Dear Madelyn, Ashton, Allison, Harrison, Evelyn, Grandma and Grandpa:

Here is our second update.

Saturday afternoon, we went to the Royal Palace in Bangkok. It is the place where a woman named Anna came from England to teach the children of the King English and about Western culture. What she did was made into a musical called “The King and I.”

Behind the Palace is a Buddhist temple. It was very elaborate and detailed. Here are some pictures from the temple.





The palace itself is also very nice. The King doesn’t live here anymore, but it remains a place the people in Thailand love to visit. Here is what the outside looks like. We didn’t go inside.


On Sunday, we traveled to the very top of Thailand—where Thailand, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and Laos come together. Perhaps you can find it on our globe. We visited a village in the mountains where many of the women place metal rings around their necks to stretch them out. It is called the “Village of the Longnecks”. They are not dinosaurs, however; just people with long necks, as you can see from this picture.


They live in a rather primitive village, where they make their money by selling things to people like us who travel from across the world to see their long necks.


You can also see rings around their legs, at their knees. The guide told us that, anciently, they wore those rings to protect against attacks from tigers. There aren’t many tigers in the jungle today, so we didn’t worry too much when we visited the village.

After we left the village, we drove to the Ma Kong river, which separates Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. We rode across the river to Laos, where we visited a very small village. The people in the village had found a little bear in the jungle, and kept it in a fenced in area. They are trying to sell it, but no one has purchased it yet. He was a cute little guy, but we didn’t try to pet him.


Today, we will mainly visit craft shops, as we travel from Chiang Rai to Chaing Mai. I think Mom will have fun—I don’t like shopping that much, so I don’t know how much fun I will have.

We hope you are all doing well. Harrison—keep using the potty! We are proud of you. Also, thanks, kids, for getting all of the thistles out of the yard. Good work!

We love you.

Love,
Mom and Dad