Elephant Camp, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
It is so easy to use, just spent a few minutes each day or so surfing Tough Hits sites and they show yours.
Of the 5 or 6 that I use this is the easiest to use and set up,
Good SURFING
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Fire balloon, Chiang Mai
Mai Ping River, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Grant Wills | This-is-ChiangMai.info | XanDreams.com
Wow when you eat real Thai food (not the washed out excuse that they sell in Shopping Mall’s in the West) you will never look back.
I was razed on traditional British fare, with the Sunday roast and apple crumble pudding. As a young lad I worked after school for a Chinese family in a green grocers shop. So at the relatively young age of 11 or 12 was introduced to Chinese food. I loved it.
After living in
A Thai cook crushes all the herbs and spices in a mortar and pestle (Never in a blender). Spending 20 minutes or so to get it just right. That’s before even starting to cook.
We have Thai cooking course’s that take you to the markets and show you what foods (ingredients) to buy, then take you to our cooking school and teach you how to make Aroy Mark Mark food.
The Thai open markets are an adventure on there own, In Chiang Mai the food comes in fresh every day, literally thousands of trucks and people work all night transporting fresh produce into Chiang Mai from all over the north. Live fish is trucked in ever day in large stainless steel tankers from fish farms and the fishing fleets in the south.
When you buy fish it is pulled out of the water for you, now that’s fresh.
The cheo neua make use of many roots and herbs seldom seen elsewhere in the country, especially culinary herbs with a bitter flavour. For example, spicy kaeng khae soup contains cha-om (bitter acacia leaf) along with phak chi farang (sawtooth coriander), plus two types of eggplant known for their bitterness, makheua praw (Thai eggplant) and makheua phuang (pea eggplant). Sour tones are enjoyed in other soups, such as kaeng phak heuat (soup with tamarind juice) and kaeng ho (soup with pickled bamboo shoots).
Our cooking course start at one day, were you learn three dishes after your trip to the open market. You learn while having fun, our teachers are skilled cooks but being Thai will always throw some humour into the learning process.
We have people coming back year after year just for the cooking courses.
Chiang Mai also supports the best Traditional Thai massage schools and courses in the country.
Thai long boat.
Travailing up the Man made lake – Dam to have lunch on the floating restaurant with business friends. Most of the real business in Thailand is done at the Golf course, The Club or over a meal.
Grant Wills.
This-is-ChiangMai.info
The Burmese military regime must begin to allow foreign aid workers unhindered access to the areas hardest-hit by Cyclone Nargis soon if it hopes to keep the trust of the international aid community, Asean chief Surin Pitsuwan said Tuesday.
"What has to be delivered is real activities," said Surin, who is secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Asean, along with the United Nations co-hosted a pledging conference for the victims of Cyclone Nargis in
While the conference, attended by about 500 delegates from 51 countries and UN agencies, failed to attract an outpouring of promises for Burma's post-cyclone reconstruction efforts, it was deemed an important first step in building trust between the international aid community and the country's notoriously paranoid military rulers.
The regime has been under intense criticism for hampering an international relief effort for the estimated 2.4 million people affected by Nargis, which swept the country's central coast on May 2-3, leaving at least 133,000 dead or missing.
More than three weeks after the storm hit, international aid has reached 40 per cent of the affected population, a poor performance generally blamed on the government's refusal to facilitate logistics and allow more international relief experts in the Irrawaddy Delta region, the area hardest-hit by the cyclone.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday won assurance from junta chief, Snr Gen Than Shwe, that his country would allow "all" aid workers unhindered access to the storm-affected areas, a message that was seemingly supported at Sunday's aid pledging conference.
Although there have been signs of speeding up visa approvals and allowing greater access to the delta for UN relief experts, there are still complaints of unnecessary delays to the big aid push.
"There are many low-hanging fruits that can be harvested, and those include accessibility, delivering of supplies already on the ground, monitoring, and the ability to admit and allow foreign aid workers into the field with less obstacles and less delay," Surin said of what was immediately expected of the junta.
He called on the international community to allow the regime a few more days before deciding whether it was reneging on its commitment to allow more foreigners in.
"I think we need to give it a week to say the curve is rising or the curve is being maintained at the same level or the curve of access is actually going down," Surin said a press conference.
Asean is to play a crucial facilitating role in the aid flow, especially for the reconstruction phase, by sending in teams to assess the amount of damage done by the cyclone and joining a tripartite "core team" with nine experts from Asean, the United Nations and Burma to overcome hurdles to the aid operations.
The United Nations wants a clear assessment of the cyclone's destruction and emergency aid needed by June 12, after which it was to launch another flash appeal for donations from the world community.
