{"id":3876,"date":"2019-07-22T18:17:42","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T02:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/?p=3876"},"modified":"2019-07-22T18:18:49","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T02:18:49","slug":"monday-july-21st","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/?p=3876","title":{"rendered":"Monday July 22nd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Troy has a mid day visit planned with a guy named Guage that he has been helping work on a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfood map of ChiangMai\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 website. It just shows what a small world it is when it turns out this guy is American, he is from Washington AND he went to Western Washington University (WWU) in Bellingham. (Rachael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s university!) \u00c2\u00a0so how could Troy NOT help him. Besides you may have noticed, we are slightly passionate about our food here \u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3\u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3. I however am happy to let them have their food\/guy\/techtalk time, and I pass on lunch with them in favour of a walk around Wararot market. All the usual amazing things there and I pride myself in not falling prey to mango sticky rice OR the little sticky rice\/coconut pancakes I love so much. The stuffmart and people watching need to be enough for me today!<\/p>\n

I was going to head back towards the night bazaar area where I left Troy, but then I \u00c2\u00a0remembered that there is a temple I have been wanting to visit over in this part of town somewhere.<\/p>\n

The background: There are 12 years in the Chinese zodiac calendar and each year is represented by a different animal. There are also 12 temples\/wats in Asia that represent each one of those years\/animals. As it happens, my birthyear, 1970, is the year of the dog and MY temple is right here in ChiangMai. Wat Ket Karam. How could I not have already gone to see it you ask?? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure, but today is the day.<\/p>\n

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Now, it was lovely. A Truly lovely little oasis right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city. Often I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know why or how this occurs, and maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just my imagination, or the POWER of the mind, but I find the second I step over the threshold onto temple grounds, the sounds and chaos of the city fall magically away and it becomes so quiet and serene. This time was no exception! I do need to note that this is my 11th visit to Thailand and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve visited well over 100 temples and while there are a lot of restrictions\/expectations around dress (for women especially), I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never EVER seen a sign expressly prohibiting women. So while I was allowed to go anywhere on the grounds, and in the temple once I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d completely covered myself (which is always pleasant in 100 degree heat\u00f0\u0178\u02dc\u2026) , I was NOT allowed up to the Chedi. At all. Hmmmm! Do they not know this is MY temple?????? You can see the sign on the steps and there was one on all four sides \u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u201d. No excuse for not knowing…..<\/p>\n

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I was born on a Friday and Troy on a Wednesday, so I took a moment to make a small donation to the correct Buddha that represents the day of our birth. Plus I had to give some coins to the Buddha inside my temple. Why tempt fate????<\/p>\n

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In my travels today, and possibly somewhat due to being directionally challenged, I crossed the Mae Ping river a few times. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quite low right now due to the severe drought the north of Thailand is experiencing this year. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the Worst drought in over 50 years they say. To be honest, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice for me as a tourist to know there won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be rain in the 10 days I am here, but I know it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a much bigger problem for the farmers who haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had rain and can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t plant their rice fields! I hope it turns around for them soon. (But after I leave). As you can see in the pics, we have a bit more cloud cover today than previous days! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dropping the temps a bit, I think it peaked today at 95. Still sporting a nice sweat however\u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3\u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3<\/p>\n

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I am starting to fear that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve not enjoyed as much Thai food as I should have! We leave for Cambodia on Thursday and I know I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be having Thai food there! I see a lot of western food in my near future given our travel companions! I am determined to enjoy some Thai food tonight! When I walked past Mr Kai\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s On Sunday night, I noticed the place was packed, so I suggest this as an option. Troy had some kind of Islam\/Thai dish for lunch, but is game to try whatever I suggest. Since Ginny Cafe closed, we have struggled with a good solid goto Thai place here. Maybe this will be it?? \u00c2\u00a0I ordered Khao Soi Gai, and Troy had chicken with cashew nut. We opened with spring rolls and Troy had a mango\/lemon shake and I ordered a banana milkshake. Dang it! I forgot milkshake here isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t what you think. (It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not made with ice cream). It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like a fruit shake with milk in it \u00f0\u0178\u2122\u201e. Still good, but always a shock when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what you expect. \u00f0\u0178\u02dc\u00b2. Anyway, for me, Khao soi was average. Just NOT Tee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Khao soi \u00e2\u02dc\u00b9\u00ef\u00b8\u008f, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been so spoiled!! Troy said he \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t disappointed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in his meal. So if you know Troy, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually quite an endorsement. He is never particularly emphatic about showing excitement over a meal. Just ask me! \u00c2\u00a0I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been cooking for him for almost 30 years. Ok, tbh for those that know ME, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really cook anymore……\u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3\u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3\u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3\u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3\u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3\u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Troy has a mid day visit planned with a guy named Guage that he has been helping work on a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfood map of ChiangMai\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 website. It just shows what a small world it is when it turns out this guy is American, he is from Washington AND he went to Western Washington University (WWU) in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thailand-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3876"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3893,"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3876\/revisions\/3893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.laurie.casaroberts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}