Farewells

So many emotional goodbyes lately, sitting in the Suvarnabhumi (pronounced "suh-wan-a-poom") Airport in Bangkok about to leave.  Cannot believe it has already been 6 months. Will be a few last updates later from my last week in Bangkok.  Much loveee

Railay

Because this is my last day in Thailand (AH!) this will be a short post.  I recently got back from paradise on Earth, otherwise known as Railay.  It unfortunately rained everyday in the afternoon (un-seasonally, thank you climate change) but we snuck in some rays and kayaking while it was sunny.

Chiang Mai (round two)

12/09/12---
So as promised, I went to Chiang Mai (again).  This time was short and sweet, but good nonetheless.   Our first day we spent at Baan Chang Elephant Park, which is funny because "baan" means house in Thai and "chang" means elephant.  But it was a wonderful, unforgettable experience.  The park has rescued 21 elephants, and has two babies (born from rescued elephants).  The dedicate their money to expanding the park, rescuing elephants, and food/medicine/etc.  Each elephant has a "mahout," which the elephant picks itself which I thought was pretty cool.  We start out with getting a general explanation of how the park runs, and then we get to feed the elephants bananas and sugarcane, which they love.

We then learned how to command the elephants to kneel, and how to climb on them properly.

Anddd then how to ride them, turning left and right, and of course stop.  We then headed on at "hike" through the jungle on our elephants, MK and I sharing and elephant. After our hike we rode them to a pond and "swam" AKA bathed the elephants!  They love the water almost as much as they love food.  They even let us climb on top of them to take pictures (IE: pictures below)

We ended the night with a visit to a night market, where you can buy anything from a toboggan to a soap carving!

12/11/12--

After spending a full day researching algae to finish up our capstone, we woke up and went to Wat Umong, or the Tunnel Temple. Picking a random path upon arrival we stumbled upon the main entrance of the three tunnels, each leading to a central vein that eventually lead out to the top of the tunnels, where there was a large stupa.

After meeting Ty for some khao soy (mentioned in previous Chiang Mai post), we went back to the hostel to clean up and go to dinner at the Riverside restaurant! 

We left the next day to head to Railay, a gorgeous beach near Krabi!

Chiang Mai (round 2) Preview

Jim Thompson + Silom Thai Cooking School

Three posts in one day? Crazy, I know.  I'm leaving tomorrow for Chiang Mai so I wanted to blog about everything before I get too behind!

Yesterday W, her mom, MK, and I took a break from research to do some touristy things.  We have a never-ending list of things we still have to do in Bangkok and after today/traveling I will only have 4 days! Crazy! So, Jim Thompson has been pretty high on the list.

For those of you who don't know, Jim Thompson is pretty much the only famous American from Thailand.  He came to Thailand in the 50's after being discharged from the Army and brought back the Thai silk industry, acquiring fame from the move "The King & I," and soon was sending silk to Vogue to be used in high fashion.  He built an amazing house in Bangkok, however disappeared in a Malaysian jungle in 1967 and has not been seen since.  His family donated his house to be a museum so you can now take guided tours!  You sadly can't take pictures inside but I got a few good ones of the outside.  Along with the house is a nice store selling anything from silk ties to sarongs to boxers!  The prints look like a combo of Vineyard Vines and Kate Spade, it was adorable!

Another item on our checklist was to take a Thai cooking class! So we signed up for one our friend had taken earlier this year, and it was awesome.  The instructor was amazing and the food was delicious! So instead of explaining anything, I'm gonna show you a bunch of pictures. 

Supplies

Coconut, pre-milk

Tom Yum

Fried Cashew Chicken 

Panang Curry

Green Curry Paste in the works

Green Curry

Sticky Rice and Mango!

Chiang Rai

If you guys actually read my last blog post and didn't just look at the pictures (just kidding. not really.) you would notice I skipped a day in Chiang Mai!  That's because we spent it in Chiang Rai!  Betcha guys don't know where that is either.  It's okay.  It's just a different city in the northern part of Thailand.  Tom also conveniently has a friend from undergrad who lives here, and he rented a van to take us around all week so we thought we'd visit him.  His name was somewhat like "Wood."

But first, we stopped by a hot spring!  It smelled disgusting.  Picture rotten eggs.  Which is funny because you could buy eggs there to hard boil in the water.

Next top, Wood's house!  I wasn't really sure what to expect, but we arrived at what was a combination between an agriculture  industrial, and village-like compound, where Wood and all of his family and extended family lives.  They actually produce feed from corn and rice to provide to 7-11!  So he showed us around his land and Tom again translated for us.  A one of a kind experience I will never forget.

We ended the day with a trip to Wat Rong Khun, or "The White Temple."  It is unlike any other temple I have ever seen.  When I sent a pic to my parents they thought it was covered in snow!  Breathtaking.

  

Sorry that was horribly lazy and no description.  But multi-tasking over here.  And about to post three blog posts in one day! Wooooaaaah

Chiang Mai (round one)

This will be a sadly short and not as descriptive as I'd like blog post because I'm busy finishing up my capstone (due in three days) and about to leave to visit Chiang Mai for a second time tomorrow morning! Why am I going twice you ask?  Let me just tell you.

