The jasmine lingers on...

As I unzip the suitcases, the scent of jasmine spills out, and I'm afraid for a moment that the essential oil we bought has leaked. But then I see that the container is still sealed, so it must just be the smell of Thailand in our clothes. Oh, but that we could keep that smell forever ...

We had a wonderful week in Chiang Mai, made even better by the fact that we were joined by my brother and his fiancee, and that Matt accepted a job (in Ohio!) the day before we left. It's been a long, tiring job search, and not only were we ready for a holiday, we were also aware that this was our last Asian vacation--our last trip before returning to the (relative) poverty of American teachers. (Oh wait, I forgot. Teachers are greedy and lazy, aren't they? What am I complaining about?)

I fell in love with several new dishes--stir-fried beef and basil, and larb gai, a minced chicken salad that is limey and spicy and so so good. And incidentally, we just got our weekly farm delivery and it's full of BASIL. So guess what we'll be making this weekend? Ah, just one more thing to miss about Hong Kong--fresh basil in the spring!

Visiting Doi Suthep temple, seeing the elephants (and getting sprayed by them!), plenty of shopping, plenty of time in the pool, several tuk-tuk rides and songtheow rides, and lots of other yummy food rounded out the week. Oh, and daily (sometimes twice daily) mango juices at our first hotel, and fresh lime sodas at the second. As Finn would say, it was "pretty good."

I'll be putting more pictures on flickr shortly. Stay tuned!