Friday, 18 November 2016 to Thursday, 24 November 2016
We had run out of bread and other breakfast stuff so Adri walked down to the market to get such but she also returned with some chewy doughy deep fried batter balls sprinkled with sugar which contains a less sweet centre of something. It’s the first time we’ve had these batter balls but will surely have them again, simply delicious!

I continued with my admin tasks today and some of those just had to be completed so there was no time to fine-tune and publish the latest post… pity.

It was around 18:00 that I made myself respectable for supper by taking the hair clippers for a walk around the contours of my face. A shower later, and I was ready to hit the night, but alas, Adri was still struggling to get through her admin. I unwillingly started to work on the blog but I did not get very far; I was not a very motivated puppy, this puppy was hungry.

We were planning to take a trip north this weekend towards the Burma or Myanmar border but those plans were scuppered by our bike breakdown last Sunday. The leftovers of last week Sunday’s itinerary would be acted out this Sunday, all things being equal, with the Burma or Myanmar border excursion lying in wait for next weekend.

Above I mention Burma or Myanmar as everybody still uses both names interchangeably, rightly or wrongly, who knows. I found an article on the web which states that “The ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon. The change was recognised by the United Nations, and by countries such as France and Japan, but not by the United States and the UK.”

Okay, so I was still none the wiser. I then checked with people that should be in the know – the GPS software apps – and found that Google Maps and Apple Maps both use “Myanmar (Burma)” with maps.me and GPSNav – both of whom employ OpenStreetMap – use only “Myanmar”.

Okay, so I was still not any wiser. Wiki seems to prefer Myanmar as it has an article on Myanmar and none on Burma, but with a link of Burma automatically redirecting to Myanmar. So, is Myanmar the more acceptable name to use? I guess so. But, we all marvel at that beautiful wood called Burmese teak… will we now be referring to that as Myanmarese teak? Just wondering…

We rode down the road but were stopped by a smiling police officer assisted by a temporary road barrier, the central business district was condoned off, no cars, no bikes, only humans allowed. We took a left and then a right and that’s when we saw throngs of people surging forwards and all around us, everybody to a man, woman and child dressed all in black. There was obviously a ceremony in central town commemorating King Bhumibol that had just finished and everyone was heading home. Wow, I think the whole population of Chiang Rai and the surrounding areas were present, there were thousands upon thousands of people dispersing in all directions.

Supper was at a burger joint called Sanfran Burger and Beer where your beer is served in the bottle in a brown bag of paper. We ordered two of these disguised Chang, they were ice cold. With those I ordered the bacon and cheese beef burger and Adri the cheese pork burger. The burgers came with freshly cut chips, so fresh they still had their skins on. Both the beers and burgers were delicious, we will be back.

We watched the movie A Time To Kill tonight which comes with a killer cast of Matthew McConaughey , Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, Oliver Platt, Kiefer Sutherland, Ashley Judd, the list goes on. The movie is described by IMDb as “A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the K.K.K.” It is quite a watchable movie.

I got to bed only at 02:00, the other day I lamented that I must stop doing these late nights but it seems as if that reprimand to myself fell on my deaf ears. Oh well, so be it.

So we slept in on Saturday morning until about 09:00 and after a strong newly opened and brewed Douwe Egbert down the hatch we did a quick 30 minute yoga followed by a breakfast of toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, cheddar cheese, olives and a coleslaw salad.

And it was only after all that that I took up tools, it was 12:45.

On our first shopping trip to the Chiang Rai Makro we bought a bag of frozen strawberries which we employ from time to time to don our ice cream. This morning after breakfast Adri used some of that stock to make strawberry smoothies; rather delicious I’d say.

Today we also spent time trying to fine-tune our itinerary until at least after the festive season. So here’s the final plan. On 9 December 2016 we fly from Chiang Rai to Bangkok where we will stay for one week. From there we fly to Koh Samui on 16 December 2016 with Air Asia which does not fly to Koh Samui. Huh? Let me explain. Because Bangkok Air owns the airport on Koh Samui it decides who flies there or not and obviously they keep out the competition to inflate their prices.

So, Air Asia flies you to Surat Thani on the mainland where you board a bus to the Donsak Pier and from there you board the ferry to Koh Samui. The plane, bus and ferry times are well coordinated so there is no wait time between the different legs, the whole trip lasting five and a half hours. And may I just add that we paid one third of the price that we would have for a Bangkok Air ticket. Now that makes cents.