A pretty large group of us headed to Chiang Mai last week, our main motivation the Loy Krathong and Lantern Festival. I'm sure many of you have seen pictures of it on Pinterest, etc.  Our amazing TA (Tom) went along with us to show us the ropes, and we met a few of his friends along the way who were overwhelmingly helpful.  My experience would not have been the same without them.  So, here we go.

11/27/2012--

We took (the nicest) night bus there, arriving a quick 10ish hours later.  Our first day we spent mainly exploring temples around our guest house, and meeting Tom's friend who lives in Chiang Mai- Nam Tan, or "Sugar."  She effortlessly guided us to some awesome temples and Tom translated her brief tour guide to us.

Our first temple, Wat Phra Sing, was a small complex of temples and even had a dormitory-style building next to it where we watched monks have a lantern contest.  I even saw a monk playing on an iPad.

Our next temple was Wat Chedi Luang, a ruin-like temple that reminded me of Cambodia.  You can see in the picture below that they paved over the steep steps with concrete so it is now a slope.  There were other newer temples built around it where we saw monks walked to and from.  We also saw a female monk, which is somewhat rare.  

We stopped for lunch and headed back for a quick nap sesh and then set out for dinner.  Sugar took us to an amazing noodle place for lunch that served "khao soy," rice-noodles with a curry-like broth.  Very different from the food served in Central Thailand where I live.  For dinner we went to a Thai-style buffet, meaning you cook it yourself.
After dinner we bought some sparklers and fireworks and had fun!  Much different than the firework situation in NC (obviously).

We ended the night by buying supplies for our "krathongs."  Krathongs are these little boat-like things made solely from banana trees and flowers.  You float them down the river on the night of Loy Krathong to ask the river goddess for forgiveness of your use/abuse of water.  Pretty cool dudes!  But we decided instead of buying them we wanted to make our own. Way cooler. 

11/28/2012--

We got to an early start heading to Doi Suthep temple, which is a temple on the side of a mountain in Chiang Mai.  We walked up the main entrance to see thousands of stairs to climb to reach the top.  I'm not sure if I've posted this or not but the ridiculous stairs at temples in Southeast Asia are because attaining a high level of "holiness" (or whatever you'd like to call it) is supposed to be difficult. 

We walked through the entrance and were blinded, by both the clouds that we were seemingly in at the top, and the light reflecting off all the gold in the temple. 

Our next stop of the day was Bhubing Palace, which is apparently where the royal family vacations during the winter.  It is basically a few buildings surrounded by beautiful gardens, I saw flowers I had never seen before!  

Our last stop of the day before night activities was a cool temple where we made our krathongs.  It was exactly what I pictured as a temple before come to Thailand. Surrounded by waterfalls, rocks, and plenty of room for exploring, it was gorgeous. 

Everyone's finished product!

View of the city

We headed back to clean up and eat a quick dinner before started the festivities of the evening, tonight was the main Loy Krathong night!  We went downtown to watch a parade which was super crowded with "farang" (Western tourists) and left to set of our krathongs and lanterns.  Even just walking around the street was a struggle as it was packed and there were 10 of us to keep track of!  We finally found a spot along the river and began lighting our candles, incense, and sparklers on our krathongs and sent them on their way with the rest.

And at last, we went to set off our lanterns!  We wrote "good luck" on each of them (in various languages) and our e-mails in case someone finds them they can e-mail us and tell us where it landed!

11/29/2012--

Today we set off for the Doi Inthanon National Park, where the highest point in Thailand is located! It was about an hour van ride (I fell asleep) and a 50 m walk up some stairs!  But that's not the exciting part.  When we stepped out of the van, after being in 75-100 degree weather for 5 months, it was FREEZING!  We thought it had been cooler in the city, but this was the first time I have been cold in 5 months!  It was 58 degrees F. 

Next we went to the Mae Klang waterfall, which was actually a cool series of waterfalls and a stream.  You weren't allowed to go swimming in it, but you could still walk around on the rocks below.

We ended the day with a dinner at Khum Kantoke, where you eat traditional northern Thai food and watch traditional Thai dances! The food was delicious and the dances and outfits were different than anything I've seen before. 

12/1/2012--

Our last day in Chiang Mai we spent at a couple different markets and the Chiang Mai Zoo!  First, we met Sugar and went to one street where people from the surrounding hill tribes come and sell products they make.  A lot of bright colors and patterns, which are all adorable. 

Taking a break for lunch, we got delicious northern style noodles and headed to another market.  This one mainly selling food! 

a Chiang Mai dessert- think gelatinous 

teaaaa!

Our last stop in Chiang Mai?  The zoo! If you guys don't know, my favorite animals are elephants.  And the first animal we saw....was a mom and baby elephant!!! I was beyond excited.  We also saw some adorable pandas-they have three!

There! Done! I however will be heading BACK to Chiang Mai...tomorrow morning. :)