Chiang Mai

So far my trip to Thailand has been really great. I have been able to see my family and enjoy being in a different country. But one of the best things about being in Thailand this time around, is my new camera. So I will post a couple pictures in this blog but I encourage everyone to check out the rest of them at Snapfish.

I flew into bangkok but didn't stay there very long because I had the oppertunity to go with my dad on one of his business trips to a tourist town up in Northern Thailand called Chaing Mai. It was really nice because the weather is a little cooler than Bangkok and their is also a lot to see.

When we first arrived we went to the hotel were Dad dropped me off because he had to go to a meeting. So I decided not to waste any time and to just go out exploring. I noticed that on my drive to the hotel their was an old city wall that surrounded the inner part of Chian Mai. So I headed there and took a lot of pictures of the old wall and met this austrailian tourist who I talked with about the different cool things to see in Chiang Mai.


I was also able to go with my dad and have lunch with some of the Royal Thai Police. They were very nice people. But what I really liked about it was that the lunch kind of turned into a business meeting. My dad works for the FBI. He is in thailand right now because he works with the Royal Thai Police to capture criminals that committed crimes involving both America and Thailand. Anyway, they started talking about the case they were working on which was very interesting for me because I someday want to join the FBI. Well, after lunch they wanted to go to the police station to continue talking about it. Since I was there at lunch I was able to go along for the ride.

Lunch and the meeting only took the morning portion of the day and so we planned to see a few tourist things that afternoon. One example of how the the people in Thailand are so nice was when we were finished with our meeting. The General assigned one of his policeman to tour us around for the rest of the day. So we had our own personnel escort!







Well the policeman took us first to the Monkey School were they train monkeys. It was pretty funny. They had the monkeys doing all sorts of tricks. One of my favorite was when the monkey would do excercises like push-ups, sit-ups, and lifting a dumbell over its head. I also enjoyed the trick were the monkey would do an arial dive into a little pond to retrieve coins.











After the monkey school we went to a Thai Temple that was built about 700 years ago on top of a mountain that overlooks the city. It was kind of boreing because it looked a lot like all the other temples in Thailand but we went anyway because all the thai's tell us that you haven't really been to Chiang Mai unless you have visited the Temple. Well it was definately worth it not only for the great pictures but also because we had some water sprinkled on us and a string tied around our wrist for good luck.

Believe it or not we also saw the missionaries when we were eating lunch at McDonalds. It was really cool. We were sitting down and all of the sudden we see them park there bikes and walk in. Dad payed for there lunch and they sat by us and we talked. Dad and I recognized one of the Elders as one that served in the Branch down in Bangkok that has since been transfered to Chiang Mai. It was neat to be reminded that good hard working missionaries are serving around the world.

Well, I am actually at the hotel here in chiang my type this blog now. Last night I asked my dad what time our flight left and he said, "Tomorrow at 2:00 so we will able to sleep in." Well, I new that there would be no "we" in that statement because I am still getting used to the time zone change and have woke up every day since I arrived here way before the sun has come up. But I don't mind because it gives me a chance to have some time along to blog. Well, I'll keep posting about all the stuff I am doing here in Thailand so stay posted so you can learn more about The Life and Adventures of Willie Matthews.