Chang Mei - the North

Chang Mei is up in the Northwest, near the Myanmar (Burma) border - get out your maps. This is where we rode the elephants and I'll do a whole separate post on elephants after this. We had an orientation type meeting Sunday morning with the Thai radiologists from all the hospitals we were going to visit. Then we took a plane to Chang Mei while our fellow IVP radiologists, the Angtuocos, went to Kon Kaen in the northeast. We landed in a region with mountains surrounding the city, quite a change from the "low country" of Bangkok.We spent two days here. The night of our arrival, two interventional radiologists took us out to dinner to a nice place on the river (we have eaten outside at least half of all our meals as the weather is just like home!) At this point we seemed to have a little relapse of jet lag or maybe our bodies just trying to figure out how to adjust to 12 hours difference. We had a great hotel, however, and slept well. The next day I went to the hospital, 1500 beds!!! Interesting picture by the entrance to the ER trying to get people to be more careful, but the picture didn't seem to interest anyone but me.

At the end of the day, we went up the mountain to see the temple on top of the mountain. If you go over the back of the mountain, you get to where the hill people live including the Hmong, like John's friend from North Carolina. The temple on the mountain, Doi Saket, is what people go to see. The wat is reached by a staircase of 300 steps. You can also take a tram, but walking the steps gets you closer to enlightenment I think. We took the steps, of course. There is a big buddha on top and 7 small buddhas, one for each day of the week. I think the reclining buddha represents Tuesday.

A little boy, I think wearing clothes of some of the hill people, was sitting on the steps.

That night we went to dinner that included a nice show. Afterwards, one of the creatures tried to cuddle up to Mom.

Then we got to launch a small "hot air balloon". I'll try to post a movie later. It was really cool watching them sail away into the night sky. You are supposed to do this for someone or something like a prayer, so we did ours for Grandma.

Okay, next post - elephants. Although in real time we are now finished our week in Bangkok and will be traveling later today to Koh Samui, an island.