From Eva: Doi Suthep

23.12. At home, Christmas is slowly becoming 'serious'. Here, too, we occasionally find a Christmas tree and hear Christmas songs in some stores. Otherwise, our anticipation consists mainly of being able to meet the elephants tomorrow.

So far, we have been doing well in Chiang Mai and - what else can we do? - enjoying what there is to enjoy. Actually, we were just looking for a bus stop and suddenly ended up in this place with many pigeons. Before we saw the sign that says 'please do not feed the pigeons', we already had pigeon food in our hands. The kids couldn't be removed from there anymore.

So I had at least two hours to observe what was happening in the square (and secretly sneak into the Starbucks across the street). While the pretty tourists were posing among the flying pigeons, another story was unfolding in the background. A whole 'gang' sells pigeon food. As soon as the police appear, they disappear and all the pigeon food disappears within seconds. Then a man - disguised as a tourist - engages the police in conversation, while individual sellers sneak behind the trees to approach the tourists and continue to sell the food 'v-e-r-y discreetly'. Am I not seeing a little bit of adventure in their eyes?

After long discussions about the program, we tackled Doi Suthep the day before yesterday. A very famous temple on a mountain, with a large golden stupa. As befits Swiss people, 'we' (actually me) wanted to walk up there. In the guidebook by Stefan Loose, it is described how to get up there. But in various research, no one could help me because no one knew where the entrance to the hiking trail was, and most of them couldn't even understand that we wanted to go up there with the 'babies'. We probably seemed a bit reckless to them. Slightly frustrated, we then made our way to the songthaew stop that morning. I tried again and... yes!!! A driver knew exactly where we wanted to go!!! I am so happy my children joined me in this ascent and made it.

Then, what was important up there was only half as important. A temple flooded with tourists - beautiful, yes, but I liked the hike much better. Thanks, Stefan Loose! And the market around the temple was also quite nice, with many products from the region. There I finally found a good, organic coffee. A lucky day! And Valentin found a friend....

The perfect end was that I found dental floss. While flossing, I had to think of Toto, the water turtle. She got the same food as me. How does she (or he?) get all that stuff out of the gaps between her teeth?????