Booking the accommodation did not go that smoothly. We found lovely places for both Bangkok and Koh Samui on Airbnb but after 24 hours the booking was not responded to and timed out automatically. Both owners came back later and apologized as they were using their apartments themselves during our requested dates. This is something that Airbnb should look at, owners must somehow be forced to block the dates out when it is not available for rent, some do.

I have to admit that leaving the Koh Samui booking until this late stage was an error from our side as most of the best places have already been booked, or the prices of those available have by now doubled or tripled for the high season. I contacted an apartment block that we know well but have never been to and they had a spot for us, still at a reasonable rate. To secure the booking we needed to pay 50% deposit. To transfer money to an international account is not always easy and may take several days, I had 48 hours to secure the booking.

Now this is where it is good to have friends in many places. I called Patrick who stays maybe 3km from this apartment block and he graciously agreed to pay the deposit on our behalf. He will of course be reimbursed after which he will be forced to drink a number of complimentary beers.

The accommodation in Bangkok was still outstanding but that did not worry me in the least, there is so much accommodation… I’m hoping here.

WhatsApp now has a video calling facility which Adri tried out with her niece Lisa the other day. Tonight it was my turn when Lood video called me from his hotel room in Umhlanga, where he and Nicky were awaiting for their ship to come in on Sunday. They’re sailing on a passenger liner to Mozambique’s Portuguese Island, a lovely five day cruise of absolute relaxation. And speaking about waiting for ships to come in, I remember my mom (bless her soul) often used to say that she was still waiting for her ship to come in, but sadly, it never did dock.

By the way, the WhatsApp video calling works pretty great, so much more personable than a cold telephone call. Unfortunately the call had to be cut short; there was a braai (barbecue) to be put together. Earlier in the day we had another shopping excursion to Makro for sorely needed stuff. While there I fondled a few pieces of steak for our braai tonight. As I remarked previously, the cuts identified on the packaging does not resemble anything that I am familiar with, but by the looks of the knuckle it seemed like it wanted to be either rump or sirloin. The top round also looked okay. We settled on the knuckle, how bad can it be?

A year back when I was raving about boerewors Steve remarked that it sounded much like Cumberland sausages with the difference that it was made from pork, not beef. Since then I have been looking for Cumberland sausages and finally today they emerged from the bottom of the freezer and made it into our trolley.

I started the fire (read switched on the electric braai), turned it right up and within minutes I had red hot coals (read red hot element). With a Chang in one hand and two spoons that used as tongs in the other, I started coloring six of those Cumberland sausages. Their colour before cooking is very pale and does not look very enticing but soon enough they had a tint much more agreeable to the eye. The knuckle followed and before too long food was served.

The Cumberland sausages turned out to taste pretty much like pork bangers, which was expected of course, but were much tastier. The steak was rather tough, but super flavourful and juicy, a true treat.

We finished our braai just in time to watch the rugby test match between South Africa and Italy. After the atrocious previous number of losses by the Springboks I must admit to having felt a touch of schadenfreude and wished, with a touch of cynicism, that Italy would actually win, which they have never managed in the past. It’s not that I am not patriotic and all, it’s just that I am so pissed off with the Springboks at the moment; they have become an embarrassment for the country. So it was no surprise then that Italy won the game 20-18, and they thoroughly deserved it.

It was late in the evening when I read an article on Huffington Post that said  “Exactly a week after winning the presidential election, Donald Trump took time out to meet with Indian business partners and his three eldest children at Trump Tower in Manhattan. The meeting came despite the president-elect’s assurances that he was handing off his business to his children in a ‘blind trust’ to avoid potential conflicts of interest while serving in the nation’s highest office.” Mark my words; Trump has just initiated the process of state capture, a process that Zuma started a number of years back. America, please do not let this happen to your wonderful country, it has caused untold damage to South Africa and its economy, it will do the same to your country if not stopped immediately before it takes root. Mark my words.

If it was not Sunday morning I would not have believed this article. Zuma has once again likened himself to Jesus saying that he too has been betrayed by people close to him. “We were never loved. Even when we were in the struggle we were called terrorists… because we are doing good things we are hated… Even those who were with Jesus turned against him.” The question on everybody’s lip now is “Will Zuma also be crucified…?”

