The Chiang Mai Album

Let's start with the first sets of pictures; The family trip to Chiang Mai...

Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi

The hotel must have been one of the best we have ever stayed in as a family. It was quite an experience and I'd like to share it with you guys through these pictures. Dad spent a decent amount of time around the hotel with his D200 around his neck. So a lot of these pictures were taken by him.

Steps leading up to the main lobby. The hotel in general is meant to be of the Lanna style.

One of my favourite places at the hotel; the pool.

The hotel also had a small temple, which I thought added to the general tranquility of the place.

The library actually held some pretty rare books on Lanna art/architecture and other interesting art books.

This was cool. The library had available a vast collection of DVDs hotel guests could borrow during their stay. We decided on 'Totoro', mom's 'The Three Tenors in Concert' and some other movies I don't even remember.

The yoga and meditation centre.

Some big ugly fishies outside the spa.

The Rooms

The villa

The first half of our time at Dhara Dhevi, we were staying in 'the village' section of the hotel. Basically, each family had an enclosed space with traditional Thai/Lanna style houses on the inside, making up bedrooms, a living room, a sauna, a private pool and an open kitchen.

The entrance to our home for the first half of the stay in Chiang Mai.

A nice lil garden in the centre of the Thai houses.

Must have taken us a good 15 minutes before we could get into the pool of cold cold water. But it was nice once we were in. The little house there was the sauna.

Pie having her breakfast by the kitchen.

The living/dining room. Probably my favourite out of all our houses. The sound system in there was excellent. Watching Michael Buble's concert was a joy.

Mmmm that was a good lunch.

Inside the ladie's bedroom.

The ladie's bathroom. Don't worry those blinds could be shut so no one could peak.

Now why would they wanna make a little cabinet with a wooden gecko hidden inside?!? I don't understand.

The colonial Suites

The second half of our time at Dhara Dhevi we were staying in the colonial suites. Personally, I liked this section of the hotel better. Not that traditional Thai houses are not nice, but I guess the rooms seemed a little too dark with dark wood everywhere.

The colonial section of the hotel overlooking a courtyard and a pond.

The bedroom

The living room

My favourite part of the suites must have been the bathrooms. I think I could live in one of them.

I could brush my teeth in front of these sinks for the rest of my life.

Each suite had a porch leading out to the colonial pool.

Trying to be all stylo with cake by the pool in my PE shorts.

The hotel also had their own vegetation going. Here, mom and Pie seem a lil shocked by the size of these melons.

Pie got happy standing by the raw tomatoes. Not sure why.

The Roral Flora Ratchaphruek 2006

Ok enough about the hotel. One of the reasons we were in Chiang Mai at the time was because the Roral Flora Ratchaphruek was on. The horticultural exposition was to celebrate His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 60^th anniversary or the Diamond Jubilee of His Majesty’s accession to the throne together with His Majesty’s 80^th birthday anniversary. Here goes...

This seemed to be the main attraction of the exposition as it attracted the most number of people. I admit...I didn't know what the building was for. Still don't. Could someone please tell me?

I like those weird looking palm trees at the back.

Whoaa.. that's a lot of salad. But seriously, that's vegetables.

More vegetables.

A nice picture taken by Cake. I don't know what flowers these are tho. But they're quite nice.

Pie and I looking at other people looking at something.

Flowers..and trees... and flowers everywhere...

This is what trees look like at night in Chiang Mai....
Ok, enough stupid captions.

The ladies

...

(I wasn't really peeing, ok?)

One of the exposition mascots. It was meant to be some fruit. We just couldn't figure out what.

Dad & his favourite toy

Path leading up to the main hall at night.

This tree is meant to have some sort of significance..I think I should have paid more attention at the fare.

Ok...I think this should be enough pictures to make the first sets of the Chiang Mai album. There are still a lot more photos coming up of different places we visited up in Chiang Mai. Like pictures of dancing elephants, and me playing jelly fish in the pool and things. So please stay tuned...

So we're back from the trip...

And pictures speak way louder than words. So here goes...

In front of Kai's house, ready to roll.

