So we left the sand and sea to head north into the jungles of Thailand. Recommendations brought us to a city named Chang Mai. It's definitely not a small city but very relaxed with a lot of fun things to do!We arrived by plane and headed to a guest house that two separate people have recommended along our journey. Man were we spoiled!! For very cheap we had a huge room, air conditioning, hot water and a TV that even played shows in English! Sripoom Guesthouse for all you traveling to Chang Mai!! It was so good that we just kept extending our stay and even extended our flight by dropping Hong Kong off the schedule. It'll have to be a separate trip.
Our first day in Chang Mai we signed up for a Thai cooking class!! YAY!! We both love Thai food and now we know how to cook it and cook it well (so come visit and we'll cook for you!)! We were picked up and taken to a local market where we learned about different types of rice and how to prepare them. Also about picking out our other ingredients. The class was held 30 mins out of the city on an organic farm that grew all their own herbs, which we learned about and picked. We spent the day learning how to cook from a cute little Thai lady and then we ate and ate and then cooked some more and ate. Then we took our LEFTOVERS back to the guesthouse and put them in our little fridge (can you believe it, we had a little fridge in our room!!)!! Eventually we ate all those leftovers for snacks and breakfast! YUMMM!!
Our next day in Chang Mai we spent being Mahouts, which means elephant trainers! We were picked up early from our guesthouse and brought to a wholesale banana market to get bananas for our very large friends. I have never seen that many bananas in one place, but we left with buckets full and lots of sugar cane too. From there we headed north for about an hour to a small elephant camp. This place was unique because they only kept 6 elephants and didn't use them for endless tourist trekking but instead used them to train us, I mean we train them no no wait they train us.....So anyway, we spent the morning first gaining the trust of the elephants, insert bananas and sugar cane, then we learned how to get on and off them and next we learned commands to drive our elephants! Kinda like houseback, I mean horseback riding!! This was all very tiring in the hot sun so we took a break for lunch and relax time. After lunch we hopped up on our elephant and put our new skills to use. Did I mention that we had to learn all the commands in Thai? luckily, we had a real Mahout walking near by to help when we couldn't get it right. At the end of our walk we took the elephants right to the river for a bath, their favorite part of the day and ours at this point too. It was sooo hot! We were able to jump right in and scrub the pachyderms while they splashed and sprayed water back. It was a wonderful day!
The next day we were sooo sore from elephant riding that we slept in and relaxed. The afternoon we spent walking around to all the local Wats (temples) and exploring. We even took in a movie at the Cinema, which is a great experience because first, they over air condition the place so that you're shivering and getting hypothermia by the time the previews are done. Second, Thais LOVE their king, so before the movie everyone stands and watches a 5 min. movie about the king, then the real movie plays.
The next day we again took it easy walking around to all the markets and exploring. Mark's tummy wasn't feeling very well so we've been just laying low. Last but not least today we just completed a Thai massage class taught by a little lady named Aree! We learned a ton but left with books and a DVD to learn more. We both need lots of practice so we could use people to practice on when we get home!!
Today we got our visas to Cambodia and plan to head there on the 24th. In a couple hours we're going to hop on a night bus to Bangkok, stay there a day and then catch a bus to Cambodia to explore Angkor Wat (one of the seven man made wonders of the world). We'll be staying at the Golden Temple guesthouse per Nikki's recommendation!! After a few days touring the temples it's back to Bangkok for us then a couple days later home to the good old U. S. A!!
So here they are.....THE PHOTOS!! Enjoy! http://picasaweb.google.com/mhewing/ChiangMaiThailand
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