Today we continued with our nervous breakdown interrupted trip of last Sunday, we wanted to finish that itinerary today. On the way up north we stopped at the family hotel where we received help when the bike broke down last week. The doors were shut, the hotel was closed, I hoped that it didn’t have anything to with the farangs that were seen sitting on their stoep. But then I remembered that the family mentioned they were taking a week’s holiday on Koh Samui. Pity they were not there though, we just wanted to profusely thank them once again for their help.

We continued north and turned off the main road to go to a hill tribe village which was nowhere near a hill. The place looked near deserted barring a few people here and there, sitting watching us. And here I thought we were supposed to be watching them! There were supposed to be long necked Karen tribal women there, all we saw were those long necked chickens sans the neck rings. After ducking a few potholes we made a u-turn and continued on our way north and came upon another hill tribe village.

At this one there was much more activity (read tourists) with a number of authentic looking stalls selling their tribal handiwork, some really beautiful and colourful cloth and clothing, all handmade of course. Strolling past the stalls, following a dusty track, we noticed a number of huts just ahead under some trees. It was just then that we noticed a wooden rickety ticket office, containing two men who rather abruptly stopped us in our tracks. To continue to the huts to see the long neck Karen women you have to cough up 300 baht, and that was per person. Adri and I considered it just for a second and said “Sorry boys, next time”. It seems like the tourist traps have now made it to the hill tribe villages as well.

Back on the main road we continued north and then west and came to a halt at the Choui Fong Tea Farm. Now this place is awesome with its tea bushes arranged in wave upon wavy row all along the gentle hills all around. There are a number of viewpoints which make for wonderful photo opportunities. We tasted some of their teas on offer and then went through to their restaurant with sweeping views across the tea plantations.

We ordered a green tea frappe and a cheesecake, and Adri and I agreed that green tea should not be served as frappe, it was really not to our taste. Nothing wrong with the Choui Fong tea, it’s just personal taste, I’m sure the hot green tea would have been fabulous. The cheese cake was a different story, it was outstanding. It even came with a decoration of delicately modeled tealeaves of white chocolate infused with green tea. Wow!

We were going to look for the Maechan Winery that is supposed to be in the same general area we were in but it was not specified on maps.me, we saw no signs on the road pointing to it, so we decided we had better things to do. Adri though did see a sign along the road for the Mae Fa Luang gardens at Doi Tung and that’s where she wanted to go, even though it was still another 30km north. It was a lovely drive there and the scenery changed from nice to awesome as soon as we started ascending the mountain.

We arrived at the top of the mountain where there are a number of attractions. If I ever had to live in the mountains in Thailand, this is probably where I would want to be, it was wonderful, relaxing and cool. The mountain ranges to the west that fill ones view are located in Myanmar with the borderline just 5km away.

There is the Hall Of Inspiration which was previously referred to as the Princess Mother’s Commemorative Hall at Doi Tung before it was updated with new content and also a new name. This museum covers the story of the Mahidol royal family and the new exhibition shows the character, philosophies and working principles of the family, and their diligence to find ways to improve the lives and livelihoods of the Thai people.

Then there is the Doi Tung royal villa, the former residence of the princess mother (mother of late King Bhumibol) Somdej Phra Srinagarindra which one can visit.

Further down the way there is the Chiang Rai Plant Research Centre, the Doi Tung Wildlife Research Centre as well as the Wat Phra That Doi Tung temple, which we did not get to see, we were running slightly late, pity.

But make no mistake, the highlight of the area is the Mae Fa Luang gardens, a botanical park on the slopes below the royal villa and this, we did get to see. The gardens are beautifully laid out, lush and perfectly maintained with colours that dazzle the eyes. I could sit there for hours and just take it all in, again and again. We spent almost two hours there and it was now late afternoon, we still had a long way to go to get home.

I remembered that there was a viewpoint a few kilometres further on and we pushed ahead to check that out. Again we were not

disappointed. From there one looks across a vast area that seems to contain most of the Chiang Rai province, a wonderful sight to see.

