Although there are many days days where we go on exciting adventures here in Chiang Mai, a majority of our time has been spent at a fairly leisurely pace.
We start the day around 8 or 9 AM when Dave heads downstairs to the a restaurant right outside our condo. There he asks for “Kow Pat Gai, neung” and “Kow blow, neung” and “Kor Klap baan”, which means “one order of chicken fried rice, one order of steamed rice and make it to go”. Or something close to that. The cook, Cha Ming (nickname “lek” for small) is there from the early hours in the morning to late at night. Dave quickly checks mail at the local Internet/gaming spot and heads back to the condo.
By 11 AM everyone is up and about and we clean the place up a bit before heading downstairs. Depending on the hour we might head to Sukothai Restaurant (just a few doors down) where Jang and Nok cook up something delicious.
If we are feeling motivated we may head to Thae Pae Gate which is the backpacker part of town. The American University Alumni building has a small English library there and we check out books for the kids and ourselves. We might also go to a bookstore or a Western style restaurant or a travel agent to arrange a tour. A foot massage for the gang or a visit to a Wat (temple) might also be in order (Dave always drags us into every Wat that we pass, much to the kids chagrin).

Once it is afternoon we will head back to our place by Tuk-Tuk or Sangtheaw. Dinner at Sukothai is fantastic and we try not to miss it. Dessert is some sweet Rotte (sweet crepe, Muslim style) and we often hang around and practice some Thai and English with the locals. The pace is laid back and comfortable.
Learning Thai
One of the fun (“sanook” in Thai) challenges in Thailand has been learning the language. We have two phrasebooks and a great set of audio CD’s (from our friend Chad) to help in our efforts. We also get lots of help from the locals who are very forgiving and supportive. Dave likes to record phrases spoken by the locals on our camera so we can listen to them later.
Thai is a fairly simple language grammatically, but difficult in terms of pronunciation. Like Chinese, they have different tones for different meanings. For example, the word “mai” can be pronounce with a mid, high, falling, low or rising tone and have various meanings (“mile”, “wood”, “not”, “new” and “silk” respectively). Context can be helpful for many words, but many are not so simple. For example, the word for “near” is “glai” with a falling tone, while the word for “far” is “glai” with a mid-tone. Dave recorded this example (courtesy of our friend Jang). See if you can tell the difference.
The Thai’s often laugh at our pronunciations, but they are not laughing at us. In Thailand it is considered polite to laugh when someone makes a mistake because it lightens the mood and avoids embarrassment (the opposite in the US). Conversations are often full of laughter for us. It is amazing how small an error in tone can lead to puzzled looks. If we mispronounce a phrase or word the Thai’s will often repeat the correct pronunciation for us (and we often think “but that is EXACTLY what I already said!”).
For now we have mastered some of the basics like Hello and Goodbye, thank you, Can you make it cheaper?, counting and finding the toilets. It is also useful to understand the phrase “Where are you from?” and “How old are you?”. Thais like to know your age (not just for the kids) because age helps in determining how to address you in conversation.
We are getting along well, all things considered, and can manage to get around town, haggle at the market and meet new friends in Thailand.

Phra (Monks)

One of the most prevalent features in Thailand are the Buddhist monks (“Phra” in Thai). You see them all over the place; at the temples

eating with locals

washing a car (no idea why)

taking care of business

Like most foreigners we have been curious about the monks since we arrived in Thailand. We had a good introduction when some monks came to our condo to bless the building.
They come at least once a year to bless the building and it’s inhabitants. The residents, in turn, give offerings of food and useful items to the monks.

It gave us an opportunity to hear the monks chant prayers and to be blessed by the monks as well.

After the prayers the monks sat down to a meal provide by the condo association.

After the monks ate we all sat down for a meal as well. It was great to get a bit of Thai Buddhist culture delivered right our doorstep. Amazing.

We found an even more personal way to connect with the monks through a unique program called “Monk Chat”.

On most afternoons, foreigners can speak to monks at a local temple, Wat Suan Dok. The program is set up so that monks can improve their English skills and introduce tourist to Thai Buddhist Culture.
We showed up at Wat Suan Dok at 5PM (Meta had attended a Thai cooking class earlier in the day), just when the monk chat was to begin. The Temple is a large working temple just outside of town.
Inside one of the buildings they had set up tables for the monks to sit at along with several foreigners. We started our chat with a novice monk who came from the country to become a monk. His name (or probably nickname) was “Gan” and his English was good. We asked him several questions about how he came to become a monk and about Buddhism in general. He also shared many insights about cultural practices (and taboos) surrounding monks in Thailand. Gan is shown below cutting the hair of one of the foreigners that attended the monk chat (Samir from Slovenia, who had long dreadlocks before this picture):

The kids got bored with the philosophical talk pretty quickly and they ended up hanging out with some other monks while we chatted. Caleb started to demonstrate magic and juggling. The monks joined in on the juggling.

And they were more than happy to pose for picture with us

One of the monks, named Gabe (another nickname – given by a foreigner in this case) took a liking to the kids and addressed them as his brother and sister. He spoke English very well and asked that we come back again for the monk chat in the future. He said that Caleb should stay and become a monk

Umbrella Factory
We met a nice family here and they offered to take us to Bo Sang where there is an Umbrella Factory. Tong Bai, her husband, Sumate, and their Son, Balm, live near Chiang Mai. Tong Bai is a nurse and she works across the street from our Condo (that is how we met). Sumate is a Captain in the Army and Balm is 11 years old
.
Bo Sang is about 5 miles from town and we went there in their shiny new SUV (the first time we have seen seat belts in a few weeks!)
The factory has a tour of the umbrella making process which is all done by hand. The process starts with making the paper.

Then cutting the spokes by hand.

Then they put pieces together and they paint the surface.

The artists who paint the umbrellas for the tour are willing to put acrylic designs on anything: Wallets, clothes, bags etc..
The kids both got patterns on their wallets and Dave got an elephant on his shoulder bag.

Afterwards we went to a nice Thai dinner in Chaing Mai. Tong Bai and family have offered for us to join them again on another trip in the future (perhaps to a Hot Spring).