Thailand Again

More pictures.......

You can see Owen picking mulberries from the mulberry bush. They have three or four bushes and there was always plenty of berries. Owen loved them and ate and ate and ate :) The bottled water man came to pick up the water bottles and the kids enjoyed helping haul the bottles out to the gate.

We were able to go on a scorpion tailed boat ride on the Ping River. It was very interesting especially seeing some of the flood damage from the flood a month earlier. We also had an adventure at the Visa Office getting extensions to our tourist visas.

Songteows are a small pickup truck with a back topper designed to haul people. We rode them several times. The kids thought it was lots of fun and held on tight. We helped my parents prune bushes in their yard and the kids even got a little swimming pool. Ellie, our little water bug loved the pool. Owen liked the pool, but really liked watering things with grandmas hose.

There was a huge festival that occured while we were there. These paper laterns were lit and let off to float up into the sky. So beautiful to watch thousand of them going up in to the night sky. We thought the big parade and festival was the day before so that next evening Mom, the kids and I ventured down to the city center to do a little shopping in the night market. We came out and discovered the parade big party had been delayed to that night so we were able to watch some stunning floats and "enjoy" the thousands large crowd. We walked and walked and made it through the fray to finally find a tuk tuk to take us home. It was a fun adventure and I am kind of glad we were able to experience it though I am not sure we will repeat it :)
Ellie and Owen with their blond hair and Owens blue eyes are quite a tourist attraction in themselves. Many people stop to smile/tough them and take their picture. Participants in the parade even paused to take Owen's picture.

Another hots springs.......The thing to do here is to take eggs and boil them in the water. This White temple is near Chiang Rai. It is still being built and finished, but is absolutely stunning and so unique. I took lots of pictures of it.

These are more pictures from our second trip up to the Northern Border area of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. The King's Mother started a royal project up there  to help eradicate the growing and selling of opium. She also built a royal villa and gardens on the mountainside. These are some pictures of the enormous gardens.

While in the Golden Triangle Area (Thailand, Myanmar, Laos) we decided for visa renewal reasons to go into Myanmar at Tachiliek/Mai Sai Border crossing. here are a few pictures of us entering Myanmar and in the Myanmar Border Crossing Office. It is amazing the difference we saw once we crossed the bridge into Myanmar. We walked through and then looked around for a bit before crossing back onto Thailand.