Elephant Camp

Yesterday we went to an elephant camp!! During the camp we got to ride a lot, feed, bathe, and play with the elephants! We took a truck for 1 hr and 45 min into the mountains of Chiangmai. When we got there we had a class on how to get on the elephant and tell the elephant to go forward, backward, right, left etc. (But the elephants only listened to the trainers anyway!) 

Bai: Forward

Toi: Backward

Qua: Right

Si: Left

Song: Lift up your leg so I can hop up

Melong: Lie down

Our group

The baby elephant is one year old, so cute! 

She kept trying to steal all my bananas! 

My mom and her friend were on an elephant and my dad and I were on another. Every time the elephant my mom was on got too close to the edge, she would yell "Help!!! Oh no what's he doing now? HELP! How do you say help in Thai?!" but none of the workers would pay attention because they knew she was fine (:

We rode to the river to give our elephants baths, which was about a 45 minute ride. "I thought the Thai massage was painful!" My dad exclaimed as he tried to walk after getting off the elephant.

They are so BIG!

While we ate lunch, tons of chicks and chickens ran around our feet squawking for food. We were eating chicken, so I felt kinda bad, but someone threw some chicken down and they ate it!! :P

No hands!

Walking through the river! As you can see our elephant liked to spray us with any moisture she could find, water, mud, her saliva, (ew) (:

 At the end our elephants gave us kisses goodbye (:

It was a VERY fun time!

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On our way back from the elephant camp, riding in the truck, we noticed a bad smell for a long time that wasn't there when we first drove that way. We all covered our mouths with cloths for about 20 min until the driver finally pulled over. Suddenly, someone said "There is a fire!" so we quickly jumped out of the truck to see that the engine was smoking! Nothing blew up or anything, but we had to wait for 1 hr on the side of the road before another truck could come pick us up. While we were waiting we looked at our arms and saw that there was oil splattered everywhere and some even on my dad's face! Something went wrong with the engine and we all had these black spots all over us. With some soap and water we managed to get most of it off, and after that we got home safely. Thanking God it wasn't any worse than it could have been!!

Tiger Kingdom

 Today we went to Tiger Kingdom! Everyone we talked to and all the reviews said it was a must see if you were in Chiangmai, so we decided to go. 

Up close and personal!

 Mom was kinda freaked out about the whole thing, and when he started to open his mouth it did not help make her any less afraid!

Dad was kinda weary about it too, he didn't want to get too close because they specifically tell you to not go near their face or front paws. Also cats don't usually like my dad (;

I enjoyed the whole time with the tigers, it was really a once in a lifetime experience!

Cooking Class

Today my mom, her friend (Holli Rebney), and I went to a Thai cooking class to learn how to make authentic Thai food.

We were picked up at 8:30am by a songthau, who first drove us to a local market to get supplies. We explored the market learning and seeing all new things.

 Whole chicken...

Pig head...

"Help!" :(

Man cooking some bugs...yum? I did NOT try it!

One of the dishes we made was mangos and sticky rice (my favorite!!), so we got the supplies for it also.

Mangos are needed of course!

For sweet sauce on top of the mangos and sticky rice.

I learned that sticky rice is actually a totally different kind of rice! {Sticky: left, Regular: right}

Once we got everything we needed, we got back on the songthau and went to a farm where we cooked. 

When we first got to the farm we had to right away steam the rice in a bamboo pot since it takes a while. 

My mom and I switched off cooking, she started with making tom yum soup. She also made green chili, and I made cashew chicken, spring rolls, and the mangos and sticky rice.

Green chili ingredients before,

Green chili after.

Most of the things that went in the soup you couldn't eat, they were just for flavor.

While my mom cooked, I explored around the farm taking pictures, and I met a cute Chinese girl named Sophie who I played with when I wasn't cooking! (Her mom and her mom's friends were in the cooking class too.)

Starfruit tree

I took over cooking the green chili after my mom had made all the things to put into it (:

Making mangos and sticky rice

Some of the finished products!!

Can you guess what it is? (;

Tom Yum soup

I really enjoyed cooking and authentic Thai food and eating the finished products in this cooking class. They even gave us a booklet of recipes on what we made today, so I hope to be able to cook some of these things back in the states also!

Night Safari

Since we've been here in Chiangmai, we have just been exploring and checking out the area. We are staying with other missionaries in a 3 floor house/appt. and I sleep on the 3rd floor. It's been fun exploring, but last night we did something more exciting, a night safari! We had tons of fun being up close to the animals (giraffes, zebras, antelope, deer, warthogs, tigers, etc.) and feeding them (not the tiger;). One time I was looking out one side of the tram to find some more animals to feed and couldn't find any, but when I turned around to look on the other side two gigantic giraffes were sticking their heads in right next to my face! I even got to hold a baby white tiger and there are only 100-200 left in the whole world! After the tram ride we walked around looking at various animals like an albino croc, porcupines, pygmy hippos, monkeys, the smallest deer in the world (the size of a small dog!) and many more. This morning we went to a church called Chiangmai Christian Fellowship. I really liked it, and it was cool to see a lot of missionary kids my age from all over the world that spoke English too. On Friday I plan on visiting the school that many of them go to; a Christian school called Grace. Tonight there is a night bizarre right outside of the house we are staying at from about 5pm-12am. I've never been to one before and I'm exited to see what it's like! 

La Cucaracha

 Today we took a 14 hour train ride from Bangkok to Chaing Mai. We enjoyed looking out the window and seeing monkeys running next to the train, people harvesting rice in the fields, and just seeing the beautiful countryside of Thailand. Something we did not enjoy was the cockroaches....ew. When we first began the train ride we didn't see any but as it started to get darker outside they suddenly appeared.  Running down the aisle, crawling up the wall, crawling up my dads arm, creeping and crawling everywhere! We killed over 20, but a lot got away. The aisle was filled with squished cockroaches.We were moving seats again and again hopping all over the train, finding open seats to get away from them. I kept my feet up on the seat off the ground and I was afraid to fall asleep. My parents say it was an experience, and I just say hmm...

Monitor Lizards

The highlight of today was heading out to an oasis amidst the steel and concrete of Bangkok called Lumphini Park. While we were walking around the park, we saw a medium sized lizard laying on the shore of a pond, we thought that was pretty cool so we took a couple pictures and moved on. As we continued to walk we saw another lizard swimming, and then another sleeping and another and another and another! There were about as many as squirrels in a park! They varied from all different sizes, tiny to as big as a small alligator. We googled them when we got back to the hotel and found out that they were monitor lizards. 
We spent much of the remainder of the day walking the streets of Bangkok observing the ways of people in another culture. It appears to be a very hard life for the street merchants having to set up and take down their small stands each day to make a very small profit since so many are trying to sell the same items. Since so few people speak English we are convinced that learning the Thai language is absolutely necessary in order to be able to engage with the people.

More Pictures

At an outdoor restaurant with the Indehars. (Where the cockroaches were crawling under my feet)

Streets of downtown Bangkok.

Getting some fresh Pad Thai, yum.

Mo's burger! :)