Kai decided it was a good idea we kept track of our toll collectors

First stop: Kaiping enjoying his 'Khao Mun Gai' at the motorway service pit. We chilled there for a bit before hopping back in the car and got back on the road.

On the way Kai spotted this racing circuit. We stopped to have a look and thought we could have a few laps in the go-karts but it turned out it was an open circuit and that people brought their own karts. So we just stood and watched them race. Nice place tho. The track was surrounded by these smalls hills, with a pretty good view of the track from the top.

After a few more kilometres closer to Rayong, we made another stop as we spotted a 'Gai Yang' (bbq chicken) stall by the roadside. I got into a conversation with the chicken seller and had a bit of an insight on what life's like selling chicken on the side of a highway.

The final stop we made before getting into Rayong was at Big C, where Kai decided he wanted to have his sight checked. I think he just wanted new glasses.

After getting into Rayong itself, we spent a couple hours driving around different beaches looking for a good place to stay in. In the end, we found this beach front condotel that was really worth the 600 baht a night, with aircon/hot water/fridge/UBC/a huge balcony and a breakfast. Awesome!

It was already around 4pm when we finally got settled at the condotel and we didn't wanna miss out on some beach chilling so we went down for some beer Chang and some light snacks. Since it was Sunday, the beach was pretty much empty, which was nice. We ordered some 'Somtum' (or papaya pok pok as Kai calls it), but forgot to tell them to take it easy on the chillies so yea.. we nearly died finishing it. But that's what makes eating Somtum fun, I guess. Kai's trick was to eat it all without stopping and go wash your mouth in the sea, which actually helped. A lil odd but a good technique. Only works at the beach, of course.

This was our breakfast the next morning; an all you can eat buffet. A pretty big phrase for a 600 baht a night accomodation. hehe. The cooking was actually pretty good. Mmm I love hotel breakfast.

After breakfast, we were back on the beach and was joined by this lil fella, who wanted to play but always moved away when we got close. There were some real fine eye candies on the beach this morning. They were of premium quality, I must say. You can try zooming but I don't think it would be much help. hehehe.

Kaiping in water

Hehe this was pretty cool. On the beach was this small fisherman's village, where small fishing boats would come in every few minutes. Then we spotted who we believed was Batman on one of the boats coming in. I must admit it looked pretty cool.

After the beach, we decided it was time to visit the hotel pool. We wanted to reminisce on our days in the school swimming team but we could only swim so much in what must have been a 15m pool. Still, it seemed a very clean and well maintained pool. Plus the sun was out and the temperature was perfect. The building behind us on the right was the building we were staying in.

Well, we only spent like half an hour at the swimming pool and then it was time to head out to Koh Samed. After only 15 mins on a speedboat, we were on the island. First thing we did was got a place we could sit and have some Somtum and Gai Yang (as seen in the pic). Mmmmm that was a damned good meal.

Compared to the beaches in Rayong, there was a lot more going on on Koh Samed, which was fun but I think we also enjoyed the peace and quiet we had on the main land. Again, eye candies galore here.

As we were strolling the beach (and 'yogging' at times), we came across this guy who I believe was a local, sculpting this sand elephant. Behind us at the time this picture was taken was also a life-sized convertable vehicle he had also sculpted out of the sand. We wanted to sit in it but Kai was too heavy.

After a few hours on the island, we got on a boat to head back into Rayong. Kai decided it would be more fun we climbed up onto the roof of the boat. So that's where we spent our half hour cruise. He was right, it was fun up there.

Kaiping trying to make himself useful

And was thinking about becoming a Thai politician

Time was passing quick once we were back in Rayong. We decided to drive over to this place called Rayong Resort to take some pictures since it was situated in the mountains, and the roads up there had spots we could stop for some scenery appreciation. We also thought it'd be nice for the car we took a picture with it after some long hours of driving it around.

And it was time we drove out of Rayong. It was a nice drive out of the town with Kai rapping to his music next to me. Our next destination for the night was Pattaya, but that's another story altogether.

Good trip, bro. I know it'll be a while til we meet next but we should definitely do this again. Til then....

we keep grinning.