Just Elephants

My friend Jason came to Chiang Mai to visit with me. On his last day we went to visit with elephants. While my friend Michael was here we visited with tigers, monkeys, snakes and elephants. But with Jason, since we are just visiting elephants, we spent much more time with the elephants.

Tigers, Snakes, Monkeys and Elephants

A friend of mines, Michael Hatcher from Chicago, came to Thailand to visit me. So I took him to do the usual: play with tigers and snakes, ride elephants and learn about the education of monkeys.

cremation of a monk in Chiang Mai, Thailand

January of 2010, we witness the cremation of a famous monk in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
He died a year ago. In that time his body was drying and his disciples were building this cremation ark.

The more famous the monk, in general, the larger the ark. Several things can make a monk famous or popular: wisdom, age, sometimes psychic powers, loving kindness and having many loving students. This monk was very famous by the age of 91 years and had lots of disciples.

His ark cost about one million, one hundred thousand baths to build about 33 thousand dollars. It cost about 300,000 baht to burn, about 9,000 dollars.

Many people came to Wat (temple) Chedi Luang to see it. The pictures are of morning before the burning, evening, evening during the burning and the day after.

There is a picture of a monk in a stand by himself. That is a wax replica of the famous monk. His boy is in the rectangle box in the ark.

This doesn’t happen very often. My friend Jamlong said that the last time he saw something like this was 20 years ago.

Best wishes
Lawrence

Tai Chi Chuan lessons

I have had I my early meal for today, Now to Tai Chi lessons. I am taking private classes. I am taking it because i want to learn tai Chi. I like the movements and it very good for my body.

The teacher is very good. The classes are expensive for Thai prices. But in the long run much cheaper then taking classes in a group in america. If I did this same program in the USA I would never be able to aford it. There's no point in even mentioning private lessons in the USA.

Plus it would take ages, if ever, in the USA for me to learn, what I can learn here is less time.

My class in the US was one day a week for one or two hours with 20 other students all of differnt levels.

I am in a teacher training program. I think the certificate will be fun to get.

The Lady that you see is my teacher Kai. This is the Tibetan Kung Fu center.

Breakfast

I usually have a light meal in the late morning before I go to my Tai Chi class.

Usually I would have one or the other or something else. Today I got both so you can see some of them.

below is sticky rice with mangos on top. Its has a sweet sauce made from coconut cream.

Just above it is a mixture of fried things.

There is a shrimp cake, small shrimps stuck together in a batter and fried.

an eggroll or fried springroll. There a few slices of fried banana. the round thing is like a doughnut. Some fried onion balls and other fried stuff that you can't see and I am not completely sure of. All this is lightly covered with a sweet, tangy, sticky sauce made with herbs and spicies.

I am sitting in front of the moot that surrounds the old city.

A day in Chiang Mai, almost

This is some views from the balcony of my apartment in Chiang Mai. You may not be able to see the mountain in the background but on a cleat day its there.