All the volunteers took a little trip to Chiang Rai, about an hour south, for a Saturday. We went shopping at the Big C and site seed at this White Wat.
Here's the artist of the wat inspecting the progress.
After white wat and Big C, Pilar, Morgan and I wanted to spend the night so that we could watch Spiderman 3 in the theater at Big C. So we bought tickets to the almost sold out show, checked into a guest house and rented bicycles to get around with, then cruised around town before the movie.
We found a recreational park just a little out of the city that over looked the river to the north. Then we rode back over to Big C, so excited to watch Spiderman 3! Once we were there I was telling Pilar and Morgan how I've only seen one movie thus far in Thailand, and it was in Bangkok, in English with Thai subtitles. So I thought this one would be the same. Not the case.
I first became suspicious as I looked around and saw lots of little kids in the audience...hmm I wonder if they can read? and read fast enough to follow the story? Not a problem for them, because Spiderman was dubbed in Thai with NO English subtitles, thank goodness it was an action film, with little pertinent dialog.
Chiang Rai Night Market. Lots of food, clothes, souvenirs ect.
Pilar and Morgan are really interested in the pig intestines.
On Sunday we wanted to see a waterfall or just some country side, so with vague idea of the direction we needed we just headed right out of the city in hopes of finding it on our little one-speed cruiser bikes.
These flowers are so vibrantly red in real life, hard to capture though.
Three falangs in a row, and boy did the Thai people like to point that out. Every other second some one was yelling "Falang! Falang!" (by the way- falang means white person)
Bicycles-check, Motorcycles-check, Pedicabs-check. All systems go.Ride on.
So eventually we stopped at a road side stand to get some water and bananas and to ask if there was in fact a waterfall in the area. Oh ya there is one, but its farrrr. Okay....we'll just try and see how far we would make it.
We made it! Just 2.5 hours later! Up a little mountain rode throw towns and villages and valleys.
Now we're on the walking path to the waterfall and some sites on the way. (a bright orange leaf)
Fallen bamboo from a mountain fire.
A huge slug along the path.
We finally made it to the waterfall after the 30 minute walk/hike.
We were really pooped after riding bikes for so long, then walking so long...we ate some bananas.
..we took some pictures.
Our new volunteer Morgan, from San Fran, Ca.
My Natural Pose.
Ever since I was a kid when we'd go to the beach, I would always do this au naturel pose. Really I just close my eyes and smile without showing teeth, if you want to try it yourself pretend like you're sleeping and having a good dream. Ya, thats it.
Scary big spider, in his scary ultraviolet blue web.
Orange butterfly.
Pilar found this little baby creature along the path. We picked it up and moved it to a safer place. We thought it might be a mouse, but the nose is really wide. Anybody have any guesses?
We're back to the valley already. Rice fields.
Big sky.
I really like this photo. I like how the cement tubes in the foreground mimic the shape of the chinese cemetery in the background, and how the sky is moving in a V shape.
