huge fountains in that canal at night. Bigger than the trees.

Moody night-time train photo number 364. Note the use of skewed white-balance. i told it orange was grey, yes i did.

More monkeys - note they're sporting the latest trendy haircuts. Oh yes, the faux-hawk.

The monkeys live on these ruins in Lopburi at night. You can see them on the right there.

Catherine seems to insist on going in to every single giant stuffed animal store. And there sure are a lot of them around.

Oh yes, breaking news: Late yesterday afternoon we come back to the hostel and are greeted with: "Did anyone tell you we have no room for you tomorrow night?"... umm.. no.. they didn't. Apparently it's quite common for there to be "no room" at GHs around here if you're not using their trekking services to visit the surrounding areas. A minor setback, anyway. We found a cheaper place down the street that seems quite good.

That is all.

Special Bulletin from Catherine.

flooded.. with cockroaches!

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