Since our 3-year wedding aniversary is tomorrow, and since we had a rare 4-day weekend here in Thailand, we have just spent three nights in Chiang Mai for a little relaxation, fun, and shopping. Between visits to night markets and hill tribe product shops, ceramics stores and silk roads, we squeezed in several delicious meals (Indian, Italian, American) and Pirates of the Caribbean II. All in all, an excellent trip.
Our landlords, Por Or Sawat (principal of one of Robert’s schools) and Ajaan Warangkana (one of my co-teachers) accompanied us for the day on Saturday. They took us to see Bo Sang, the famous "umbrella village," about 10 kilometers outside Chiang Mai. One building has been set up as an official government-run visitor center. There, you could watch people making paper and cotton umbrellas as well as do some shopping.
We walked past all the stages of umbrella making: cutting the wood for the handle, arranging the spokes, making and drying the paper, laying the paper over the spokes and coating it with glue, final assembly and painting of the designs. My favorite person to watch was a woman who looped string around the outside of the umbrella spokes while spinning the entire thing around at a rapid pace. I did also enjoy watching the old woman with a saw shown in the photo.
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