Lampang and on to Chang Mai

Lampang
We just spent four wonderful days in Lampang. It is about the size of the city of Santa Cruz. The guest house recommended by my friend Howard was great, just our speed. Lots of families and older travelers, very mellow, right on the river. Our first day was just recovery from the all night bus. The next day we went to the Elephant conservation center that I wrote about in my last blog. Day three we had our first Thai massage and herbal sauna, which I should really let Dave, the massage expert, describe in his blog. We also checked out some of the teak architecture in Lampang. There are buildings that look like they came right out of a movie about Indochina at the turn of the century. That night there was the "walking street" basically a street fair. Food, crafts and everything else for sale. Full of locals. Anika was in heaven for the first time because there were tons of things for sale really cheap that hit her idea of stylish and cool. There were so many food choices it was hard to choose. There was also massage and fortune telling, buddhist amulets (these are very popular), crafts, clothing, household items, live music etc. It was kind of like street fair at home but it seemed like the entire town came out.

Our last day in Lampang we took a driver and went to several places. The first stop was at a very old Wat under renovation. For some reason there were a bunch of older Thai ladies hanging out there. They were very welcoming and cute. 

The next stop was a cotton weaving village. Last we got to Chae Som National park. It was high up in the mountains and was well developed and maintained. We did a short hike us a waterfall with six pools. We met a Thai man as we hiked up who told us some history of the park. He explained only the royal family had access until about 20 years ago when the queen made it a park. He showed me where they came in by helicopter before there was a road. He knew about this because he used to be the helicopter pilot for the royal family when he was in the Thai air force. Now he works for Air Thailand.

After the waterfall we went over to the hot springs. The best thing here, beside the great water to soak in, was watching the Thai families cook eggs in the hot springs in little baskets. then they ate them as part of picnics.

We opted for the public hot springs and had them all to ourselves for 20 Baht, less than a dollar, for unlimited time. You know how we like hot water!
It was very relaxing.

So far Lampang is my favorite place we have been.







On to Chaing Mai
We have been here four days. It is more touristy with shops selling tour to the hill tribes and treks, restaurants and other services for tourists every where. The city is much bigger than Lampang. Kind of a larger version of Fourtuna near Arenal in Costa Rica. There has been a lot of rain so we have not been able to do everything we might want to. But we did get both 4$ and 70 $ massages at two different places. The more expensive one was better, beautiful setting and very attentive practitioners. It was at the Oasis spa and we had a three part treatment. First Thai massage, very physical, limb manipulation deep point work and stretching. then came a hot herbal compress, I loved this part. And last a warm oil aroma therapy massage. It took two hours. I was very relaxed afterwards. Anika had a facial and a milk bath.

Yesterday Anika and I did took an all day Thai cooking class. You got to pick what you made, so we made sure to pick different things and learn more. They also took us to the market where we learned about the ingredients. The teachers were a brother and sister team and the school is in their family home. Its set up really well with individual cooking stations under an awning outside, an indoor eating area and an indoor demonstration area right out of a cooking show, mirror on the ceiling and everything. They walk you through all the steps even suggesting substitutions if you can't get certain ingredients at home. The class was small only 6 of us; a French father and 20 something daughter, a couple, guy English, girl German (and a teacher) and us. We also got a recipe book with everything everyone cooked in it. We ate and cooked all day 9:30-3:30! It was one of the best things we have done here so far.

Today Dave and I went to the most famous temple here which is up a mountain a little outside of the city. Now as Anika, who didn't come, has started saying, "you've seen one Wat you've seen them all."
(A wat in a temple) There is some truth to what she says and there are temples every where it seems. But this wat was built in the 13th century and it was beautiful and had a good feeling. There was a lot of activity going on. Tourists milling about, Thai groups listening to chanting, monks welcoming people who come there to study Vipasana meditation. Tomorrow is mother's day here which is a national holiday. Banks, schools,  and the post office are closed like at home. We think one of the things we saw at the wat was a ceremony to honor mothers.