Made it to Chiang Mai !!

Hi again,

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog, but the Internet connection is a bit hit and miss ! We finally arrived in Chiang Mai on Saturday afternoon. It's a LONG way from Belfast. Here's me and Carolann, one of our teamleaders in Dublin, on our way. 2 long flights and one short one later we finally got to Chang Mai. Here's some of the scenes along the way. That's Jim, out other teamleader along with Carolann in Bangkok.

When we got to Chiang Mai, we had a wonderful welcome from the local Habitat organisation. Almost all of our flight were coming to the Habitat Carter build. We were serenaded by a traditional band, garlanded with flowers and driven to our hotel.

The Habitat Jimmy Carter Work Project is a very big event in Chiang Mai and was signposted and advertised at the airport and all the way into the city.There are 2000 volunteers from 30 countries in ChiangMai for the build.

When we got to our hotel, we were a wee bit tired, so dinner on Satrday night was a quite affair in a local restaurant, where we dined on wonderful Thai food, for about a dollar a head ! and an early night.

On Sunday, we spent the morning walking around the old city, visiting temples and ancient monuments and were taken to the Opening Ceremony for the build in the afternoon. It was a magnificent affair, held at the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek, which is a huge centre, like a massive botanical gardens with a temple. All 2000 volunteers, along with the various dignatories from Thailand, from Habitat Internationally and of course Former President Jimmy ad Rosyln Carter. The event started with wondrful fireworks. Then we had an address from President Carter and some of the other VIPS, followed by a lovely traditional Thai meal, a amazing feat to feed 200 in such style.


Here's H4H Team Belfast at the Open Ceremony. And here we are again at dinner with a new friend, Adrian from Habitat Romania, who enjoyed working with the huge Belfast team on the recent Big Build.

We made our way home at about 9.30 pm ready to start on the main event next morning .....