River View Lodge in Chiang Mai

Thanks John and Pam

This place is fantastic....riverside, pool, Thai
furnishings, wide balconies and a well kept tropical
jungle....

For all the rest, going to try to post picture

Bangkok to Chiang Mai

We got into Bangkok's awesome new airport late at
night and got a cab to our hotel. The concierge was
very nice (told Lisa how beautiful she was) and our
reservation was all prepared - here is where I plug
www.directrooms.com - and our room was great - nothing
special, but clean and cheap.

The hotel had a taxi waiting to take us to the airport
when we got downstairs - about 45 minutes earlier than
we'd told them - apparently cab ride to the airport
comes with our room rate...

Spent some extra time at the airport - ate first Thai
noodle dish and went to Starbucks - scoff if you will,
but the Thai seem to think that all the fareng want to
drink instant coffee and I'll choose Starbucks any
day.

Thai Airways plane was fantastic - gorgeous multi
colored seats. I'd have laughed at the idea of a
"beautiful airplane", but seeing is believing. Flight
to Chiang Mai was uneventful.

First snafu of the trip - my ATM card doesn't want to
work, so until we sort that out, Lisa is my "sugar
momma" ;)

Hello Asia

Well, we've walked around the international terminal
of the Seoul-Incheon Airport and passed up dozens of
duty free opportunities (though the Ginseng Cognac is
a big maybe for our return). I think we've recovered
a bit from the flight. We have another 2-3 hours here
- likely will get a beer and perhaps some food.

We just missed the mirror event for the Delta - Korea,
Sparkling event that was in the Atlanta airport. Don't
know if they were serving Coke and peach cobbler at
this one...

I've never been in such a new airport before and only
on Christmas morning at 5:00 AM have I been in a more
deserted airport. It is strangely eery...

That's a flight

Wow, that is a long flight!!

At the point where I started to feel like it was
almost over, it was less than half done.

At the point when Lisa described me as "a little
loopy", there were 4 more hours.

We were given 3 meals

While flying over the North Pole there is so much
sunlight that the windows were hot to the touch.
(Roger, any unclassified stories about this
phenomena??).

Did get to see some of the Arctic Ocean through the
clouds and many, many frozen Siberian lakes.

After all that, there were still 2 hours left.

Numb

Korea, Sparkling

So, we had some how figured out that our flight was
the first Atlanta-Seoul non-stop that was branded as a
Delta flight. Had we flown yesterday, it would have
been on a Korean Air jet. I guess when you link
Olympic cities (or as one of the big-wig speakers
pointed out: major economic partners) ou have to throw
a party. Free food, gift bags for every passenger,
Korean dancers, Korean drummers (remarkably similar to
the MHS Drum Line at a pep rally), Delta, Korea
Tourism and Georgia Economic Development dignitaries,
and here are Lisa and I, not even leaving the
Seoul-Incheon airport. The man who interviewed Lisa
for KTN TV was obviously disappointed that we were not
seasoned travellers to Seoul whose lives were to
improve due to this new service. The cameraman was
pleased when I later told him that we were headed to
Bangkok and the look on his face makes me think he may
have enjoyed the "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" sites in
Bangkok.

"Korea, Sparkling" is the newly branded motto of the
Korea Tourism Organisation (www.tour2korea.com). The
intent is to imply "revitalizing energy and freshness"
along with "vital refreshment". The Korean Minister
of Culture and Tourism emphasized that Korea, Koreans
and their culture offer an experience unique from
their Asian neighbors, China and Japan. I think he
started to say something about unification, but
changed direction midstream - all of hte sudden his
English went from stronly accented but grammatically
correct to heavily accented and very broken. Maybe i'm
reading too much into his comment, but I like to think
abou the possible international intrigue.

Good fortune continues here on the flight; the only
empty seat on a 15 hour flight is next to us. Lisa
moved over and now there is a spare seat between us -
how lucky can you get?

Holidays are fun

So Sunday was the long-planned visit to the Wat Mongkolratanaram in
Tampa. There is a weekly market with authentic Thai food. We got
there to find an enormous crowd. Turns out it was a big celebration
for Demarcation of the temple. From what I could gather, this is a
one-time event for every Buddhist temple where the members and guests
leave gifts that are buried in the foundation (more or less).
Thousands were there, from miles around and hospitality flowed.

A sneak peak for the big trip (2 weeks from today)

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/03/07/Taste/A_taste_of_home_on_Su.shtml

Test

Can i blog from my pocket pc?