More from the Ranch in Chiang Mai

It didn't take long for the kids to come up with a grand plan for Saturday that included horses, a cart, picnic food and a lake. The girls kept talking about riding the horses up to the lake for a picnic and that it was "kids only". We barely let the girls play outside in our fenced in yard alone - let alone ride horses (which they barely knew how to do) to a lake in a completely unknown country with other kids (ages 8 and 11). Much to their dismay, we insisted on trailing behind (on foot), just to make sure they were ok.

The destination....this lake was about a 10 minute walk from the ranch. It's part of the 100 acre property and had a road you could walk around the whole lake. It was quite nice. This mango orchard backs up to the National Park, and normally the view is quite nice, but there was so much haze from all the burning the farmers were doing.

As we walked, I took pics of just about everything....the trees, the flowers, the birds...it's all so different.


This was a giant ant nest lodged up in a tree. I zoomed in for a closer look. Some of these were taken with my phone, so the quality isn't as good.

This fruit was quite large - larger than a grapefruit.

Giant bamboo clumps growing everywhere...

I have no idea what this sign says...this is what I mean by difficult language barrier - they don't even use our alphabet!