From the Land of Smiles...

Chiang Mai Tour

Hey Everybody,

I just want to say Happy New Year to everybody!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but i've been travelling, so that's why...

On December 17th I left for our second Rotary trip...10 days in Chiang Mai and the surrounding areas (thats at the very north of thailand). The day did not start out so well though. Rotary left it completely up to us, and our wallets, to get to Korat (a city 6 hours north by bus from my city) by the night of the 17th. So, Chris, my friend who lives about 2 hours away, and I decided to go up together, because the bus ride would have been long and boring otherwise. Well, he was goign to take a bus to my city, and we were going to go from there, but for some reason he got dropped off in a random city, so I had to get my host sister to drive me up there instead. And then we were supposed to take a bus about 10 minutes later, but it turned out the bus had come a half an hour early, so we had to wait 45 minutes for another one...Eventually we did get there though, just in time to have some dinner and jump on the rotary bus, which broke down for 2 hours about 15 minutes into the trip. I think we're cursed. It was a cool bus though. It was double decker, and the rotarians rode on the bottom, and all the exchange students were on the top.

Okay, i'm going to have to shorten everything down a bit, because the trip was 10 days and we did so much. Also, things may not be in the right order, because all of the days blur together, and we didn't stick to the itinerary... I'll try my best though.

That night we slept on the bus and woke up the next morning when we got to the hotel where we ate, showered and changed before getting back on the bus. Then we went to a mall for lunch and got into song taews that drove us up the mountain to this beautiful temple (many pics to come). Our Song Taew was alot of fun, all girls. Ont the steps leading up to the temple there were lots of people selling things. I bought 2 paintings. They're beautiful, i'm really excited about them. At the temple we walked around, payed respect to the buddhas, and Leslie and I went in and wai-ed to the large buddha. We also got a good luck bracelet and got sprayed with blessed water by the monk there (our paintings got sprayed too, so now they're blessed as well). And then when we were done wai-ing he gave us a thumbs up. It was awsome, especially since we're always afraid that we're doing something wrong. After that we bought a few more things on our way down the mountain, and then took the song taew back for dinner. After dinner we had free time to go to the night market in Chiang Mai (it was down the street from our hotel) and I spent way too much money. But there was alot of really good stuff.

The next day we went to the highest point in thailand. It was beautiful. We rode the song-taews up and were actually above the clouds, which was beautiful. It was a bit cold though. Then we went to see the King's and Queen's Pagoda's. They were beautiful too, but i'm not exactly sure i understand the point of them. Oh well. I did get some very nice pictures. After a lunch of som tam (spicy papaya salad) and sticky rice, we went to the zoo. It was a pretty big zoo, but I still felt really sad for all the animals there. The highlight was supposed to be the panda's, which are on loan from China, but we only saw one of the two, and it was sleeping the whole time. After the zoo we went back to the hotel and changed into nicer clothes because we were going to a dinner show. The food was really good, but the show was a little bit boring. At the end they invited the audience to come onstage and thai dance with them, so basically all the exchange students went up. It was fun, and I think the rotarians liked it (its always a good idea to be on their good side). That night we had more free time to go to the night bazar and hang out.

The next day in the morning we went to a silver factory, and saw them making a bit of silver. It was a bit expensive in the store, even though they gave us 50% off. Then we went to an umbrella factory. It was pretty cool. The awsome thing was that they would paint designs on anything that you wanted. People got them on their pants, jackets, cell phones, purses, guitars, everything. I didn't get anything done though, because i didn't have anything with me that I wanted to paint.

After lunch, which was a buffet (that had pasta!!!), we went to the elephant camp. This was sooo cool. First we saw an elephant show, which included them playing soccer, and painting pictures. They were really good at painting the pictures. I wanted to buy one, but they were about $60 canadian. Then we rode the elephants! It was sooo exciting. It felt so weird, I felt bad for sitting on the elephants back. I wonder how heavy we feel to them? It was alot of fun though, and we went walking through the forest, it was amazing! Then we went to the gift shop and bought some cool stuff. Then we went to our hotel. It was really nice, with the rooms in a bunch of separate buildings. Dinner was really good too. After dinner a bunch of us decided to play pool, well, snooker. It was pretty hard. The table is huge, and all the rules are different. It took us an hour to finish the game, but it was alot of fun. Then we watched the newest Harry Potter on someone's laptops.

