After a tumultuous couple of months, I decided to take a spring break trip to Thailand. I went with a good friend, Megan, whom I met during a Thanksgiving Day Brunch earlier this year. We booked a guided trip through Intrepid Travel, which I highly recommend for trips around the world. We flew into Bangkok and spent some time exploring the city before our tour began. We ate at many food stalls situated along the streets. The best finds were fresh orange juice and banana roti. We also browsed Khao San Road and wandered into a small shop for a leg and foot massage along with a manicure and pedicure....and if you can believe it, it only cost $7! We also got scammed...we were wandering around in the 100 degree weather until finally deciding to take a ride with a pushy Tuk Tuk driver. Little did we know that he was charging so little because he wanted us to stop several times to browse at fabrics and jewels. We only paid 5 Baht for the whole day's ride, but stopped at more than 4 shops. Our driver claimed that when we browsed, he got money for gas...but we got sick of browsing. So, when I finally stood up to the driver, he went from super friendly to super cranky and dropped us off 2 blocks from our destination. We got back to our hotel after that and met up with our group. There were 11 of us from the US, Canada, and Australia. There was even another teacher from the Department of Defense on our trip. The next morning, we loaded on a bus for a 6 hour drive to Sukhothai.
We arrived in Sukhothai where we had time to wonder for awhile before our full body Thai massage with oil. It lasted 2 hours and was about $14. It was wonderful! Later that night, we wondered to a local night market for some dinner. There, I had hundred year eggs and pad thai...which coincidentally isn't so good in Thailand. I actually can't wait to get home to Springfield to have some delicious food at Magic Kitchen! On our full day tour, we biked to numerous temples and ruins, including Wat Mahthat, Wat Di Sawai, and Wat Si Chum. The next day, we loaded into the Songtaew (a truck with 2 benches and a topper) to head to Lampang.
Once in Lampang, the water fighting began. It was the Thai New Year and the celebration has no mercy on anyone...children, elderly folks, monks...everyone gets clobbered with water. The story behind the celebration is that April is the culmination of the hot months. It is, in fact, the hottest month of the year in Thailand. After the long, hot season, they celebrate the New Year by throwing water on everyone to welcome the wet season, which is May-June. We stayed at the River Side Guesthouse, which was beautiful. We also enjoyed another night market and festival downtown. We didn't get to spend much time here, but I loved the atmosphere!
The next morning, we went to the Elephant Conservation Center. It was amazing to see all the elephants together. I did have a problem with the fact that they were being exploited, but came to terms with the fact that they are so expensive to feed and take care of that many places cannot afford to take them into custody. So, they do seem well cared for and they aren't abused as far as I could tell. We watched them paint pictures, which was quite amazing and then went on an elephant ride for almost an hour through the water and the jungle. Then, we went to the Dung Paper Factory and had the chance to make little dung balls into paper...only two of us tried it. Next, we went to my favorite place, the Elephant Hospital. There were many elephants there mainly because they often step on land mines near the Burmese border. They are used for illegal logging and there are still many mines left from the war so many years ago. It was interesting to meet the elephants and see that doctors were making prosthetic legs for them to use. My two favorites were Motala and Mosha. They are supposedly famous, and have been on television if you'd like to look them up. During the experience with the elephants, the sky opened up and it poured for about 2 hours. We took this time to join in on the water fighting fun since we were already wet. We had super soakers in the back of our songtaew and spent our time in transit as covert op forces, seeking and destroying our unsuspecting victims. We took several people by surprise, because they weren't used to foreigners participating. Usually, we are just the targets. On our way to the homestay, we stopped at a hot spring, Sankampaeng. We dipped our feet in the hot spring and cooked some eggs too. After relaxing, we headed off to our homestay with Aoi and her family. We had a Khantoke dinner and a performance by local children. We even got to try our hand at playing the local instruments.
The next morning, we woke up early to take an offering of food to the local monks. We learned that women are not allowed to speak to or touch the monk. So, when we were putting the offering in the bowl, we had to make sure not to touch it either. Afterward, he gave us a little blessing and tied a white string around our left wrists. We continued with a bike ride around the countryside...it was absolutely breathtaking this far north! We saw rice paddies and learned how to separate rice from the husk. We saw a local monastery where the Buddha was constructed in one day. We visited some local families and saw a mushroom farm. And, even sampled some homemade Thai moonshine!
Then, we were off to Chang Mai...where we actually stayed more than one night. We spent a lot of time browsing the markets and night bazaars to get souvenirs. We also went to the famous temple Wat Phra That Doi Suthep where there is rumored to be a bone from the Buddha. Legend has it that during the funeral procession, the elephant was carrying the Buddha's bones and refused to stop anywhere. So, they decided that when the elephant finally stopped, that would be where they would build a temple in honor of the Buddha which would house his remaining bones. So, here the elephant stopped and inside is a very small piece of bone, which I didn't get to see, because no one is allowed inside. It was a beautiful temple...atop a mountain overlooking Chang Mai and up 306 stairs. We got to spend some time just relaxing at the pool and our final activity was a cooking class. I enjoyed making all the foods which I enjoyed so much on the trip. I didn't eat American food once...I ate curries, soups, fish, egg, rice, mango, and many more exotic dishes! At cooking school, I learned that I could almost tolerate the amount of spice as the locals...they seemed very impressed. In fact, I enjoyed more heat than any other person in our group.
It did catch up to me though, as I left the cooking school, I started to feel not so good. Just as our group was boarding a 15 hour overnight train back to Bangkok, I discovered that I was feeling worse and worse. Interesting fact...you can only use the restroom on the train while it is moving, because all the waste just falls through a hole onto the tracks and they don't want their stations to get all stinky. Awesome! So, I was in misery for the final night. Then we got back to Bangkok in time for me to take a short nap and head to the airport. I had to fly back while feeling sick and then had to trek home from the airport, which is hard to do after 8 pm. So, I finally got home at about 1 am and then got up at 5 to head into work. I worked all week in pain and while not eating anything but protein pudding, yum! I finally went to the doctor that Friday night after not eating food for almost a week and discovered that I had a little bacterial hitchhiker climb aboard. After a nice dose of antibiotic, I recovered in about another week. So, here I am feeling better and finally blogging about Thailand! I didn't want to overload the blog with tons of photos, so I just included a link to them on snapfish. Enjoy!
