Back home to Thailand- Chiang Mai

A delightful town in the cooler mountains! Chiang Mai is famous for having 31 temples within the walls of the old city.
Our hotel is in the heart of it so we can walk and get lost everywhere. In the entry way to the hotel, past guests have written messages and comments on the walls which makes for an interesting entrance!
Yesterday, we visited 4 beautiful temples, the " backpacker hotel area" ( interesting crowd)", an open food market for a snack of delicious but strange looking nuts and stuff, got some new books to read at one of the multiple used book stores in town, and strolled the night bazaar. Given that we were up at 4:00 AM to catch the plane from Kuala Lumpur, by the time we sat down to dinner at 9:30 we were pretty darn tired.
In one of the temple photos you will see a monk in meditation. Although he looks very much alive, it is actually a fiberglass statue of the most recent head monk who died in 2009 after 77 years as a monk. We have seen these incredibly lifelike statues several places. Decidedly erie.
We have lots to try to fit in today because tomorrow we take an all
Day cooking class at an organic farm
And then Thursday we will take an all day excursion to hike, ride elephants, hike again and then ride the rapids back. Whew!