Return to Chiang Mai

School assembly honoring
Loy Krathong (festival of lights)
November 22, 2018

October is upon us in the Northwest Corner.  Just a week or so ago, I was strolling about  in shirtsleeves, a warm sun at my back.  Today -- the last few days, actually -- we've had intermittent rain, highs around 50, and lows down into the upper 30s. 

Odd, this seems to happen every year about this time.

But for me, I will escape temporarily from the seeming certainties of nature's cycles.  I fly to Chiang Mai, Thailand, on Saturday.  To Chiang Mai where the highs, day after day, are in the low 90s and the lows in the low 70s.  A bit of rain forecast this coming week, at least, in what must be the tail end of the summer monsoons.  I return to Seattle on Halloween evening.

This will be the third straight autumn that I've spent two or three weeks visiting my nephew Denny in Chiang Mai.  As mentioned  in earlier postings, Denny has been teaching sixth grade at an international school.  This year, the school is expanding to seventh grade, on its way to becoming an integrated elementary/high school, and Denny, besides teaching, will be working to develop a new curriculum for the new grades. 

Denny's dad lives with him in Chiang Mai, after retiring as a physician in Sonoma, California, and Denny has also been joined by his fiancée from Sonoma.  My sister -- Denny's mother -- will also be visiting at roughly the same time as will I.  In other words, my family is forming its own little expat community in Chiang Mai.

Clearly, my visit will be more a family gathering than a tourist-oriented excursion.  I'll be living at Denny's house, which is in the semi-rural suburbs of Chiang Mai.  As last year, I've been promised a bicycle for transportation, which is ideal for that area.  Some or all of us may also venture away from Chiang Mai for a little exploration -- maybe by car into the highlands near the Burmese border, or by train to Bangkok.  Nothing definite has been planned; sometimes it's fun not to know what's going to happen, to just go with the flow.

Either way, you'll hear about it once I return.  I may get one more posting in on this blog before Saturday -- or I may not -- but I did want to let my legions of fans know where I'm going and why this blog will suddenly go silent until my return at the first of November. 

At the first of November.  When I'll return to Seattle, and can safely expect the local weather to have deteriorated even further as we edge into winter.