The next day in the morning we went to a cave. It was the first cave i've ever been in, so that was really exciting. It was beautiful in there, but I don't think any of my pictures turned out because of the lighting. The cave was a bit touristy. There were lights everywhere an paths set up. I think it was different if you went further in, but we weren't allowed for our "safety". After lunch we were supposed to go right to see the long neck tribes, but for some reason we stopped at an orange orchard. It was really extremely boring, and none of us had any idea why we were there, but the oranges that we bought on our way out were probably the best i've ever had (and usually I don't like thai oranges). Unfortunately, our time at the orange orchard left us with only a little bit of time to see the long necked tribe, so we were really rushed. I felt really bad taking pictures with them though. It almost felt like they were at a zoo or an exhibit or something, something just didn't feel right about it. We did learn though, that they start getting rings on at the age of 5, and get them off when they're 35 or 45 (i can't remember which). And one of the girls was truthfull enough to tell us that wearing them did hurt a little.

The next morning we went to the Golden Triangle. That's a place where you can see Thailand, Laos and Myanmar all along the Mekong River. It was pretty cool. Then we got back on the bus and spent quite a few hours driving to our next hotel. When we got there we went for lunch and then had free time until dinner. Most of us went and walked through the huge market along the Myanmar border. It was just there teasing us the whole time, because we're not allowed to leave the country. Anyways, at one point we reached the bottom of this huge staircase, and a few of us decided to go up. After exhausting ourselves, but reaching the top it turned out to be really beautiful. There were many buddha's, so we payed our respect, and then went to see the giant scorpian statue. I'm really not sure of the significance of it. Then we climbed another little tower and got a beautiful view of the whole city. It was really cool. Then we walked back down and did a bit more shopping on our way back to the hotel. After that we still had some time left, so i took advantage of our beautiful hotel and took a long hot bath. It was so nice. I haven't had a bath in about 6 months. Then we had dinner and went out to the night market. It was alot of fun. At one point we randomly stood in the middle of the street and sang Christmas carols to the thai people. Then we went back to the hotel and had a grilled cheese party. Bailey brought a sandwich maker, so we bought bread and cheese from the 711 and it was great. They were sooo good.

The next morning we reluctantly left the hotel and took mini-buses up another mountain to the Queen Mother's Palace. The ride up was really fun. Annie had the Sound of Music Soundtrack so we blasted it and all sang along at the top of our lungs. Hey, i know you're laughing, but it was fun. The princess mother was the King's mother and she had this huge wooden house at the top of this mountain. It was really boring walking around for so long, but lunch was good. After that we once again got onto the bus for a while and then went on a very long song-taew ride on an incredible curvy road up a mountain. When we finally got to our "resort" at the top we were a little bit dissapointed. There were lots of little cabins, which was cool, but they weren't heated or insulated and everything else was outside. The problem was that it was cold, and they never warned us, so none of us were dressed for it. That night little hill tribe children came and put on a show for us, singing and dancing. It was soo cute. Then we had a very cold night.

The next morning we had to get up really really early to go and see the sunrise. We didn't realize that it meant a song-taew ride and then climbing up a mountain in the dark. And then once we got to the top and waited we saw clouds and more clouds. We all really wished that we could still be sleeping. Luckily we went back to the resort and had breakfast and then had free time, which we all used for a quick nap. then we got back on the buses and drove to the biggest lake in thailand and had lunch there. It wasn't all that impressive for me, coming from living on the great lakes. Then we went to the biggest teak house in Thailand (teak is a type of wood). The house was really big and beautiful, and we met the owner who was this really cute little old thai lady.