The sun was still shining brightly but not so high in the sky anymore. I was tired and needed some sustenance to ensure that I get us home safely, so we backtracked to the Doi Tung complex where there is a Doi Tung Coffee shop, it being a well known coffee brand in Thailand. We both ordered the strongest on the menu, an Americano. I refused to put any milk in mine, the coffee was stupendous, milk would surely have spoilt it.

The sun was getting weaker by the minute; we now had to rush to get home. Adri reminded me that by 18:00 it gets dark, well, dusky, but dark, and we still had 55km to go, it was way past 17:00.

We quickly wound our way down the winding mountain road and on reaching the bottom we were out on the open road, making good progress against the ever setting sun. The sun-visor that Soon fitted to my helmet last week is great and quite darkly tainted so doubles up nicely as sunglasses while riding. But now it was getting dark so it does not work so well at night, and who wears sunglasses at night? Oh yes, Corey Hart does.

I always knew I had a screw loose… but today I lost it. I was riding like the wind (There a Christopher Cross song in there, see below) when that same wind suddenly streamed into my eyes. One of the screws that Soon fitted the visor with had came loose, with that side of the visor blowing in the wind (uh oh, Bob Dylan), letting its slipstream through and into my eyes. I slowed down and that seemed to calm things down a bit, Adri too was happy for the lost screw.

It was pitch-dark when we got home; I needed a brannas (brandy) and Coke. Adri confirmed she wanted one as well but she wanted hers on the house. I commented “All drinks are on the house in this house, did you perhaps want it on the rocks?” She did not think it was funny.

And how’s this for coincidence. I was busy minding my own business and selected a 1985 music station and another Corey Hart song called Never Surrender came on, this time he’s not wearing his sunglasses at night. This guy makes great music.

Monday morning, new week, new us, today we tried a new one hour intermediate level yoga class. Man, was this tough. The yoga instructor said, while we were in downward dog, “For downward dog twist, reach with your left hand under your body and take hold of your right calf and look up to the ceiling under you right shoulder… and breathe deeply”. “But I can’t even breathe let alone do all those other twists…!” I thought through a muddled brain. And that’s when a saying we used as a joke at work – to lighten the load when the stress levels looked down onto the stratosphere – came to mind, ek kan nie meer nie korporaal (I can do no more corporal). This tannie (aunty) was tough.

It was getting late and I still wanted to publish the latest post. I was busy uploading the photos of the Loi Krathong festival of last week when I came upon that gross picture of the snakes in the bag. With that picture still fresh in my mind I for some or other reason looked down onto the floor and noticed one of those snakes, black as night, crawling along on the floor. My heart popped a wheelie and fell down into the abyss created by its vortex. My chair moved backwards at the speed of screech, curtailed only by my personal limits of adrenaline production, I had to get outta here. And that’s when I realised that all this commotion was caused by the laptop’s power cable. I could have sworn I saw that thing wriggle.

I got to bed at a respected 23:00 last night. Tuesday morning found me in bed at 08:30, unwilling to move as my body was still trying to figure out what happened to it during that yoga session yesterday morning. I received my first cup of coffee in bed at which time I had to lift my head to consume it. My muscles slowly started to thaw and by the time my second cup arrived I was ready to have it in the lounge while I started to work, I had an overdue post to publish.

The weather in Chang Mai has been very comfortable. Friday night while walking the streets I commented that the weather was absolutely perfect at that specific point. It was totally neutral, not hot, not cool, not cold, not anything, it just felt neutral, if that even makes sense. It did at the time though, it felt great! The days nowadays go up to a maximum of 28° Celsius with the evenings hovering at around a cool 20° Celsius. Some evenings we close the sliding doors when a slight breeze puts a cool edge in the air. This morning I was reminded of the cooling weather when Adri came rushing into the lounge with the coconut oil bottle, its contents now solid. It is generally quoted that coconut oil will be liquid at temperatures above 24° Celsius and below that it will be solid.

We planned to go to SIngha Park this afternoon just to chill, but the chilling at home was already great so Adri decided that we’ll take a rain check until some other time. This of course was a huge blow to my taste buds that had already started hyping up my brain for a beer assault. I could not let either my brain or my taste buds down so at dusk I took my work outside to the patio and opened a brand new small Chang. Now you may think that any beer you open will be a brand new one, but you will be wrong. This one was dressed in a brand new suit of plastic covering containing mostly green with gold lettering, rather spiffy looking. And of course, not to be associated with the SA Springbok rugby colours of green and gold, that would be an affront to my Chang.

