April 21st 2019

It’s been so wonderful having my son travelling with us for the past 2 1/2 weeks, but all great things must come to an end…and today was his final day. Tomorrow Alexander returns to his job as Senior Design/Robotic Engineer for Western Digital in Bangkok. So…Today’s activities were his choice!

Yesterday evening after we returned from the incredible Elephant Nature Park experience, we headed into the Old City for dinner and to see the activity at night. There is definitely a different ‘feel’ and atmosphere during the evenings in the city center.

We took a tuk tuk home although they are rather tight for more than 2 passengers. Several electric tuk tuks have been sighted lately. This is a very positive environmental change, and hopefully this trend will continue which should assist in reducing the extreme air pollution ratings presently found in Chiang Mai.

Dealing with 40 + temperatures and over 85 % humidity each day has been really challenging for us. We are drinking huge quantities of water and trying to stay near air conditioning during the early afternoon extreme heats!

We started with breakfast at our favorite location. Pun Pun vegetarian restaurant within the grounds of the neighboring Wat Suan Dok. It takes us about 2 minutes to walk to this peaceful restaurant and the food is always fresh and lovely.

After breakfast we ventured back past the surrounding moats and walls into the old city to locate a Fish Spa. There are several to choose from. We checked Trip Adviser ratings and went to one that seemed to meet our needs. We had all had a Fish Spa experience last trip 4 years ago, but this one turned out to be quite different for me!

Instead of one large circular pond with tiny fish living within the pond set on eating the dead skin off your feet and legs, this location had 2 long rectangular tanks with much larger fish inside!

Mark and Alexander immediately headed for the tank with the larger fish. I personally was not thrilled with little barracuda looking fish feasting off my skin!~ 

I decided to try the other tank opposite my men. The fish were smaller and I thought probably not as aggressive.

Hesitantly I placed my feet in the tank. Thankfully none seemed interested in my feet although they were swarming around the guys–especially Alexander! I announced… “Well….Guess my feet are clean and the fish aren’t interested, so I’m exiting this experience.” When suddenly one nibbled on me! I screamed and pulled my feet out of the water! This was one experience I definitely was going to pass on today!

So…While the guys had fish nibbling off their dead skin, I sat in the hot sun and took photos of them. They were very enraptured by the experience and stated afterwards their feet and calves felt baby soft. Mine….Not so much!

After living in Thailand for nearly 5 1/2 years sometimes Alexander craves alternate types of food. So our next stop was pizza Thai style!

The pizza crust was super skinny and the toppings were minimal … but I loved the photographs on the wall! Wow! Elvis looks so young!

Then it was time to leave the old city section as Alexander had to fly back to Bangkok. 😢.

But Mark and I had another 3 1/2 weeks of adventures left. In 2 days we fly to Hanoi, Vietnam!