Busy!

Hey gang! I don't have long before I have to return to the hotel for a class discussion so unfortunately this will be brief and may contain some typos.
Chiang Mai was amazing! We left there yesterday after a great roughly two weeks there. Yesterday we were on a train for 12 hours. Uggg.
Highlights of Chiang Mai:
Beautiful wats (Buddhist temples) such as the huge Buddha in an open air section of Wat Suan Dok. Wat Chedi Luang was also impressive with an old ruin in the middle and a new hall being built for a recently deceased very famous monk. Wat Doi Suthep on a mountain overlooking smoggy Chiang Mai was beautiful and very packed with worshippers and tourists. Quite beautiful actually, glittering with gold and bits of glass in mosaics everywhere.
The Golden Triangle was very cool. It is called golden because it was one of the biggest areas for growing opium in the world and the farmers only accepted gold in exchange for the opium. But Afghanistan is the biggest area now, more regulation here. We actually went to a village on the other side of the Mekong River in Laos for about 15 minutes, so this whole month will have included time in three countries! hahaha.
Buddhist meditation center. Cool to learn about Buddhism and try meditation, but I would need many more days to figure out meditation. The walking meditation was interesting, especially when you are going so slow and concentrating so hard on what your body is doing that you lose balance sometimes!
Food. Chiang Mai has lots of awesome cheap food. And no, not too spicy. Except for papaya salad which I will avoid for the rest of my life. One tiny tiny bite and I thought my mouth, gums, tongue, all of it was being aimed at directly by a blowtorch. I was sucking on ice cubes and gobbling rice for quite a while. Other food, awesome. Especially pad thai. Yum!
Markets! Woohoo inexpensive awesome stuff! I had to buy a large backpack to help contain everything. Mom, you will be pleased with my silk purchases. The markets in Bangkok seem interesting as well, but I will have to express restraint so I can bring everything home! I absolutely love the textiles here, amazing craftsmanship and I am shocked at the low prices.
We briefly visted Bo Sang, the umbrella making village, as part of a touristy day. I took many pictures of these beautiful paper umbrellas, it's almost appalling how little they charge for these workers of art. I did not get an umbrella, too hard to transport, but I got a very nice wall hanging.
Overnight visit to a Karen village. It was not as primitive as I had thought, but electricity was scant, old oversize satellite dishes not hooked up to a TV at any point in their life where used for drying chilies and herbs, and the buildings were wood slabs, concrete, on slilts, with corrugated steel roofs. A very difficult life farming in the mountains, working so hard for conservation, of both the land and their culture. A very interesting time. Some good stories out of that.
Transportation. We have had adventures. These are best told in person. See lohs, tuk tuks, buses, trains. Any and all, we have had adventures.

Okay, Bangkok. We got in late last night (aroun 10 or so to the hotel). This morning we did a sightseeing tour and saw Chinatown (crazy busy with people buying stuff for the Chinese New Year in a few days), a small Chinese style wat, the tallest building in Thailand, 309 meters tall if I remember correctly, drove by the palace where the king currently lives, saw another palace built by Rama V to prove that Thailand is a developed country (1800's).
Bangkok is busy. So much activity, so much traffic, so much smog, so many foreigners. Chiang Mai was calm by comparison! It's very warm here too, hot actually, and humid. The smog gave me a mild sore throat already, yay for cough drops. But it's not as bad as I had thought here actually, smog-wise. Our hotel is very nice, not the character and nooks that Suan Doi House had, this one is pretty Westernized, but it's nice. And it has a breakfast buffet! Methinks I have gained weight here in Thailand. So much good food, I have become eternally hungry, and I'm always snacking on some tasty morsel that someone in the group has purchased and shared. Our group is great!
Tomorrow we will visit Bangkok University.
Day after, free day, I plan to visit Jim Thompson's House perhaps the National Museum, river boat cruise, we'll see about other things.
We have a lot packed into our Bangkok days, so I do not know how often I can write. I'm safe, having fun, and learning lots! And I can't wait to breathe in fresh cold air again in Minnesota. Ahhhh, refreshing to just think about it!