Then we drove to our hotel where we had dinner. After dinner there was a piano, well, keyboard on the stage, so a bunch of us played a little, which was fun. But then the band came in so we had to go. That night we all hung out and made many trips to the 711, like all good exchange students do, and spent some time wrapping our secret santa presents. Oh ya, we all did secret santa with all the exchange students so that everyone would have something to open up on Christmas. Oh, and we also decorated the bus that day. Mostly with the decorations that my mom send me (thanks mom!) and then a few other people bought stuff too. It was awsome. Then at midnight that night we all came out of our rooms and there was tons of hugs and everyone wished each other merry christmas!

Christmas morning was obviously very different from Christmas at home, but it wasn't bad. I woke up early and made some phone calls, which was awsome. It was so nice to hear friendly voices on x-mas. Then I went into Annie and Laura's room where we opened out stockings (which had been filled, magically) and opened some presents. It was fun. Then we ran back to our rooms and hurried to get ready to have breakfast and leave the hotel. The breakfast was really good. It may not have been french toast or eggs benedict, but it was still really good. That day we went to Sukhothai. It was the first thai kingdom and is absolutely gorgeous. I could have easily spent hours and hours wandering around it. It was soo hot out that day though. Funny how x-mas was the hottest day of our entire trip. We got onto 2 minibuses that brought us to the first site and they told us that we had 20 minutes to look around. Well, a bunch of us took more than 20 because it was beautiful, so we missed the busses. And then 4 of us decided that we still wanted to see the rest of it, so we rented a backwards tuk-tuk that took us around. First he took us to a wat that was still in the park, but we had to leave it first. That meant we had to pay to get in, but being as awsome as we are, we got the guy to give us the thai price instead of the farang price. The buddha image was beautiful. It was huge, and we spent a little bit too much time there, because we didn't really have time to see much else after that. It was worth it though. And when we got back to the bus it turned out that everyone else hadn't gotten to see this one, so we were really lucky. Then we went to "the white temple". The whole thing was white, as i'm sure you guessed, and it was beautiful. The whole thing isn't finished being built yet, and it was designed by a famous thai artist. Next to the temple there was a gallery, and I bought a print of one of the paintings. Its black and white and I love it. And for about $15 canadian it was an amazing deal.

After that we got on the bus and went to our hotel. The hotel was awsome. It was huge and had a few pools, and our rooms were soo big. Ours had a full wall as windows that looked out onto this swamp. Then we had a bit of time to get all dressed up for Christmas dinner. It was so weird to see everybody all dressed up, but everyone looked really good. Then we had an amazing dinner with almost everything you could want (except mashed potatoes ) and a huge dessert bar. Then rotary had us all pick numbers out of a box and it turned out that the number matched up with a present, so we all got gifts from rotary. I got a really cool lamp. Then we gave the rotarians the presents that we had given them. After that everyone gave out their secret santa gifts. I got another lamp from Meeca, but this one had elephants on it. Then we went and danced because there was a live band. It was alot of fun. The rest of the night was filled with more trips to the 711 and some room service and just hanging out since it was our last night on the tour.

Breakfast the next morning was really good, but it was really sad. We had to say goodbye to Laura, who was going home to the States because her dad is sick. That day I also talked to both my parents and almost my entire family on the phone, which was great. Laura (Collard) also called me, which was really exciting. We stopped at a temple on the way home. It was really nice. I did the shaking stick (fortune thing) and got a really good one. Then we spent the rest of the day on the bus, stopping once for Som Tam for lunch. On the way home all of our oldies said their goodbye speaches (because they're leaving in the next few weeks). It was sad. And then a few other people got up and said speeches about them.

That night we got to Korat and the SriPattana hotel (that one of the rotarians owns) and after some debate and phone calls they said that most of us could stay the night, because it was too late to take buses home. So we all went out for mexican for dinner. Oh, and we fit 14 people in the tuk-tuk on the way there, breaking the 11 people record (which we had also tied during the trip). That was really exciting.

The next morning we all said goodbye and got on buses to go home. It was sad, because even though I knew I'd be seeing some of them for new years in about a week, we'd gotten so much closer on this trip. It felt like we'd been together for a month straight, instead of just 10 days.

-Lauren

posted by Lauren @ 1:14 AM