{"id":494,"date":"2015-10-02T05:33:04","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T11:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=494"},"modified":"2015-10-02T05:33:04","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T11:33:04","slug":"on-to-thailand-1st-stop-chiang-mai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=494","title":{"rendered":"On to Thailand – 1st stop – Chiang Mai"},"content":{"rendered":"

We flew through Bangkok to our first destination in Thailand, Chiang Mai.\u00a0 Our first full day was Lesley’s birthday.\u00a0 The hotel arranged for her to attend a monastery and have the monk provide a special blessing for her\u00a0along with a \u00a0sprinkling of\u00a0holy water.\u00a0\u00a0The monk\u00a0also\u00a0gave Lesley\u00a0a simple hand woven bracelet.\u00a0 What a way to start her Bday!<\/p>\n

We toured some more Buddhist temples, the largest of which had been severely damaged in an earthquake.\u00a0 It was reduced in height by 1\/3 and lost most of its 67 elephants that were around the 2nd tier.\u00a0 One temple on that site only permitted men to enter it!<\/p>\n

Thailand is quite different from Vietnam & Cambodia.\u00a0 There are primarily cars on the streets, the overall area is more “westernized”, there appears to be less poverty (Thai GDP per capita is 40% more than Vietnam) and the tuk-tuks are 3 wheel cycles vs. Cambodia’s trailor attached to a motorcycle.\u00a0 The “mass” transportation system is pickup trucks with benches (scheduled routes, specific destinations or rent the driver\/vehicle, whatever suits you).<\/p>\n

There are schools for all and many start at the ripe old age of ONE.\u00a0 Whether it is public or private schools, the children all wear uniforms and look adorable.<\/p>\n

We finished our first month of traveling\u00a0with over 2500 pictures!\u00a0 We are having an incredible time and learning so much about other cultures.\u00a0 It has been absolutely fascinating.<\/p>\n

\"Birthday<\/a>
Birthday girl!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Damaged<\/a>
Damaged temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Magnificent<\/a>
Magnificent Buddhist temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Men's<\/a>
Men’s only temple (I took many pictures so L could see it)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Protective<\/a>
Protective dragons (Naga) are common at Northern Thai temples<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Buddha<\/a>
Buddha for those born on Saturday (David)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tuesday's<\/a>
Tuesday’s Buddha is lazy (Lesley’s birth day)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Even<\/a>
Even the Police HQ statue is in gold!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Flower<\/a>
Flower of the Sacred Tree (squirrels won’t touch this tree)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Transportation<\/a>
Public Transportation with benches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"1-Year<\/a>
1-Year olds starting the day exercising<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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We flew through Bangkok to our first destination in Thailand, Chiang Mai.\u00a0 Our first full day was Lesley’s birthday.\u00a0 The hotel arranged for her to attend a monastery and have the monk provide a special blessing for her\u00a0along with a \u00a0sprinkling of\u00a0holy water.\u00a0\u00a0The monk\u00a0also\u00a0gave Lesley\u00a0a simple hand woven bracelet.\u00a0 What a way to start her … Continue reading On to Thailand – 1st stop – Chiang Mai<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Si9J-7Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":528,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}