Chiang Mai-Elephants

Enroute to Chiang Mai today.  Still a little off on our times we awoke by 5am, stomachs growling. A dead cockroach laying on our table must have fallen out of the toilet paper holder on the counter.  Good news is that it appears to have been dead awhile? Off to our favourite meal of the day..a full breakfast buffet with our favourite fresh fruit and tea. Internet quite sketchy so after a few failed attempts at getting on Facebook or texting, we were able to FaceTime with Jordan. This blog will be our way to communicate with you while we are travelling and allow us to keep a daily diary. We see so many travellers head down on their phones that we have made the decision to enjoy our adventure as device free as possible.

Checked out and headed out to barter with a taxi to get to the Don Meung Arpt for our 1 hour domestic flight North to Chiang Mai. What started out to be a 600 Bhat ride we managed to get down to 300, toll included. 45 mins to Arpt thru back alleys, and short cuts of all kinds. Thank goodness there is no road rage here or it would get very nasty. The driving by cabs , bikers and tuk tuks is best described as insane!   Drivers remain calm and unfazed by the constant cut offs. Kristen in the back seat feeling car sick decided to do a quick seat change with Tracy in the front seat. While stopped at a red light both our doors coming open almost knocked a motorbiker off his bike as he was swerving to go around us. "So sorry"...our cab driver shaking his head, then smiling really not sure what we were doing. Nodding yes to all our questions!

On a side note, really not sure I could get use to this whole spray gun concept in the washroom and the lack of toilet paper in the public washrooms. This combined with the high humidity make in my mind a bad combination.....

Flight smooth and just over an hour. Arrived to a very very hot and humid Chiang Mai. Our hotel is quaint and quiet since it is off season. Unpacked and set out on foot to check out the surrounding area. Rain moved In and after a small shower the humidity rose higher.   Lunch at a small cafe down the road from hotel and then headed out for a walk to find a park. Recognizing the park was much further than we thought we took a tuk tuk and lazed around at park for an hour.   Back to hotel to research the plans for tomorrow's excursion. Kristen and Chelsey had supper at a Japanese restaurant while Tracy walked down the road for a take out pizza (stomach just needing something familiar). Off to a 7 eleven to get some breakfast food as our excursion departs at 6:30am. This was a day of culture shock, exhaustion, heat overload and just not settling in. A lesson learnt...trying to do too much in an environment we are not yet adjusted too.

April 30
Up by 530 to prepare for our Elephant jungle sanctuary excursion.  Departed by 6:30 (try to get moving before the intense heat and we are waking so early anyway).  The promised A/C minivan is an open air half ton truck with seats in the back and a roof. The one hour drive to the sanctuary is actually 2 hours one way of which our friendly driver promises only 20% will be rough while the other 60% smooth??....okay it is Thailand.  We pick up 4 others and begin the journey.

Arriving to our destination off the beaten path we were excited to find 5 tame and friendly female elephants of which 1 is a baby. After a brief lesson on elephants -the differences between Asian elephants and African elephants and how to feed them we are given bunches of bananas and head off to meet them. It was so exhilarating to stand in front and beside these beautiful animals to feed and pet them. We move with the elephants down to the mud pool to pat them down with mud to cool them. Yes we played in the mud pool and rub the lying elephants with mud. Our guides were happy go lucky guys who had great fun playing in the mud and made sure we were all interacting. One elephant dropped a load in this mud hole and the guide scooped up as much as possible with a laundry basket!! The elephants love to have mud rubbed over their thick skin to keep them cool during the day.
I'm pretty sure the mud hole was 50% mud, 30% elephant dung And the rest elephant pee ..
The guides thought they were pretty silly rubbing mud/dung on our backs and splashing us with water.. Even though we knew we were sitting in a pile of mud, we still had lots of fun!! "When in Rome"...

 From here we move to the river where we wash the elephants off and play in the cool water with the elephants. The elephants return back to base camp and we head to the waterfall. The sign says "no swimming". Our guide points this out and then says this means ...we can swim!   Yah. So refreshing. Kristen heads up the side of the waterfall to jump in...twice. We swim and wash ourselves off and head up from the falls to eat a tasty Thai lunch. We are beyond happy with our morning and are Sooo happy that we chose to take a tour that did not condone riding the elephants as Continuous riding breaks down the elephants backs.

After our elephant excursion we hung out by the pool to read and relax.

Took a couple showers and a swim to feel that the elephant dung is cleaned off our bodies. Hah a..

Chilling by the pool was great, we had it to ourselves. Super cute. Then it started to rain. But we sat under shelter by the pool and enjoyed the rain.  Read and swam. We are settling into vacation mode..

