For the past couple of days, M & I have had a busy time.
Thursday: We started our trekking tour outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand. I finally got to ride an ELEPHANT! I can now check that off my list of things to do before I die. However, I doubt I'll do it again. I don't like how the elephants were treated :( . We felt a little cheered afterwards because it started to pour and we got to wear our cool 7-11 poncho [muahah]! Then, we hiked through the jungle for several hours. I was given a bamboo walking stick. I named him Marvin! Clumsy me (and the JOR's sit-on-my-butt-for-2-years-lifestyle) made the trek difficult, but it was a good experience. We ended the trek at a tiny mountain village. Ball with some kids, dinner, games, and then sleeeeep. We slept in a little hut that's on a stand. Below us lived a giant pig [haha].
Friday: I walked the (very) short distance to the village church before breakfast. It's a tiny building that's more sturdy and costly than the other houses--stone, roof, glass on the windows rather than a hut of bamboo like all the other houses. Since the village only had 8 families, which the church served, it's was a small place. But it was humbling to see this little house of God in the middle of the jungle on a mountain in northern Thailand. After breakfast, we trekked some more. I wiped out so often and tripped so incessantly, I came out of the jungle with battle scars. It looks like I got in a street fight with a cat! My right arm and hand is badly cut, scraped and bruised. My legs are gloriously scratched-up and mosquito bitten too. We came out of the jungle and went water rafting and bamboo rafting. The water rafting was fun. The bamboo rafting was...interesting. They put all 9 of us in the group on ONE raft. we made the raft sink just enough that it looked like we were sitting in muddy river water. Our trekking group members were fun (especially the two, young, Irish boys [haha]) too. Very glad we did the trekking trip.
Saturday-Monday: We got picked up by the Elephant Nature Park people early in the morning (8am?! Eeek! :D) to begin our 3 day stay at the park. So much that we say and did, so the bigger parts of our stay were:
1. watching really sad documentaries
2. feeding elephants (that really young baby elephants are so cute to feed!)
3. meeting the park's 30+ elephants by family groups
4. bathing the elephants in the river
5. food cooked by the staff (I believe I gained several pounds during our short stay)
6. an elephant trying to slyly steal my fruit while my back was turned during lunch (ha!)
7. getting kissed by an elephant :D
Elephants are such amazing creatures! The terrible lives of the elephants before arriving at this elephant sanctuary has not stopped their present, persistent survival. They're very similar to people in their resilience.
Alas, it's time to part ways with Chiang Mai. It's been such a lovely time. We take the overnight train to Bangkok tonight and sort ourselves out before making our way to Cambodia! In Bangkok, we saw a minature of Ankor Wat at the Grand Palace. In a few days, we'll actually BE there!
Thursday: We started our trekking tour outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand. I finally got to ride an ELEPHANT! I can now check that off my list of things to do before I die. However, I doubt I'll do it again. I don't like how the elephants were treated :( . We felt a little cheered afterwards because it started to pour and we got to wear our cool 7-11 poncho [muahah]! Then, we hiked through the jungle for several hours. I was given a bamboo walking stick. I named him Marvin! Clumsy me (and the JOR's sit-on-my-butt-for-2-years-lifestyle) made the trek difficult, but it was a good experience. We ended the trek at a tiny mountain village. Ball with some kids, dinner, games, and then sleeeeep. We slept in a little hut that's on a stand. Below us lived a giant pig [haha].
Friday: I walked the (very) short distance to the village church before breakfast. It's a tiny building that's more sturdy and costly than the other houses--stone, roof, glass on the windows rather than a hut of bamboo like all the other houses. Since the village only had 8 families, which the church served, it's was a small place. But it was humbling to see this little house of God in the middle of the jungle on a mountain in northern Thailand. After breakfast, we trekked some more. I wiped out so often and tripped so incessantly, I came out of the jungle with battle scars. It looks like I got in a street fight with a cat! My right arm and hand is badly cut, scraped and bruised. My legs are gloriously scratched-up and mosquito bitten too. We came out of the jungle and went water rafting and bamboo rafting. The water rafting was fun. The bamboo rafting was...interesting. They put all 9 of us in the group on ONE raft. we made the raft sink just enough that it looked like we were sitting in muddy river water. Our trekking group members were fun (especially the two, young, Irish boys [haha]) too. Very glad we did the trekking trip.
Saturday-Monday: We got picked up by the Elephant Nature Park people early in the morning (8am?! Eeek! :D) to begin our 3 day stay at the park. So much that we say and did, so the bigger parts of our stay were:
1. watching really sad documentaries
2. feeding elephants (that really young baby elephants are so cute to feed!)
3. meeting the park's 30+ elephants by family groups
4. bathing the elephants in the river
5. food cooked by the staff (I believe I gained several pounds during our short stay)
6. an elephant trying to slyly steal my fruit while my back was turned during lunch (ha!)
7. getting kissed by an elephant :D
Elephants are such amazing creatures! The terrible lives of the elephants before arriving at this elephant sanctuary has not stopped their present, persistent survival. They're very similar to people in their resilience.
Alas, it's time to part ways with Chiang Mai. It's been such a lovely time. We take the overnight train to Bangkok tonight and sort ourselves out before making our way to Cambodia! In Bangkok, we saw a minature of Ankor Wat at the Grand Palace. In a few days, we'll actually BE there!
1 comment:
woahhhh that's SOO COOL!!! you're living the life!
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