My writer friend Dennison Berwick has arrived for a few days from Bangkok. (google him he has several interesting books on Amazon) He is taking his sailboat around Newfoundland, following some old trading route. He has some amazing pics of icebergs. I am planning to use one as a base for a picture quilt when I get home.
Yesterday we went to the hotel and restaurant supply house. What an interesting place, kind of like 4 Cosco's a Futureshop and Sobeys in one huge building.
Dennison has a Thai friend who owns and operates a small Italian Restaurant called Pregos in the old city, very close to where I live so that is our hang out now.
Don't ask me why a Thai owns an Italian Restaurant but the food is really good and reasonable prices too.
This weekend there is a jazz festival we are planning to attend. It's also the umbrella festival in a small town nearby and a kite festival about an hour's drive away. So much to see and do. I have been to the umbrella festival before. The whole town seems to work at making huge paper umbrellas and fans, hand-painted with the most intricate designs. I would love to bring one home but A.C. would charge a small fortune to get one on the plane, so I will just look and enjoy.
Today the bank of Thailand announced the printing of a new 50 bhat note. On it will be a picture commemorating King Naresuan's victorious elephant duel against the Burmese Crown Prince in - get this 1592. It reminded me of all the incredible history that surrounds me every day.
There are over 300 Wats (temples) in Chiang Mai, more than there are in Bangkok and I walk past at least a dozen of them every day. Most of the time we are so busy looking at the shops, the market stalls, and the sidewalk cafes and restaurants that we forget to look up.
So tomorrow I am going to take a tour bus trip up the mountain to visit one very special temple. The story is that a Buddhist found a bone belonging to Buda. He thought he should build a temple to house it but could not choose a place to do this.
So he tied the bone to the back of an elephant and let it roam loose in the forest.
The elephant walked past a number of spots that would have been great locations for a temple and kept going up the mountain. Eventually, it stopped to rest, and soon after, it died. So a temple was built on that very spot high in the mountains.
Every night I look at that mountain and see the lights of the temple. Tomorrow I will visit it again. I did go up there a number of years ago with my dear friend Bernadette
but have never returned since she passed away. Tomorrow I will think of Bernadette as I make my journey up the mountain and climb the 65 steps to ring one of the bells for good luck.