Well just to clarify that the dog that came to our house few weeks ago is a Pug and not a Bulldog Luckily someone pointed out.

Did a search on Google then realized that this is the same type of dog which appeared in Men In Black – Frank the Pug. See the wiki link here. (Seems like nowadays everything under the sun can be found on Wiki)

Below is the photo of Frank:

Maybe I should suit-up my dog and see how he looks like Oh ya, I named my dog already since for 3 weeks no one was searching for him. We call him Bob now

Cheers!

That’s how my beloved dog looks like at the moment. He is so annoyed with the skin problem he got at around his neck area. Even with the plastic protector around his neck he still tried to scratch it. I think the itchiness is unbearable for him. Luckily today seems to be better as he didn’t bark as much compared to yesterday. Probably he is dizzy due to the medicine as well. Hopefully rocky will be back to his normal self within this few days…. poor little thing…. He looks very depressed. I can relate that to the pulsating tinnitus(not the normal tinnitus, this one you can feel the muscle inside the ear twitching rapidly, so unbearable) that I experienced last Dec. It was so terrible that I can’t live a normal life for 2 weeks. Luckily I meet a chinese doc that able to prescribe some herbs which cured this problem (although my normal tinnitus still there). During that time even the best ENT in town said don’t know what to do.

Anyway, I pray for Rockie’s speedy recovery.

I went to Chiang Mai, Thailand last December with my girl friend. This is my first ever true vacation ever since I have started working in this company (11+ years). I have taken 1000+ photos and have to filter out those that are good enough to be posted into my blog as travelogue. So here you go, please enjoy, but do take note that this is a quite a huge post so if some of the photos can’t be seen please press the Refresh button in your browser. This travelogue will be divided into  4 5 posts so stay tuned

*~~*~~*~~*~~ Part 1 *~~*~~*~~*~~*

We planned a 7 days trip to Chiang Mai from 29th Dec until 4th Jan. We choose this period because its a nice period to visit Chiang Mai as its dry and cool weather (15C – 28C). We also wanted to spend the New Year’s eve somewhere other than Malaysia. We read a lot of travelogue on the internet about Chiang Mai, but we didn’t plan much about our trip. I just booked a guest house online and after some emails exchange with the owner of the guest house, we were convinced that we should be able to plan our journey after we checked in. Its a risk as usually I prefer to plan everything beforehand but this time we were a bit adventures. Well, everything turn out to be much better than expected!

Oh ya, another thing that we did prior to leaving to Chiang Mai is getting my colleague in Bangkok to help me to buy a map. I saw lots of good review about this map by Nancy Chandler I decided to ask my colleague to buy one and post it to me. The map is very unique as it looks like a hand drawn map with lots of details. You can also buy the map from her online store.

I will arrange my travelogue according to several categories and post some interesting photos along. Do enjoy!

1.1 Guest House

We spend the whole trip while in Chiang Mai staying at Green Tulips guest house. Lots of people recommended this place as it is cheap and very clean. We done our booking through online but we were not required to pay for any deposit until we checked in. When we arrived at the guest house we immediately fall in love with it. Its super duper clean and tastefully decorated! The owner is a Singaporean guy-Douglas and his wife Stella , as well as the in-keeper Nine. They are all awesome! Very friendly and helpful.

The ground floor of the guest house is a restaurant. Stella is a great cook as well and we ate several dishes prepared by her, its among the best food we ate while in Chiang Mai!

Initially we booked a room with bathroom attached and with air conditioner, for 850 Baht per night, then subsequently we changed to a smaller room with shared bathroom, for 450 Baht which is really value for money. The shared bathroom is even cleaner than my own bathroom at home! Everything in the hotel is very tidy and spotless. We will definitely check in at the some guest house again if we go to Chiang Mai next time

It shows as Golden Tulip on the Map, was a typo.

Green Tulip. great color!

Nice, cozy, air-cond and attached bathroom for 850 Baht per night.

Outside of our room, really cozy, I like the wooden floor!

