New Year’s Eve Day: first thing this morning, we headed up to Wat Phra Doi Suthep. Set in a stunning location on top of a small mountain outside of Chiang Mai, this has been one of my very favorite places in the world since we first came here years ago. Legend has it that relics of a revered monk (probably some bits bone) back in the 14th century miraculously replicated themselves. The king of Lanna at the time put them on top of a white elephant which then marked the spot where a new temple should be built on top the mountain by circling two times and lying down.

	To get to the temple (wat), you first have to climb the 306 steps of the Naga staircase.It being New Year’s Eve, a national holiday, throngs of people were there, turning what is usually a very serene spot into a festive one.
There are very many ways and places to pray at a Buddhist temple. Something familiar above. Another is to the right, by ringing the bells. And then, as in the picture below, you can circumnavigate the central stupa clockwise while meditating on the teachings of the Buddha. You can also receive blessings from a monk.

The central stupa is brilliant, surrounded by four gilded umbrellas. If the monk’s relics do indeed exist, deep within this stupa is where they would be.

(I’ll post a lot more pictures of this place in the gallery when we get home.)

We had been curious for a long time about the Chiang Mai Zoo, so that’s where we headed as we descended back down to the city.
Let’s just say, not every experience one has while travelling is wonderful. To the right you can see our the overwhelming aspect of our visit. Unbelievably, you can drive through the zoo, which hundreds of people did because of the holiday, creating a massive smog-infested traffic jam.
Admittedly we didn’t help matters by climbing onto one of the trams that course their way through the park like roller coaster cars. We did however see one or two animals.

Matters improved immensely with lunch, which we had at a restaurant promoting the northern specialy of khao soy. It basically a very special noodle soup, with an intensely-flavored Burmese broth as its base, to which are added noodles - flat rice noodles, round ones, or egg noodles - crispy noodles on top, and a small bit of meat or vegetables. The diner adds fish sauce, more chili paste, pickles, sugar, shallots and more coconut milk to taste. For dessert we enjoyed dead-ripe mangos with sticky rice and coconut milk, also a northern specialty. It was all incredibly delicious!
	For dinner, we headed back outdoors, this time to the Anusarn Night Market. We went to a seafood restaurant where we had stir-fried crab with curry sauce, garlic & pepper shrimp and stir-fried Chinese morning glory, ong choy.
And for dessert….tah dah: McDonalds! Expatriate McD’s still serve the old fried pies, but with unusual flavors. Dale had the corn last night. They also had taro root, pineapple and chocolate banana.

And finally, New Year’s Eve. At that point in the day, I just didn’t feel like working the camera much, so sorry, no pictures of an incredibly spectacular show. I had no idea the Julian calendar New Year was such a celebration here in Thailand. Any excuse for a party I guess. The fireworks were absolutely nuts, exploding near and far from the ground from literally everywhere in the city. It didn’t have the regimented choreography we’re used to back home, but for sheer exuberance, the Thais have it in spades.

Starting much earlier and much, much more beautiful were the kham loi, which are large barrel-shaped paper lanterns with fire in the open base, which makes them into glowing balloons. Thousands of these were launched, filling the evening sky, floating gracefully in the currents of air, forming myriad new constellations. The picture below doesn’t begin to do them justice, but at least you get a small idea:

It is the oddest feeling: coming to a place halfway around the world from one’s home and feeling at home. It’s a great feeling and that’s how it was for us coming off the plane and back into Chiang Mai. Our third visit to this great northern Thai city, it makes it so much easier to fight our way through jet lag, and makes for a pleasant start to our journey, to see a familiar, yet deliciously strange place once again.

We’re staying at a place called the River View Lodge, which has admittedly modest accomodations modestly priced. Yet it’s one of those places well-loved and often recommended by its visitors. Over the past day, I’ve heard four other people, staying among it’s 3 dozen rooms, proudly telling the owner that they had sent friends here. So let me just say: if you’re coming to Chiang Mai, this is the place you want to stay.

Also speaking of pleasant past associations, we went looking for our old travel agent here, Vanida Tour, only to find their old storefront occupied by someone else. We wanted to make arrangements for the three-day trip from here to Luang Prabang in Laos. Trying other agencies in the area, we just didn’t get anywhere. About to give up, we spied that old Vanida sign across the street…they had moved. Needless to say, good old Mr. Surin Sittinoi set things right for us.

That taken care of, we ventured out into the Sunday Walking Market for the evening. Chiang Mai, once on the old China-Burma trade route, is well-known for its Night Bazaar, an orgy of consumption covering blocks and blocks of the city every evening. The Sunday Walking Market is relatively new and has a much more festive atmosphere.

Ta Phae Gate in the old city wall is the start of the market, decorated very festively for the holidays and King Bhumipol’s 80th birthday.
It extends along Th Ratchadamnoen for its full length. Stalls upon stalls sell just about everything under the sun.
Temples along its length are open for the evening, people thronging for chances to make merit …
and to feast from the food stalls found there.We had a feast of Pad Thai, Som Tum (papaya salad), grilled chili honey chicken, cha yen (Thai iced tea), and coconut/pandan leaf puff pancakes. Each dish was 20 baht or less. That’s $0.60!
By the way, we’ve promised to ourselves that we’re going to be fearless eaters this trip, without regard to humble location or unusual ingredients. So far so good.
We were quite happy to find that two of our favorite temples the whole of Thailand were open for the evening. More on them when we return during the day, but here’s a few pictures.The Buddha at Wat Phra Singh is reputedly one of the most beautiful around and it’s very old.
Wat Chedi Luang has an ancient studa which looks fantastic lit up at night.
The four faces at one time each contained buddha images, including the famous Emerald Buddha (more on that later as well). This is one of the others.

