Biking and kayaking for a change

Beloved --
After lunch on the 29th, we drove for about 45 minutes to a pretty plush resort to recover after several nights of "roughing it." (The rooms actually had flushing western style toilets!) Spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool and chatting with my companions about our time with the "hill-tribes."
On Friday morning (1/30) we rode our mountain bikes through villages and by rice paddies along an irrigation ditch to a man-made lake--part of the flood control program protecting Chiang Mai and nearby villages. A one-hour paddle up lake to a floating restaurant. This getaway would be a great place to spend more time. There are guest rooms associated with the restaurant and the water was inviting, despite the algae bloom. The scenery looked like the San Juans with the waterfront trees in full color--for lack of rain we were told.
After a leisurely lunch (will I ever tire of Thai food?), we paddled back down lake to our bikes for the ride back to the resort. Along the way we stopped at the shop/factory of a "coffin maker." He provides elaborately decorated, colorful, and huge structures--with full scale elephants and crocodile motifs--which are paraded through the streets as part of funeral processions and then burned along with the deceased. The ashes are then encrypted in the stupa of choice. The current work was especially oppulent since it was to be used for the funeral of a much beloved and famous monk.
I miss you all and love you,
Jim