Monks and massages

Today was a fun and more relaxing day. It started off very early with us waking up at 5AM so we could go watch the monks go out to receive their alms from the locals. We drove to a big monastery where they have a school for a lot of novices so there were many young boys as well as the older monks. Ya taught us how to give the alms and he had food prepared so we could present it to the monks which was sort of neat. We came back for breakfast and left again to go to the big temple up on the mountain overlooking Chiang Mai. It was beautiful and big and has a very tall set of stairs that had a big serpent as the bannister-side of the steps. It was very neat looking. From there we walked to the jade factory next door, but it was much higher than in China and no bargains were to be had at all. We had some time to shop the stalls and vendors around the temple while some were shopping in the jade store. They had beautiful orchids which was fun to see. After that, we came back to town and ate at another local and unique restaurant. Ya tells us each day that OAT chooses local and unique so it has become a joke. It was pretty good and I especially enjoyed the pumpkin and egg dish.

We came back to the hotel and Meg, Eleanore and I all had Thai massages. For Meg and me, it was our first ever massage and boy, was it nice. We got special pants from OAT for the massage which was a hoot and I am sure you will enjoy our photo before the massage. The massages here are done fully clothed except you wear these pants. It really was interesting and Meg and I had ours together and Eleanore had hers in their room as the ladies came to our room to do the massage. It was so nice. We had a 2 hour massage for $25....at that price, Meg and I agreed we'd do it a lot more back home, but I don't think that is the price for them there!

Megan, Jim and I opted out of the home hosted meal since we really have not enjoyed the food and we've been in several homes already. So we just enjoyed an evening to ourselves and went to Burger King and boy, did it taste good! Then we spent the evening at the night market which was much more fun than the other day because the weather has been outstanding the last two days and there was no rain.

After Eleanore came back from the home hosted meal, she, Megan and I went to the whirlpool and enjoyed that so much-on top of the massage, it was the perfect relaxer!