The Elephant Nature Park

By far the coolest thing I've done on my trip was to spend an entire day at the Elephant Nature Park just outside of Chiang Mai. To learn more about the organization you can visit their website.
www.elephantnaturefoundation.org
In a nutshell, the organization was stared by Lek (pronounced leak). A Thai woman who has devoted her life to rescuing and rehabilitating Asian Elephants affected by the tourism industry, the logging industry and other abuses. Her goal is to rehabilitate the elephants and re-introduce them to the wild. The foundation receives no help from the government and survives on donations and visitors to the park. In order to spend a day with the elephants each visitor pays 2,500 baht or approximately $85. Best $85 dollars I've spent. Sure I wont be able to eat for a few weeks (joke parents, don't worry) but it was worth it to be apart of the cause ... and to hang out with the elephants all day.

My first Elephant!

So cute!

They just have a bit of space to run around. 

Yep, I am holding a bunch of Bananas feeding the elephants. 

Elephant pondering the meaning of life. 

Bathing the Elephants cause it's so dang hot!

FYI they can bathe themselves too. 

L-O-V-E. 

Dirty Elephants

Massaging the Elephants

Stroking the Elephant. They have these baby hairs all over, and the texture of their skin is like thick, blubbery sandpaper. If that makes any sense. 

So this is Hope. About 5 seconds after this picture he reached his trunk into that little bucket there and then sprayed me. Right in the face. I protected my camera though so no worries. 

The herd! The older elephants are protective of the babies so we couldn't bathe them and we had to wait until it was safe. 

Taking a bath.

Gettin' muddy. 

Climbing the hill. 

The staff person making the mud abandons his post and heads for the hills! The elephant is king of the mountain. 

Baby!

Me and da baby!

Best. Day. Ever. 

Chiang Mai (continued)

Temples, temples EVERYWHERE. There is actually a school in Chiang Mai for Buddhist Monks. I saw a ton of Mini Monks running around with their school books. Turns out, Chiang Mai is a very important place for Thai Monks.
So to continue my story, we decided to look at the noteworthy Wats in Chiang Mai. Now, on a map the square in the center of Chiang Mai looks like a pretty reasonable distance. In reality... well, let's just say it was a lot larger than I had anticipated.

The city center is surrounded by a moat. (No joke). 

So we decided first to stop at a park. I love Thailand's parks.

That's me, chillin' at the park.

After the park, Kallia and I (Canadian I met on the Chiang Mai) made our way to the Wats. The first stop on our Wat tour was Wat Pra Singh formally Wat Lee Chiang. It has been an important Wat in Chiang Mai for 700 years.

Front of Wat Pra Singh

The next, by far, my favorite Temple. It is one of the most important in Chiang Mai and it is very obvious why. We arrived at the perfect time, just as the sun was setting.

Wat Chedi Luang

The entire temple was beautiful but my favorite detail had to be the elephants. There were only a few that are still in tact. 

It is 144 feet wide and 282 feet tall. It was originally the home of the Emerald Buddha which is now in Bangkok in Wat Phra Kaeo next to the Grand Palace. 

Kallia and I noticed a sign advertising "Monk chat" everyday. For some reason I can't remember (probably being raised Catholic) I assumed that the Monks took a vow of silence. "Not true" says the Monk we were chatting with (unfortunately I never got his name). When asked if we, as women, were allowed to talk to them on the street he replied "As long as the Monk can speak English." Har har. So we sat for a while and talked with the Monks, they told us about their daily routine, how they are still at University and told us a few parables that are supposed to encourage us to work through our problems, not to take the easy route and to never be lazy. At the end of our chat I asked if I could have a picture. And that's how this happened:

The most awkward photo of all time.

The next temple we saw was the oldest temple in Chiang Mai and, like the Wat above, showed how important the Elephant is to Thai culture as well as the Buddhist religion in Thailand.