All in all, a very pleasant evening.

BART (our local train) is a great way to get to the airport.

This trip is an excellent excuse to finally get rid of my ancient frequent flyer miles on United. We’re flying business on Asiana, Thai, and United. Within Asia, we’ll be on AirAsia and Lao Airlines.
	Here we are in the airport lounge. I’m already getting to the blogging part of our trip.

	Obligatory shot of the plane we flew across the Pacific. 12.5 hour flight…sheesh!
And the joys of airplane food…

	One of the pleasures of travel is sampling the local ways of eating. Here in Korea’s Incheon airport… hmmm
Arriving in Bangkok at 1 in the morning after 27 hours of travel so far, we opted to stay in the Novotel airport hotel rather than hanging out in the terminal. Surprisingly, within 30 minutes of touching down, we had collected our bags, gotten money at an ATM, cleared customs, and were in our really nice hotel room. Hanging on the precipice of complete exhaustion, we fell into the most comfortable hotel bed ever. … Never seen a bathroom with a picture window before.
And here’s a picture of the 1-year old Suvarnabhumi Airport. It’s H U G E, but fairly efficient.

Having been driven by our friend and neighbor Penny, who is house-sitting for us and looking after the creatures, we boarded BART for the airport this morning and started our adventure.

About looking at these posts…I’ll be writing as we go along. Being not at all sure how often I’ll be able to hook my computer up to the Internet, posting may be infrequent. Never fear though… updates will be coming. If you’d like to see past posts, there are two ways to do so:

1. Click on "Pages" at the top of any page or look for "Pages" in the column to the right, and click on "Descending Dragon". (Doing it this way will display the posts in chronological order, oldest to most recent.) Or
2. Click on "Categories on the top of any page or look for "Categories" in the column to the right and click on "Descending Dragon." (Display order this way will be reverse, most recent first.)

Wish us luck. Remember if you’d like to contact us, write to any address at chaosweb.net. (Or use my first name before the at sign.)

Many of you are too young to remember: once upon a time in the far-off distant past, holidays marched across the calendar in an orderly manner, courteously waiting for one another to pass before taking the stage. Maybe you’ve even heard that stores didn’t put up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving … imagine that! Well a reader over at Consumerist sent in a picture taken at a local Target the day after Christmas:

Yes, Easter bunnies.

It’s the end of the world.

    Consumerist

The pessimist in me senses a metaphor for our recent political landscape in this video of the teacup ride at Disneyland after a rainfall, empty and deserted and yet, still running. Or perhaps it signifies another year drawing to a close. Whatever, take a look…it’s pretty cool.

     via BoingBoing

Tom and I, along with all our animals want to wish you the very happiest holiday season and best wishes for the coming year.

One of the best things about the season, is that, among the consumption of things and calories, many of us take a moment to remember to help those less fortunate and those in need. If it’s not too presumptuous, we’d like to suggest these two very worthy organizations. Remember when donating via the web, you can donate as much or as a little as you want. Every $1 or $5 will add up to a great deal of help.

Thanks too, for stopping by. I hope you’ve been enjoying the new website!

Here’s a handy tool if you’d like to jog your memory about a performance you’ve seen at SF Opera. The archive goes back to the very first La Boheme, conducted by founder Gaetano Merola in 1923. (Note: it’s not entirely obvious, but to get full information, you have to click in the "cast list" column: a multi-page pdf file should open.) Click here to get there.

Do you subscribe to any of these common beliefs?

• People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
• We use only 10% of our brains
• Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
• Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser
• Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
• Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy
• Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.

Take a look, then, at this article, published today in the British Medical Journal.

Here’s what they had to say about the first one, the requirement to drink 8 glasses of water every day:

The advice to drink at least eight glasses of water a day can be found throughout the popular press.One origin may be a 1945 recommendation that stated: A suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 litres daily in most instances. An ordinary standard for diverse persons is 1 millilitre for each calorie of food. Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods. If the last, crucial sentence is ignored, the statement could be interpreted as instruction to drink eight glasses of water a day.

 

Another endorsement may have come from a prominent nutritionist, Frederick Stare, who once recommended, without references, the consumption "around 6 to 8 glasses per 24 hours," which could be "in the form of coffee, tea, milk, soft drinks, beer, etc." The complete lack of evidence supporting the recommendation to drink six to eight glasses of water a day is exhaustively catalogued in an invited review by Heinz Valtin in the American Journal of Physiology. Furthermore, existing studies suggest that adequate fluid intake is usually met through typical daily consumption of juice, milk, and even caffeinated drinks. In contrast, drinking excess amounts of water can be dangerous, resulting in water intoxication, hyponatraemia, and even death.

BMJ, via BoingBoing

Of our 3-dozen or so fruit trees, this has the most unusual looking fruit. It’s the third tree we’ve had, having lost the first two in the killer frosts we get around here occasionally. It’s bearing well now, so I hope it lasts a long time.

If you’d like to read a little more about this plant, here’s its Wikipedia entry.