To continue the tale or our Wedding World Tour chronologically, I must continue onward from the post below, “Out of Asia…“. As I was writing, Lynn — a 15-year old female Rothschild giraffe – walked up to my spot on the lawn at Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, Kenya, and was eating from my hand … and mouth! But since I’m now back to telling the story chronologically, I’ll leave the rest of this for a future post.

I left off last as we had visited the umbrella-making area of Chiang Mai (northern Thailand), and here are a few overdue photos from that journey, from our flight through the silk factory:

(Click-through if you can’t see the pictures below)

Our super-amazing Emirates trip to Bangkok, yay!

Chiang Mai’s umbrella craft center

And as we moved on to the silk factory … our SURPRISE view when we looked into baskets which we thought contained silk … silkworms!

Hard to believe that the worm above makes the fantastically beautiful product below:

And for those of you who know me, it’s might be surprising to note that these are UNEDITED pictures … pretty much raw out of the camera … it was just fantastically beautiful throughout Thailand, easy to photograph.

We explored a bit more after out shopping journey, then rushed to see Doi Suthep, a temple on the hill near Chiang Mai. However, as we drove the sun set, and April and I were very, very close to turning the taxi around. We figured that heading to the temple at night was likely a waste of our time: if we could even get in (as we heard that it closed earlier), then it would not be lit. But we figured to “roll the dice” and head up there anyway. This turned out to be one of our best gambles of the trip.

When we arrived, we took a funicular car up the hill, and it seemed deserted. But as we stepped into the temple courtyard, both April and I were in complete awe. We heard the non-stop jingle of thousands — maybe tens of thousands — of windchimes, clanging in the windy night. And we saw a gold temple glowing against the sky, while Buddhist monks chanted. It was magical beyond words, a moment that I can never recreate, and yet will never forget.

My favorite media from this trip is a video of the moment, which I will figure out how to post  in due time. And of course my favorite picture was posted earlier, repeated here:

We finished our night with a fantastic $4.00 meal (total price) of yellow curry, potatoes, chicken, rice, Tom Kha Gai, sodas, and handmade ice cream at Aroon (Rai) restaurant, whose sign reads: “Unique, authentic Chiangmai and Thai foods, since 1957. No branch, either in Thailand or in foreign countries ONLY ONE HERE IN THE WORLD.”

We were exhausted, and headed home to get rest for the big day tomorrow: Patara Elephant Camp’s Mahout (elephant owner) for a Day Program.