James the Intrepid Pilgrim

22 Dec 2013 Sunday I walked around most of the wall/moat today, stopping at Wat Lok Molee, one of my favorite temples. I did not get any pictures this time, but I will in future visits. I also went to Wat Meng Rai, the namesake temple of King Mengrai who founded Chiang Rai farther to the north. (Note: the word “Chiang” historically and precisely means “walled city.”) After the Burmese people battled with his people, […]

21 Dec 2013 Saturday I spent time on Saturday walking around a bit, and in particular, I returned to one of my favorite temples, Wat Suan Dok, outside the walled city, almost a mile from 3-Sis. Wat Suan Dok is a very sacred temple, and the grounds outside the main, very large viharn (worship hall) are a large grouping of all while chedi (pagodas) with one very large gold chedi in which a very sacred […]

20 Dec 2013 Friday After a bit of rest, I have started being a tourist in Chiang Mai again. The area feels familiar and comfortable; not a surprise since I spent a month here last winter. The first thing on the agenda was to get my Thai phone renewed. After that long, cold, and generally uncomfortable train ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, I woke with a very difficult pain in my lower right back, […]

After a mad dash to the Bangkok Hua Lamphong rail station, and an almost hour wait, I finally boarded the train to Chiang Mai. Here is the Hua Lamphong Rail station, originally built in 1916: The State Railway of Thailand (SRT) train to Chiang Mai covers what is known as the “Northern Line”. The daytime Bangkok-to-Chiang Mai “Express”, trains 3, 9, and 12, uses a diesel-rail-car powered short train consisting of a power car and […]

I am back in Chiang Mai! How exciting and what an exhausting journey to get here. This will be two posts, and both will be long. After checking into the hotel at the Bangkok airport (called Suvarnabhumi, meaning “The Golden Land,” a name chosen by the king, pronounced “su-wan-na-poom”) about midnight and setting a wake-up call for 5:00 AM, I hoped I would have time to make a difficult trip by taxi to the main […]

The actual journey to Thailand has started with a slow trip to Los Angeles International Airport in morning rush-hour traffic. I felt a bit anxious, but arrived as planned three hours before departure time. And I was one of the first passengers to arrive. The LAX International terminal is pretty quiet in the morning, so I am relaxing a bit before the scramble to board begins. I am traveling on Korean Air flight KE18, from […]

The packing is continuing, actually more setting things aside that are to be packed. I am getting quite a pile, and have developed a few lists of things to take and things not to forget. I know that I can reliably and inexpensively get laundry done, so I can minimize how much clothing I bring.  From the 3-Sis Guest House, I can get laundry done for 70 THB (Thai Baht) for 1 kg, or about […]

The preparations for the trip are coming along. While from one perspective I should be getting excited, the actual trip still seems too far away (two weeks and two days). Much is done or in progress: I have a reservation on Korean Air, departing Los Angeles December 17, arriving in Incheon, South Korea for a short layover. The Incheon airport is the main airport for Seoul (30 miles east), only 10 years old, one of the […]

I returned from a month in Chiang Mai in late January, 2012, and posted over 200 pictures to Picasa. Many people who viewed the pictures wanted to know and see more about my daily life while I was there. I had taken pictures of the temples and the sights, not my daily life. So the idea evolved to return to Chiang Mai to do yoga, meditate, return to the temples, and write a daily blog telling […]

I returned home and to work from the yoga workshop in mid-January, 2012. I mentioned almost jokingly to my boss that the computer systems I manage do not really care where I am, and perhaps I could go to Thailand for a month and work from there. I expected the response to be something like, “nice idea, but we like to see you in the office,” but instead, the response was one of support which […]

I am Jim Geier. This blog is about my journey to Chiang Mai, Thailand in December 2013 and January 2014. The intent is to discuss what I did each day and post a picture or two of what I saw or places visited. These first posts cover the prelude to the actual journey to Chiang Mai, some of the background to my making this journey and related events leading up to the journey. I first […]