Chiang Mai adventure, pt. 2

At the end of day 2, we just chilled after we came back into the city. We also had some pretty delicious burritos for dinner. And yes, I almost forgot how delicious burritos were until that point.

Day 3, we had our huge trek. First, the trekking company or whatever picked us up from our hostel and took us to an Orchid Farm. Wasn't terribly exciting, but I got some pretty okay pictures.

A bit too lavender, but GO 'CATS.

Next, we went on our elephant ride at Kaeng Kued elephant camp. Yes, I did have a moral dilemma about riding elephants and was thus super conscious about the ethics of the place we were at. Thankfully, my elephant trainer dude was super nice to my elephant and didn't use the spike thing (a piece of wood with a metal hook attached to the end of it to poke into the elephant's tough skin and make it move) at all. But I did have a huge problem with the camp chaining a baby elephant to a large tree because it was sick and the owners were worried that it would run away if given the opportunity. But regardless, here are some pictures.

At this point, the baby elephant was poking my friends' and my hands with its trunk. It was cute.

After that, we had a nice lunch at a villager's home. Mmm, nothing hits the spot better than mediocre pad thai wrapped in a banana leaf. Then, we had a hike to a waterfall. Along the way, we got to meet some of the hill tribe villagers in the area and walked on sticks literally 5 inches wide. I couldn't handle it... Mostly because I fell pretty early on and something I fell on made a deepish hole in my leg. Oops. So while I was tending to that, I didn't get any good pictures. But the waterfall at the end was super duper, let me assure you.

Finally, we went whitewater rafting!! Definitely my favorite part of the day because rafting gives me fond, fond memories of my family and my time at Camp Broadstone as a kid. Except this time, I was much more blind without my glasses, and we were hitting class 4-5 rapids the entire way. The time we spent was pretty short, though, because the river we were on was flooding and thus wasn't safe for a longer trip. Regardless, it was a great end to the day.

When we arrived back in Chiang Mai, we had amazing Indian food again. Then, we went to a real live Muay Thai fight. We were expecting brutal fights from the best of the best in Thailand, but what we really got was 5 matches involving 12-14 year olds, one match involving 2 women, and one match involving two dudes who were around 16 in a puny stadium in the middle of a dark alley. Here, take a look.

So.. underwhelming to say the least. Except there was one "special match" with 3 Muay Thai teachers blindfolded and just beating the living daylights out of each other. The highlight came when the ref literally did a flying kick towards one blindfolded guy because he kept alternating between wailing on the air and wailing on the ref. I really, really wish I had taken a picture.

Then, we went to a nearby reggae bar because, you know, when in Thailand, right? There, we met up with 2 crazy Burmese girls who worked at the burrito shop we ate at during day 2. We also accidentally met up with the South African man we got in an argument with on day 1. After that, we went to a bar called Spicy under the recommendations of some other farangs in the area. And when I say that there were prostitutes everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE. Sketchiest place by far that I've been to in Thailand so far.

Day 4 was pretty uneventful. We did a Harold & Kumar-esque quest looking for cao niew mamuang (sweet sticky rice with mango) and finally found it after walking around and asking random people for upwards of 1.5 hours. We also had a sub-par chat with a monk at one of the wats we had visited on day 1. Monk Chats are meant to allow monks to practice their English on foreigners and for foreigners to practice their Thai. But what I mean by underwhelming is that he didn't understand the terms for the 4 Noble Truths in English. Nor did he know any terms in Buddhism in English. Ah well. Later, we ended our adventure with pizza and met a completely drugged out guy from Lake Tahoe that had lived in Chiang Mai for the past 3 years. He didn't know a word of Thai, btw.

Then we headed back on the bus for another 12 hour ride. And my mp3 player was broken so... I certainly got a lot of sleep!

Tomorrow, I'm off to Sisaket province and later Ubon Ratchatani province for the water and dams unit. After that, I'll be going to Bangkok to visit my family again as well as a few friends. SO EXCITEDDD. PS. Check my facebook if you want to see more pictures of my adventures! Miss you all!

Chiang Mai adventure, pt. 1

View from Doi Suthep

So FINALLY, after the extremely grueling Unit 3, we got a 4 day break! So 6 of my friends and I went to Chiang Mai, a province in the Northern part of Thailand. It used to be the old capital of the Lanna kingdom but has since degraded into an incredibly cheesy, tourist-y place. But don't get me wrong; the place still has history. Wikipedia it sometime.

After a 12 hour bus ride from Khon Kaen, Jake woke me up as I was about to drool all over his extremely comfortable neck pillow (sorry!). Once we got to our hostel, we decided to walk around and look at a bunch of wats, or temples. Our hostel was a cute little hole-in-the-wall place with a bunch of other foreigners, and we had a 10-bed room to ourselves with a shared bathroom - so 5 bunkbeds. Thus, it was exactly like sleepaway camp. I got the top bunk, as always. SUP CAMP BROADSTONE.

Anyway, right, the wats. They were super pretty! Oh! Maddie and I talked to three teenage-ish monks. They were actually pretty chill, although they thought I was Korean (just like every other Thai person here...). Here are but a few of my many wat pictures.

Wat Pra Singh

Wat Chiang Mun

So after that, we took a sawngtao to Doi Suthep, a mountain wat, and walked around. At the bottom of the mountain, there were tons of little shops and tourist traps. But up on the mountain, it was SO FREAKIN' BEAUTIFUL. You could see all of Chiang Mai as well as a bunch of pretty structures. Without further ado, pictures.

There was a hella ridiculous amount of stairs along the way. It was absurd.

After walking around for a while there, we came back down from the mountain, and we ladies got a massage. But oh-ho-ho, not just any massage - a massage from women prisoners. Yes, for real. There was a famous massage parlour across the street from the women's prison which was advertised in someone's Lonely Planet guidebook.

And the massage? Absolutely delightful. Wanna know what wasn't delightful? The lice that we all got afterwards. When we returned to Khon Kaen 3 days later, Sam and Babz knocked on my door saying it was a semi-emergency. I opened the door and before I knew it, Sam was checking my hair for lice, and I was throwing my sheets and every piece of clothing I own in the washing machine. Thankfully, I only had lice eggs in my hair. So that was an adventure. And hopefully they're all out now, but that was certainly annoying.

Anyway, after that, we got Indian food. Freaking. Indian. Food. We've been living on Thai food for the past two months, so this was a welcome change. And my bowels thanked me afterwards, but you didn't need to know that. Afterwards, we went to the night market and spent way, way too much money. We also got into an argument with a South African man and an Irish man about how America isn't as racist as South Africa or something. I don't really remember because it was an absurd argument.

On the second day, it was kind of a rest day. We started off the day with an Americanish breakfast, where I had poached eggs, toast, and stir fried veggies. I forgot how much I missed toast until I had it that day... And I still crave it. Anyway, after that, we ended up going to the Mae Sa waterfall in Chiang Dao national park. It actually consisted of 10 smaller waterfalls that make up the entire attraction. It was a pretty nice hike (though a little unnatural due to the semi-paved stairs and trails up and down the waterfalls. It was beautiful! After hiking the whole trail, we all split up. I had some great alone time where I looked through all the pictures in my camera and journaled a bit. I came back to the meeting place a bit early and saw 2 of the cutest black kittens I've ever seen. Unfortunately, not all of us were so lucky; Jake lost his camera in the waterfall. :( But that's why I took some pictures! So here! Take a lookee~

Maddie and Babz. Crazy farangs.

Okay, pt. 2 coming up.