About 50 per cent of the $201 million flash appeal initially launched by the United Nations has been met by contributions and pledges.
"The tone struck by the major donors on Sunday was that they are ready to give significant assistance to a clear programme that is monitored and which can be implemented," said Richard Horsey, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Confidence in implementation would depend, once again, upon the degree of access by foreign experts who are allowed into the cyclone zone.
Several UN agencies, including the World Food Programme, have said they have been granted more visas and greater access to the delta since Friday although still with the need for permission on a case-by-case basis.
"Yesterday was a red-letter day with seven visas applied for and seven visas issued," said Paul Risley, a World Food Programme spokesman.
Over the weekend and for the first time, at least one foreign expert with the UN aid agency was allowed to tour the delta to assess food needs, and on Tuesday, it is to be permitted to fly its own helicopter to three remote destinations in the delta that were previously off-limits, Risley said.
But the Burmese bureaucracy continues to bog down the process.
"Every step of the way has been very difficult," said Risley. "Every step has required an agreement with the government, clearance from the government and approval from the government of virtually all of our actions." (dpa)
You can help our flood relief victims directly by making a
donation
to the Hua-Fai Community flood relief fund by using pay Pal a safe and secure was to donate on the web.
As I said in my previous post
Imagine if large agencies like the UN. Have trouble getting Visa’s for Aid workers how will
That said there are now many guided
Of course that highly legal out fit running Burma will tell you they are all grown by Renegade Hill Tribe Armies, nothing to do with us. lol.
When I last travelled to
That was it I was out of there. Now understanding the Asian way all it would have taken was a few $$.
A few days after that I sent a mini container back to
On trying to enter the Port area the armed guard looked in the car and said in broken English “You not Viennese, cannot go in” Our driver opened the glove box and took us$1 from a stack and gave it to him. The Guard saluted and said to me “Sorry you are from Viet Nam Enter”.
Grant.
GrantWills.com
Chiang Rai Temple
Land of Myth and Legend.jpg)
People just keep coming back.
I first came to Chiang Mai many years ago and have lost count of the return trips when the total got to well over 25. That’s 25
It’s not just the low cost of living. You can rent a Mansion 3 or 4 miles out of the City centre for the price of a room back home. One of my friends is renting a large 2 story 5 bedroom House on a large property for only 1500B a month. ( us$465). By large I mean HUGE 2 or 3 acres. Its all fenced off with servant quarters etc.
There are whole suburbs catering for the Farang (European).
It’s not just the Amazing time you have and the friendly Thai People.
Thailand means Free Land and is Free, you can travel were and when you like on your entry Visa, with out a permit or any one asking were you are going or what you are doing. It is not the same in
Its not just the incredible night life.
It’s not the 100’s of thousands of Thai Girls looking for a Husband and a better life.
(
It’s not all the exciting places steeped in History and Intrigue.
It is a combination of all these things and much much more.
Chech it all out at our Chiang Mai INFO site.
The wet season is in full swing here in Chiang Mai. It’s my favourite time of the year here. The rain cools the whole place down. Much the same as the 3 deg rise in water temperature (from the great Pacific Ocean drift) Heralds Summer back home in New
The Wet Season is more like New Zealand (it can rain any time) If it doesn’t rain for 3 or 4 days it starts to heat up again and the cycle repeats. What goes up must come down.
The Monsoons that sweep across
The Mountain range (high hills) that run all the way from the Far North of Thailand right down to the South past
That’s not to say we don’t get some bad flooding as the spill over from
Luckily for me my Guest House was built on raised land so I just opened the gates and parked my Citroen up on dry ground.
I went out and hired a large 4 wheel drive until the waist deep water receded.
The biggest problem with the flooding is for the poor. By Kings Decree they can build over flood land and water (no mans land) and not be moved on by the authorities.
Each big storm that we get the Water Board in its infinite wisdom open the flood gates of the large earth Dam on the upper Ping river and flood all the flood land south.
Or indirectly by buying Akha Hill products.
Two Akha ladies in full costume
They are on there way to the opening of
A large new Hotel here in Chiang Mai.
Our Chiang Mai infomation site
Over the next few months it will be expanded to include articles, photos, what's happening now and coming events.
If you have written an article past present or future on any thing to do with Chiang Mai or the Far North email it too us @
Summit your story and photo's of the incredible holiday that you had here and in the far north.
Send us your trials and tribulations, any problems you encountered.
We the ex pat community and the future tourist want to know.
Go and have your say at our
forum.
We are just writing the Visa Run Tips and Help Page.Take a look now as there is plenty in there already.
If you have any tips or facts please email us so we can include them.
Also please post them on the forum under Visa Runs.
is all it takes to visit our This-is-ChiangMai INFOMATION Site.