This picture may be a bit low quality because of the lighting, but the importance of this sculpture is that the Buddha is surrounded by Elephants. 

All of the Elephants we saw on our walk was perfect inspiration for our trip to the Elephant Nature Park. 

Final Days in Bangkok/Train to Chiang Mai

As I reached the eighth day of my stay in Bangkok, I finally went to see the reclining Buddha located in Wat Pho (pronounced PO).

There are tons of these structures littering Wat Pho

Buddha's head was almost too big to take a picture of.

See Buddha recline.

Freshly manicured toes.

The bottom of Buddha's feet have mother of pearl engravings on the bottom

Pay the Buddha for good luck.

As this was the final sight I really had my heart on seeing, I felt like I had reached the end of my time in Bangkok. I had visited all the sights, I had wondered quite aimlessly, I had bartered, I had tasted the delicious food and I "enjoyed" an authentic Thai massage (yikes, by the way),  yet I had reserved the hostel for another five nights. The woman I had visited Wat Pho with, and who I had gotten to know over the course of a few days (Ina pronounced E-Na) was planning on taking the train to Chiang Mai that night. In the spirit of adventure and my desire to "go with the flow" I decided to join her. With that I booked my train, booked my hostel, packed my bag, and checked out. *Side note: Bangkok traffic is hideous. From our hostel to the train station, a usual fifteen minute excursion, it took one hour. Thank goodness we had left an hour and a half before our train left.

This is the train. And no the image does not do it justice. 

To give you a picture of what my bunk looked like, just imagine all of my 5 foot 6 inches barely fitting into the upper bunk. Although I have to admit, it was a nice change from flying to be able to "stretch" out and sleep from one destination to the next.

Arrival in Chiang Mai

After approximately fourteen hours on the train we arrived at Chiang Mai. It was refreshing to escape the smog of Bangkok. Once again I found myself surrounded by greenery. The rest of our day was spent wandering the streets of Chiang Mai deciding what our next move would be. 

Chiang Mai is surrounded by what appears to be a moat. 

After walking around practically the entire perimeter of the city, we decided to visit the Wats (Temples). (To be continued...)

Bangkok Round 2: Khaosan Road, Lumpani Park, and Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

Since my first few days in Bangkok, things have been remarkably more enjoyable. I decided to give Bangkok the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps, like me, it was just having a few bad days. I took a more in depth look at the area I'm in (Khaosan) and although I'm still not a big fan, I do see the importance it serves to the community. With so many phalang (Thai name for foreigners) in the area, the tourism industry flourishes. *Fun fact, I've learned how to effectively haggle: pretend you only have a certain amount with you, 3 out the 5 times it worked. I haggled my way down from 650 baht to 300 baht on a pair of hammer pants (300 baht = $10.08). Although, I'm a sucker for old lady vendors, they are too cute. There are a few that where traditional garb and walk around selling bracelets, one of whom saved my life after she pulled me out of the way of a tuk tuk (taxis and tuk tuks will run you over without even blinking). So I gave her 20 baht for a bracelet I could've gotten for like 10 or 15. Oh well, you win some you lose some. 

Khaosan Road: Chaos and tourism. 

After exploring Khaosan, I decided to venture out. I needed a break from the craziness. Dear friends and family be proud of me. I made it from here to Lumpani Park by way of the bus! I wish I had taken a picture of this bus, wooden floors and all. For a whole 7 baht ($0.25) I made it all the way to the park. 

Lumpani Park

In the midst of  the hustle and bustle of Bangkok lies an island of tranquility. Irene and I walked around for a good 20-30 minutes recharging our batteries and taking in the wildlife. We were especially surprised to see what I believe to be a tiny dinosaur (the missing link). 

Look at this tiny monster! And he had a super long tongue. 

 And the first thing we saw when we got to the park was his bro along the way hoppin' onto a paddle boat. He clearly needed a ride somewhere.

