June 15th,

We got up & around, started packing. Today we are moving on. I will miss this place and all the animals. We had our Javas in the room, then we went downstairs for breakfast. We both had scrambled eggs, toast, with a last, great, fruit platter. The fruit has been so good! I will miss this.

After we finished breakfast, we went back upstairs; finished the packing; loaded up the car; and headed out. We went to Wat Huay Pla Kang. It was close to our homestay, but we had never been able to visit. It has a super-big, white, sitting Buddha on top of a hill, with another mostly White Temple and a very colorful pagoda. We parked and were able to go up into the Buddha for a 40 THB charge each ($1.23). So we got in the lift and went up 25 stories into the top of this Buddha. The views on the 24th floor were from the Buddha’s eye slits. Some windows on the back of its head; and the center of its forehead were on the 25th floor. The views over sleepy Chiang Rai were great. The insides of these two floors were all white with hints of silver and bits of color-embellishing highlights of 3D decorated images of nature, animals and other Buddhas. Then we went down and up into the nine story pagoda, and through the temple. It was a fascinating Wat.

Now we were ready to head out of town. We stopped at a Super Big C. Shopping completed and supplies in-hand, we headed back to the car. We were figuring out what we were going to do, as we didn’t have very far to go. Then… I misstepped and took a tumble. I used my right hand to break the fall, but still managed to hit the right side of my face. My glasses caused me to have a black eye, but the glasses didn’t break, thankfully. But my right hand, well it started swelling immediately, so we now know what we’re going to do with our “extra” time… going to the ER! Yahoo, NOT! 😒

A hospital was close by and I was checked in immediately – within 15 minutes I was seen by a doctor, my history was taken and I was whisked to x-ray. The X-ray confirmed that I had a fracture in my right hand. My first broken bone at the age of 58, plus ONE day! Then I was seen by, I assume, an orthopedic doctor who placed a soft cast on my hand and wrist. I was given a steroid shot for pain and a sling; then released. We went out to the pharmacy, got prescriptions, and paid the bill… $355, FOR EVERYTHING.

Now it’s about 1430 in the afternoon and we decided we were ready for lunch! There was a little, local place right close by and we stopped there. We picked beef noodle soup, like a Pho; and Khao Soi from a picture menu. Both were excellent. After we finished, we drove to our destination, Fang-Thailand. Jeff had booked us at a farm homestay, called Pak Himdoi Farm Homestay. We arrived around 1630. We were given our choice between two A-frame type huts. We chose the second one because it has a more unobstructed view of the valley and mountains that unfolded in front of us. It was breathtaking! They offered us dinner and we set it up for 1800. Jeff unloaded our car and we settled in. Around 1745, we had a rainbow that lasted through our meal. We went down to their cafe, Say Mink Cafe. We had a Pork chop and French fries with a black pepper sauce; and a Stir-fried Holy Basil with Pork over rice.

After we finished, we came back to our room and we were able to video WhatsApp with my mother and her husband. We then watched some videos on YouTube. At 2200 we did a Zoom and watched our local church service back home. What a day!

     June 16th,

Up and about, but we knew it was gonna be a “next to nothing day”. The day is very overcast and fittingly – raining off and on. We had our Javas and breakfast of Muesli and yogurt after Jeff went and got the yogurts at the close-by local convenience store.

We tried connecting with my sister but were not able to talk with her. We forgot it was Father’s Day. We will reconnect next week. We were able to connect with Jeff’s sister and her husband. Then we had a light lunch of crackers, peanuts and chips. We watched some YouTube videos, and I caught up on blogging, with a lot of help from Jeff. It continued raining, off and on. Around 17:30 it started raining very hard with some wind. We finally went down to the cafe at 1810 because we were supposed to have dinner on our balcony at 1800 and that wasn’t going to happen due to the rain. We had ordered a barbecue setup. It was actually more like a hot-pot, soup with a grill in the center. So we grilled our meat over charcoal, letting the meat juices run into water, making it a broth. There was sliced pork, sliced fish, an egg, and sliced liver. There was also pieces of tofu, some greens and mushrooms. It was kind of neat, fun, and actually pretty tasty.

We finished,returned to our room, and pretty much called it a night. Tomorrow we leave Fang.