Chiang Mai "Vacation"

If getting sent to Thailand to share the good news wasn’t cool enough, my team got to go on a 4 day excursion to Chiang Mai. Monday and Tuesday was the Buddhist holiday, Khao Phansa, so we did not have to teach and many students had midterms so they would not be able to spend time with us. The best part was, two amazing university students were able to go with us making the trip so much more fun. We left Friday night on a one hour bus ride to Khon Kaen and got on our 12 hour bus ride to Chiang Mai. I unfortunately had one of my most embarrassing but funniest experiences on this trip when I chased down the bus that I had gotten off of to use the restroom only to find out it was just hooking up to drain its septic tank around the corner… but of course not speaking Thai only caused this to be more frustrating and confusing at 3am. After making it to Chiang Mai after circling all of the scary cliffs we went to our (by choice for a cheaper price) non-air conditioned Chang Guesthouse rooms around 10am, we walked down the street and cut a deal with Jack from Green Echo tourist company (I highly recommend) to make sure we did everything we could while we there. We did the night safari that night and it seriously felt like something from Jurassic Park. It was so beautiful and exciting. On Sunday we rode elephants through the rainforest, villages, and the river, walked through a local village where I could not resist buying from two small girls with their arms covered in bracelets (they were good), played in a waterfall, had an awesome lunch with a couple from London, and then got to go rafting on bamboo rafts. It was an absolute terrific day with some awesome tour guides. Then we went to the Sunday night Bazaar which is larger than the rest of the night. Endless rows of markets were formed where Kristen and I searched for hours for all of you special people some really cool things. Unfortunately, we came to realize that we were used to Sarakham markets and lower prices or vendors more willing to haggle their prices down. It was not later until we were in our rooms looking over what we had purchased that we realized it was still incredibly less expensive and nicer than in America. Then came Monday, we got picked up with and brought to the orchid farm. I have never seen so many gorgeous flowers in my life; you could even buy preserved orchid jewelry… I did not though. Then we went whitewater rafting in a river through the rainforest, it was so much fun. We were with five other French people my age so I volunteered to ride on the raft with them and it was so much fun! After another amazing lunch, we started our adventure hike up the mountain to zip line across, or more fittingly, above the rainforest. Next time, I’m looking for a package where you ride an elephant to the top. The zip lining experience included 25 platforms and three Thai guides. It was our team of six Americans, our two Thai friends, and six people from Holland. I was glad our friends were there to translate… sometimes it can be scary when you see people speaking in another language as they are tying yourself to a cable and getting ready to push you off a plank of wood meters above the trees. We ended that night by eating Mexican food (a first in two months) and then spending a few hours in the night market. The whole day was so much fun. Our last day on Tuesday, we were supposed to checkout by 11am but because we had so many bags, our super sweet guesthouse owners let us keep one room to take showers in and a locked storage room for us all to keep our bags in until it was time go to the bus stop. Our day was spent by going to Wat Prathat Doi Suthep. It was actually cool that we went on this day because the holiday was still going on so we saw the rituals happening. After the Doi Suthep, we went to a few more specialty shops such as Baan Celadon (very nice and expensive ceramics) and then we were off to the bus station. After I had realized earlier in the day that my bank card had been stolen and I had to wake up Erica at 4am to help me (so sorry again sis), I was not expecting more things to go wrong. We were told by the bus station employee that we had missed our bus; our tickets were for Monday night and that we would have to buy more tickets and all of the bus were full. Oh Lord, help us, I thought. I was quickly reminded of smiling and keeping my patience even though this posed a serious dilemma seen how I had no money and my team had to be back to teach in 15 hours. Thanks to having our Thai friends with us, they were able to work out where three rode in the floor on one bus leaving in time to get back to teach and the other five of us wait on the 3:45am bus and try to get tickets. The not so great situation quickly became an adventure and knowing someone would be able to teach was comforting so the rest of us walked down the street and found a guesthouse that would rent us an air conditioned room for us all to chill out in until our bus. We got snacked and had a fun time talking and laughing together. We then got to experience the beautiful parts of the drive back to Sarakham in daylight. Thank God for the little things.