SAWATDEE KA

Travelling is tiring, especially these days when you have to be at the airport three hours in advance. Andrea got up at 5 made coffee and off we went. They scanned my iris's again so I could get out of the country. The six hour flight went fast compared to the thirteen hour one last week. I sat beside a really nice couple from Sweden. He was very chatty which made the time go so much faster. Arrived in Bangkok, instead of doing the scan here they take your picture . When filling out the landing card I just copied the flight number from the Swedish guy beside me and turned out we had different flight numbers - who knew! The immigration guy somehow knew and asked to see my boarding pass. He abruptly pointed my mistake out to me and then all was well. I had a few hours to kill so went to get some water - geez the airports really gouge ya. In Toronto I paid $3.15 for a bottle of water and in Bangkok it was $4.20.  They have a captive audience.
As I was sitting there waiting for my next flight I checked my passport and the officier only gave me a 30 day visa and I am here 31 days. SO, I went ot find out what I could do but by the time I realized it I was in the domestic terminal and too far away from the international terminal. A nice kid at the information booth called immigration for me and they told her it would be OK just to stay one more day. Humm...got the immigration officers name and number so will just keep my fingers crossed.  Arrived in Chaing Mai last night at 11:15 pm - a very long day. Sumana picked me up and we came straight to her house. She and Micheal built a huge place about 4 km out of town. For those of you who do not know, I worked with Mickie for years, he was a great guy. Unfortunately he was killed in a motorcycle accident in Mae Hon Song about two years ago. So sad, as this was his dream, to build this house and sell sherbet to the hotels here.
A few pictures of Day One:

Canuck, Sumana's dog......not allowed out the gate as he loves to chase bikes and jump on people.

The market:

We stopped for lunch at a typical Thai food court - from the picture you can see it was delicious!

Only thing I did not eat where the shrimp tails and onion sprigs!

I love Thailand, love the people, the culture and the food ...so happy to be back. It has been 24 years since my first visit to Chaing Mai and boy has it changed! As has everything!