We found a neat street lined with restaurants, hostels and travel agencies.
The mango shakes are yyuuummmyy and a must-have with every meal!! Prime mango time :)

The rain was refreshing, we were zonked and in bed by 8:30

A full day! It was such a great experience

Bangkok

We flew Saskatoon to Vancouver to Seoul to Bangkok. The flights were smooth and flying time totalled 18 hours. As excited as we were for our upcoming 3 week adventure, we were able to sleep on the plane. Until we were bombarded by the very efficient Korean stewardesses. We were front row lights out, chair back, sleep masks on, iPods in ears and drool running down each of our faces. Until the 4 stewardesses snuck out from behind their curtains and pounced. They flicked our lights on, popped our chairs up and started frantically reciting our meal choices!! dazed and confused we each woke from our deep sleep to "chicken, or beef or noodles!"..after taking a few seconds to wake up, and figure out what the heck was happening, we decided on our meal choices.
Mom was still a little too shaken from the excitement to eat her meal, and Kristen still had drool coming from her mouth while Chelsey was still pulling the tape off her eye and eye mask up.
In all, we were slightly traumatized, but made out ok :)

Arrived in Bangkok at midnight and time we reached the Rambruttri village plaza and inn it was 130.
Kristen said she was going to Bed! Chelsey wanted To go out. Mom was happy to go to bed but was not about to let Chelsey go venturing out on her own so agreed to tag along. Somehow 3 minutes later, we were all asleep!
awoke to a hot sticky, Bangkok kinda day. Mom was up at 430 stomach growling, she patiently waited for us to to wake up. We enjoyed our first free breakfast of eggs, oatmeal, egg fried rice, fruit and tea! Delicious

We went for a walk down the quiet road to stretch out legs and check out the area. We are in a touristy, but energetic area.

After regrouping and packing a day pack, we ventured out .

We thought we could walk the 15 minute distance to the river to take a river cruise, however we were led in the wrong direction and soon decided to take a tuk tuk to the pier, we got onto a long tail boat which took us for a private hour cruise through Bangkok canals where we saw where locals live, work, play and where tourists stay.. We even slowed down to watch the "jumping fish"- large fish that came to the surface for air flipping and flopping like dolphins,. Soon into our boat ride, a local  Thai man floated up to us in his little kayak with a load of fresh fruit. We tried leeche and pineapple while we enjoying the  scenery.

After the quiet boat ride we visited the tallest Buddha in Bangkok. It was impressive with its gold and detailed offerings alongside. 32 meters tall, 24 carot gold on the outside.

We got suckered into the (Classic)Bangkok tuk tuk deal..check out a couple sights and go to a suit shop for a look around. The tuk tuk driver gets a tank of gas every time he brings customers to the shop. Often times the customers end up getting measured up for tailor made outfits . And we get a half price tuk tuk ride. We pleasantly enjoyed the air conditioned shop, told them Kristen was getting married so we were looking for possible wedding dress and mother of the bride dress but after the required 5 minute stay we left the shop. A win win for everyone but the suit shop.

We ventured back for lunch and a swim at the  Rambuttri  Hotel pool to cool down, mom and I had our first mango shake and pad Thai. Kristen ordered a pesto vegetarian dish which ended up being too soaked in butter. Good decision not to eat that!

The swim was on our roof top hotel which was was a great break from busy Bangkok. Refreshing.

Already tired and stimulation overload, we went back for a 2hour nap. Well  needed after 36 hours of travel the night prior. Kristen not needing a nap did a work out!

Then we mustered up the courage for koh san road!! loud, exciting, stinky, busy, crowded, fun, shopping, food, people, ...lots to see and experience. We opted for pizza for supper tonight. We carried on shopping and in one open air shop something scurried across the floor only a few feet from us and into a hole in the wall. Yup, you guessed it. Rat viewing #1. Later in the evening cutting thru a back alley we saw yet another in the garbage. After making a few purchases we ventured back to our quiet road where we indulged in a Thai and oil massage.

Kristen and I got a thai massage consisting of pressure points and twisting and cracking. Kristen cracked lots ,mom enjoyed her oil massage (opting out of the twisting and cracking massage!) Each $250 B which is about 10 $ for a one hour massage! Tea and a cookie and we were on our way.

Prior to the trip Ashton had written out directions on how to locate the suit shop that him and his groomsmen had come to, to have their suite made for the wedding in 2013. Manu was the name of the tailor who had measured up the boys and made their suits. Three years later us gals were able to locate the exact store where the boys had been measured up. We met Manu and gave him a photo of the wedding party. He smiled with glee and remembered "Austen" and all the guys who "drank a lot of beer" inbetween suite fittings. ;) it was pretty cool to meet Manu and his family.

Another wander along the roads which came alive with music and lights, and people, drinks flowing and thai people selling something everywhere you looked.
We treated ourselves to a coconut ice cream served in a coconut shell with real coconut shavings (yummy)and walked along enjoying the sights. This city brings alive all your senses...

Time for bed! Midnight and Kristen and mom are sawing logs and I'm sore from my massage.
Another day for the books!