We watched a movie called Seven with Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey. IMDb describes it as “Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi.” We really enjoyed this one.

Yoga on Wednesday came with yet another twist but that same downwards dog twist that fuddled my brain on Monday did not scare me today, there were other poses though that still did. The rest of the day was spent reading and researching topics that are close to my heart, truly a relaxing day.

Many months ago I mentioned the phenomenon of house-sitting where home owners get people to look after their homes and pets while they go on holiday. Now there are a number of these house-sitting sites around but today we signed up to one just for fun, we’ll see whether there is any joy in that.

Thursdays are traditionally our off day in the week so this morning I received coffee in bed while catching up on the news and all. I came across an article on CNN titled The year of living thankfully which starts out as follows: “Logically speaking, we should be in a perpetual state of gratitude. Most people who read this column, even if they aren’t fully aware, have a long list of blessings to count (most of the time, anyway). Family. Friends. Love. Health. Freedom from war and natural disaster. Imagination. Community. A roof over our heads. Common decency. Hope. Opportunity. Memories. Financial stability. Favorite places. Days off work. Good weather. The golden age of television. Books. Music. Ice cream. Weekends. A friendly exchange. Something good that happened today. Something bad that didn’t happen today. A good cup of coffee.” Looking at life in this way sure does sound uplifting. I do believe that most of us have much to be grateful for, it’s just that we don’t always recognise it, in other words, we can’t see the wood for the trees.

The article goes on to describe, how, by positive thinking and thoughts, you can make a difference in your own and other people’s lives. And this reminded me of Leonardo Buscaglia. Rudi, a friend of mine, many years ago gave me a VHS video tape to watch with the instruction “You have to watch this!” and of course I did, probably a 100 times or more in the ensuing years. The video has Leo Buscaglia talking to an audience of sales people many years ago about “You Can Make The Difference”. This really is essential watching from time to time just to keep reminding oneself that your destiny is in your own hands, and that only you can make a difference in your life.

The quality of this video cassette degraded over time and when VHS players were starting to be hard to come by I had the video converted to digital format. I still have it! I found a copy of the same video on YouTube with the video quality in the same state of disrepair as mine. And here’s my plea to you, please watch this video, look past the picture quality and listen to what Leo has to say, you will not be sorry.

We wanted to go for a walk and decided to go to Singha Park to live out that fantastical fantasy. On the way we stopped off at Soon to check whether he could replace my screw that I had lost. He could. I now once again had 20/20 visor, I mean vision. Ten minutes later I had my screw back and we screamed south without turbulence in my face, towards Singha Park.

There was a hive of activity there, seemed like they have a full programme planned for the weekend. Sunday seems to be a family affair that will consist of an obstacle run. One can do either a solo 7.5km or 15km obstacle run or participate in a team event that consists of five runners doing a total of 30km. Sounds like fun, I might want to watch. Participate? No. I have my own obstacle course, it’s called yoga.

Now I know what glamping means but when I saw the signboard at the bike parking spot that read “Glamping Parking” I read “Clamping Parking”. And that tent figure on the signboard of the tent with its stakes driven into the ground at either side fuelled my suspicion that my bike was going to be clamped if I parked there, somehow. Adri helped me to decide where to park when she said “Just park already! I parked.

When we reached our favourite little restaurant-like pub we found that they had erected a huge stage on the open grass field across the way. White chairs in their hundreds, maybe even thousands, were already neatly set out for a music concert scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. Maybe, just maybe we should pop around there this weekend.

We came to the park for exercise so we walked off in a direction, through and around beautiful and well manicured gardens and lawns and ponds and canals and trees, it really is a sight for sore eyes. As we walked past the stage, there was a child choir practising some songs obviously as part of the weekend’s festivities, it was absolutely magical, magical. We were a few hundred metres away when we heard them sing the Thai Royal Anthem, stunning.

After a walkabout of around and hour, seeing a bumper scratching of two of the park’s vehicles, some giraffe and other animals, we made our way back for a beer. Adri had a fresh coconut and I had myself a Carlsberg, not one, not three, but two. The sun was setting, people all around were walking, jogging or riding their bikes, and others like us, were people watching, utterly relaxing, what a way to end the day.

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