Thailand trip - Chang Mai and Puket

We were in Asia from the 15 of Sept 2010 to Oct 16. To save repeating myself all of Asia was fantastic. We spent 6 days in Hong Kong, then on to Bejing, - floating markets, budda's, then on too Xian with all of the terra cotta warriers, several large buildings keep the weather off of the clay soldiers. Vast areas in Xian need to have more excavating done. Thousands of years of history. From Xian we went to Shanghai, with only 3 days there we would go back again. From there we flew back to Hong Kong and separated from the 21 people in our group and headed off to Thailand.
Bankok was our first stop, looked at lots of Budda's and temples, then flew into Chang Mai, did a tour of the elephants and tigers, orchids out in the country side. From there to Puket and after a month just sat and relaxed.

Buildings in Hong Kong

Hong Kong skyline

living scaffold - bamboo

jet boat to island of Macaw to do a little gambling

imperial palace

fantastic jade carvings

Ready for a little walk on the great wall

Terra Cotta warriers in Xian. Thousands of clay statues.

15 course dumpling meal

Gardens in the middle of the city

unique buildings in Shanghai

Shanghai skyline

snake handlers left me with Fred

water lily

Today we went through 2 villages, both small plots of land,refuges from Burma which is only a few miles away.

This lady is from the village

of the longneck tribe. We toured the village, looked in the huts and bought some crafts from them.

White palace 3 hours north of Chang Mai. This is all done with donations, no government help. Long process to build, they will be many years but very beautiful

Riding the elehants on a safari outside of Chang Mai.

We are about 8 to 10 feet off of the ground. Increadibily intelligent animals.













They wanted 350 boht to take pictures of tigers, so we said okay. We go down by the tiger pens give him our ticket and he opens up the cage and says come on in!!!!

Wow!!

These tigers are almost full grown and are 18 months old

Orchids and butterflys outside of Chang Mai

Biker bar where we eat several times in Puket. This bike was built in Puket for one of the white bikers. Cost 1,000,000.00 boht.

Heading north

After Islla Isabella we sailed to Mazatlan. One of our friends lost all of his electrical power on the boat, so they could not use radar (which was needed as there was lots of fog) or there radios, chart plotter except a small portable. After a couple of hours we helped them into the El Cid Marina.

Feb 26, Steve's birthday, which means dock party. Pam's present to help me with my direction finding.

Everyone had fun. Lots of people, and best of all 3 yes 3 cakes. I had to eat cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All of the people eat cake for days.

As you can see the party went well into the night, and if I remember we all went to Fat Fish for a plate of those monster ribs for 80 pescos each. Beer for 10 p. each Good time had by all.

We lost one of our renters and decided to bee line to San Carlos, 400 miles north as the crow flies, too bad a boat does not go where the crow goes so and at least another 100 kn miles to that.

Isla Isabella

On our way north we decided that we would try and visit Isla Isabella - called the Galapagos of the north. We stopped in before but were chased out with a forecast of 30 knot winds in an open anchorage. There were 3 boats travelling together, but one of the boats decided to carry on as they were having troubles with there windlass. The day we travelled there were whales surfacing and breaching all around us. We had to divert course several times as the whales were getting too close to us. Two of our friends boats were hit by whales this year, luckly no damage.



It takes many shots to get a whale breaching , here is one in the distance.








The island is covered with low scrub trees and lots of frigate birds, and several kinds of boobies live and breed on the island.


This was one of the lucky frigates that had two ladies under his wings. These are skim feeders. One of the fastest birds in the world, they weight 2 to 3 lbs, wing spans in the 6 to 7 foot range.

















These unusual creatures the blue footed boobie nest on the ground. We could get within 1 or 2 feet of them with no problem. They dive after there fish, and some times get caught on our lures.












As you can see the birds nest at eye level and are not afraid of people.

San Blas heading north

Shrimp boat anchored. The shrimp fleet was bought out by the Mexican government, that way they would have some control over the depleting stocks of shrimp. You can by a kilo of shrimp in Mexico for around 80 to 120 pecos, about $7 to $10.

Just went into our blog and can not believe it has been almost a year since we posted anything.

This is one of our favorite fish, mahi mahi, dolpin fish, dorado all the same. Mmmm very good tasting. This one is about 8 lbs.