Once we had finished our day at the park, we journeyed over to MBK (the largest shopping center in Bangkok, more of a mall than the market shops in Khaosan) to see a man about a phone. And I found one! An unlocked international phone with a sim card that charges 1 baht a minute! What a deal. Great success for the day, met some lovely English boys also traveling and walked back to Khaosan when our bus got stuck in traffic.

By the way Irene is from Switzerland we were exploration buddies for a bit. *Hey dad, she's Swiss! She recognized our last name but apparently the Swiss/German version is Lichti. 

Horrible picture of me. Where did my lips go?

In order to have the more "authentic" Thai experience I wanted to begin with, I went to talk to the hostel staff since I didn't really know who else to ask. After discussing with them a bit, and Irene, we decided to visit the famed Floating Market just to get a picture of how different Bangkok is than other areas. The floating markets open at 5 am and for the first few hours it is mostly locals selling and buying fruit and other food but we didn't leave until 7 am so by the time we arrived it had turned into more tourist shops but the fresh fruit, oh the fresh fruit. 

We took a speed boat to the market. You can actually take one of these into Laos as well (CAN do it. But I can tell you after 10 minutes my bum hurt like no other).

Cute old ladies selling fruit. I wanted so badly to get one of those hats, but I would rather have someone show me how to make them than to buy one. 

Fruit! 

Floating Market from above. Log jam!

This is someone's garden. Lucky them. 

River houses

Apart from being accosted by the Pigeon Master and having my shoes stolen (yes my  shoes were stolen, the hostel said it was the first time that had happened, psht) I'm glad I gave Thailand a second chance. It's pretty neat. 

First Impressions of Bangkok

As some of you know, on my first few days of being in Bangkok I had a little bit of a freak-out. It is chaotic for lack of a better word and although I made a list of things I wanted to see and do, once I got here it seemed far less interesting and far more difficult to accomplish than I had imagined.
On my second day I decided to get out and see at least one thing on my list, The Grand Palace. On my way I was attacked. First by a flock of pigeons then by, what I am assuming was, The Pigeon Master. She seemed like an innocent old Thai woman but (as I later realized) she chased the pigeons and commanded them to fly directly at my face. As I stood there stunned and flailing, she shoved three bags of bird seed into my hand. I politely declined her offer at least 5 times until finally she unwrapped the bag and placed it in my hand then turned my hand over causing the pigeons to attack me again. She then demanded "20 Baht!" to which I replied "What? No." and tried to flee the scene.
Once this traumatic incident had occurred I found a group of people who also looked like they were on their way to the Grand Palace. It was a group of 5 very kind Filipino travelers who let me walk with them into the palace.
The Grand Palace was Grand:

But the thing that struck me the most once I was inside was the fact that it was all so intricate and beautifully done. Each of the tiles on the roof were ceramic and hand glazed. Each wall/pillar had tiny squares of color set in to create a large, well, it kind of looked like a bunch of disco balls the way it was constructed. I know that sounds stupid but I'm trying to give you an idea of how much time and energy went in to the construction of the palace.

I have to say though, my favorite part of the entire palace were the Giant Guardians (or Giant's Guard) that surrounded the palace. I would have to compare them to lawn gnomes. Only much larger. And cooler. And Thai.

For now that's all I've got. I'm going to give Bangkok another shot and hopefully I wont be attacked again. More pictures (and stories) to come!
(Also, I miss you all!)



Here!

After 22 hours of flight/layover I made it to Thailand! The "Convenient Resort" is not living up to the hype of the website but there is a bed and water and internet (barely). That's a girl truly needs. It's 3 a.m. and I'm exhausted but excited to see Bangkok tomorrow in the light!
*Edit: I have a friend living in the room with me. He is a Salamander, I think. Whatevs I've nicknamed him "Sal" and warned him that if there is any funny business tonight, he's out!

Maps of where I will be (Roughly)

I know this is a bit rough but it'll do.

S.E. Asia

The Balkans

Africa