Leaving soon...

I have 4 days left in Thailand. Summer went by so fast it seems like I just arrived yesterday.

There's so many things I wanted to do and didn't, and so many more pictures I want to take.
But right now it's midnight and I'm going to sleep. Goodnight!

A hill tribe on the border

I took a little trip to visit the long necked people in the hills of Thailand. Thailand has about 10 different ethnic minorities that live on the hills in the north. The women wear rings around their necks to make it look longer.

It's so beautiful and exotic, and the girls and women of these minority tribes are so pretty.

But of course they have a phone booth

Look at her gages!!

This is one of my favorite pictures from this trip. It looks so intimate and loving, I feel like I'm invading their privacy.

I really love the culture of these people, so I bought one of the neck rings as a souvenir.

Buddha's Day

I got a foot massage today while my parents got Thai massages. Since the Thai massage is two hours and the foot is only one, I walked a few blocks to the Lacoste store.

Then we went to Chedi Luang temple because it's Buddha's day. I'm not Buddhist but I love going to temples because they're so beautiful.

I don't really know of it, but it's an important holiday. School was is out for three days.

The temple was packed. I had to sit there for about half an hour listening to the monks pray.

Then it rained again.

I love this picture because the guy running really shows the chaos--everyone was coming out at the same time and trying to get their shoes and trying to figure out what they were going to do.

Next we had dinner at an Italian restaurant (I forget the name) a few blocks away. The staff there are all handicapped in some way. Our waitress was in a wheelchair.

The owner is an Italian man who contracted polio when he was a child and wanted to help people who would other wise be entirely dependent on other people.

Chiang Mai Zoo

My mom's friend and her 11 year old son (named Donut) came to visit us for a few days, so we decided to go to the Chiang Mai Zoo. A baby panda was born last month and the whole of Thailand is obsessed with her. We actually got to see her up close, she was so cute!! But each person was only allowed one minute and only 500 people a day. No pictures allowed, sorry, but she's all over the news.

It was raining the entire day so we wore raincoats. And even with the bad weather the zoo was packed.

There were so many people, I could hardly move--and they were taking pictures as if at a rock concert!

In the actual panda exhibit you could see the baby from a TV.

Then we went to get something to eat a a little market next to the exibit. It was extremely cramped with dirty puddles on the ground with no place to sit.

Donut bought some fried crickets and eggs.

I can't put all the pictures up because there's so many and we saw a lot of animals. But more importantly, they were selling paper made from panda dung. Picture frames, notebooks, keychains...even fans. COOL! Let's fan ourselves with panda dung!

Naturally, I bought it.
Hmm, smells like bamboo.

All the pictures

I finally got the long lost cord to my camera, and the pictures should all be in their right places.