Everything is so colorful!

Tastefully decorated!

1.2 Transport & Street

The fastest way to travel is by Tut tut, but we have to bargain to get a good price.

Chiang Mai’s street is not as packed as Bangkok’s. Its quite easy to cross the street.

Song Thaew (Pick Up taxi) can be cheaper than Tut tut, just flag 1 down and hop on if the driver is driving on the same route as your destination. Different color for different routes.

There’s a button to be pushed to indicate to the driver to stop. Payment is made after arriving at the destination.

We spend a lot of time just walking along the streets, nice and calm.

Pretty flower along the street.

Most of the street signs are wonderfully decorated.

You need so many mirrors to be safe on the road ? Cute though

Prawn law ? What ?? Hehe..both of us saw the same thing but it was actually “Prawin”, not “Prawn”.

Messy cabling dangling down. Looks dangerous but no one seems to bother.

2nd best ? I don’t think being honest is a good marketing strategy Since its only 2nd best so we didn’t try it. hehe…

1.3 Dogs

Chiang Mai people LOVE dogs. There are a lot of cute dogs around.

They go everywhere with their dogs and some even with cloths on. Cute!

We chased this MPV down so that I can take this photo

A very proud owner indeed. All in Pink! He was very happy when I took this photo.

We play with this doggie for 30 minutes and wanted to smuggle it back home. We missed him so much even after we come back. Sweet memories!

1.4 Wat/Buddhist Temple

There are a lot of Wat or Buddhist temples in Chiang Mai (More than 300 temples). Some of the temples are quite unique while others quite alike-design wise. There were quite a few temples located within walking distance from our guest house. After visiting several Wats we have a feeling that all the Wats start to look alike. They are all beautiful temples nonetheless, but I don’t think visiting several Wats in a row will be a good idea.

A typical Lanna style Buddhist temple (unfortunately I forget its name)

Buddha’s statue, quite different compared to Malaysia as they place some photos of their King and Queen in front of the statue.

A Buddha’s statue in front of a white pagoda.

Buddha’s statue behind steel bars. Not sure why, probably the statue is made of real gold.

Some temple has nice garden around it. This one with cute statues of various animals.

Nice statue.

People giving offering to the monks. They put some coins into the urns.

Thai people making New Year’s Eve prayers at Wat Phra Singh. Its located few steps away from our guest house.

Wat Chedi Luang. was the home of the Emerald Buddha, Thailand’s most sacred cultural treasure. Damaged during an earthquake in 1545, the structure is still impressive with a naga (water serpent) staircase on each of its faces and wonderful statues of elephants adorning the base.

I spend some time to chat with a monk at Wat Chedi Luang. He is a student in Chiang Mai university and was able to speak fluent English. We talked about some difficulties I faced in my life. Its quite spiritual and meaningful.

*~~*~~*~~*~~ End of Part 1 *~~*~~*~~*~~*

Last Saturday my girl friend was very anxious because she wanted to try out the doggie’s ‘health care’ products that she bought from S’pore (She buy, but I pay). The anti ticks/fleas shampoo seems to be effective as during the bath there were a few ticks/fleas (I can’t tell which is which) found dead in the water. After the bath she applied flea repellent on to his body, as well as getting him to take the supplementary food (some persuasion by force required).

While we are doing this, our cat (Xiao Bai) seems to be in bad mood, probably due to Rocky getting all the attention instead of him. You can tell from the photo that he is not in a good mood that day.

Hopefully after this the fleas and ticks will be getting lesser and this will stop Rocky from scratching himself.  Enjoy the photos!

Enjoying a thorough cleaning using anti ticks/fleas shampoo

aaaahhh…. si beh song!

Xiao Bai is not impressed at all.

Drying up

Applying ticks/fleas repellent

You human can’t even dry a dog ? Let me do it myself!

Rocky endorsing the products that he used

Wonder why he has such a long tongue…

Rocky going for food

Enjoying evening walk

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