Hello everyoneIt's a beautiful sunny morning here. We are enjoying having a four day weekend thanks to the Chinese New Year festivities. And, boy, do they celebrate! Yesterday afternoon, we went to the river to a Chinese festival market. I took a few photos of that so I will post them after I have finished the 4 episodes of our holiday.
I hope you enjoyed the photos of Luang Prabang.
We left Luang Prabang, and found ourselves in the bustling, modern city of Chiang Mai, home to over a million people. As you can see from the second photo some of the inhabitants are very modern and a bit a bit intimidating!
Some of the temples here are truly ancient, dating back to 1200, and the city is surrounded still by a moat, with the remains of a few ancient city gates, built in red brick.
But we realised on the first morning as we stepped out of the hotel that we had to be really strict with ourselves and just choose a few temples. After Vientiane and Luang Prabang we were feeling very 'full' of all the beautiful things we had seen and there wasn't much 'room' left for more. So we chose the oldest and most famous.
All around the city there are villages of excellent handicrafts, from wood carving to silk painting to silversmithing and we spent an afternoon walking among endless displays of wonderful objects.
For Daniela’s birthday on 5th January we attended a cultural dance event with Khantoke Dinner (which is the Thai equivalent of a Spanish tapas meal) and much whirling around of exotic looking ladies and male dancers carrying long knifes or flaming torches. It was a lovely way to celebrate her birthday and to end our holiday.
Tired but very happy with our trip we returned to Singapore.
Next time I will post some photos of people we saw in Laos so you can get a feel for the human side as well as the temple and countryside.
Until then keep well and safe
Love
Alan
