Chiang Mai, Thailand
Monday, May 5, 2008
We woke up around 8:30AM because the meeting is at 11:30AM and we didn't know how long it's going to take to get there. We had some directions to get there, but not a real address. We had some breakfast at the restaurant beside our hostel. We figured we would make our way to the hall around 10:30AM just to be on the safe side. We found a tuk-tuk and tried to explain where we were going. We had a map and showed him the area on the map. He didn't know what 'Kingdom Hall' was so we told him it's like a church. He thought we were saying 'shirt', and we wanted to go to a clothing factory. Finally he understood what we had meant, and we were on our way. We knew we had to turn left off the superhighway after a big orange 'jet jiffy' gas station. Sure enough as soon as we got on the highway, we spotted the sign and told the driver next left. We turned onto the street and it didn't look like much was there, but just a little ahead we spotted the Kingdom Hall. It was about 10:50AM and no one was in sight
. So we walked back to the gas station to grab a water and slowly walked back. Finally a Japanese couple arrived and we talked with them for about 15 minutes when the rest of the people started showing up. There were about 30 people at the meeting. The Kingdom Hall is only a few months old. After the meeting we met a whole bunch of people. Tasha, who we met back on Friday, and her husband Ashley, asked us if we wanted to go for lunch with them. The Kingdom Hall is in a remoter area, so there weren't any tuk-tuks around. Ashley and Tasha rode to the meeting on one bike. Guy and Alex from Australia have an old Volkswagen van and they offered to drive us to the café because they had to go into town anyways. They are a really nice couple and they have a 3 year old boy. We arrived at the café and said goodbye to Guy and Alex. It's a really small place but the food turned out to be really good. Zoe and I both had BLT sandwiches, and the bacon was awesome. We will be going back there for sure. We had a good lunch with Ashley and Tasha. After lunch we said our goodbyes and we headed home. We had a nap and then got ready to go out for the Sunday night market in the old city. About 4 different streets shut down and they are lined with stall after stall of goods. It was mostly arts and crafts from the surrounding villages. We wandered around for a while and then headed over to The Saloon for a burger. They are so good there we had to have another one. We arrived and ordered our food. We ate and check out the free internet there, then headed home. We were pretty tired and we have a big day tomorrow. We are going zip lining and we have a pretty early start. What are we getting into?
- Jesse
