Elephants

Note: the flat kids of 5N went missing on the last day of school! I think they went on vacation without me! If you want me to take a special picture for you that says "hi BOB" in a certain place please email me at anye@rdpsd.ab.ca and I will try my best to do it for you!


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Last we came to Pai, a small town north of Chaingmai via mini van. The road here was only 135km but it had roughly 762 curves in it. (according to the tacky tourist shirts available in town) It took us almost three full hours to get here and it is safe to say, it was slightly terrifying. The driver was going way too fast and the oncoming traffic often looked as though it was an inch from my shoulder!

Our main reason for coming all the way to Pai was to spend the day with the elephants at Thom's elephant camp. This place has great reviews on trip advisor and in the lonely planet guide books so we decided to come here for elephants rather than seeing them in Chiangmai. We rented cute little bungalows on the property and Thom herself, picked us up at the bus stop where we jumped in the back of her truck for the short drive to camp. The camp itself is very nice and we learned that the elephants here have been in Thom's family for many years. We had a meal ( I'll have you know I ate tofu) and then got to bed early.

Today when we woke up we went down to greet the animals and to have breakfast. Even though we are the only guests staying the night at Thom's many other tourists were here and ready to go out on an elephant ride. We were given the option of riding bareback or with a seat. Since we wanted to swim with the elephants, we chose not to use the seats. To get on the elephants, you could either climb up the trunk or, walk up to a high platform and jump on their back from there. We chose the platform! We set off for a ride through a field and then went down to the river to swim! I have to be honest, the elephant was not a comfortable ride! At times going up or down hills was a bit freaky with only a small rope to hold on to. When we went in the water, the elephants really came to life, spraying us with their trunks and shaking us off of them ! I don't have many photos since we were not really supposed to take our cameras on the trail. We bought a cd with good pics on it but here are a few I took myself.










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tigers

Yesterday, we flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. There are many things to see and do here. In fact, I am sorry we don't have a few more days here and may well have to come back another time. We started our adventure with a Tuk-Tuk ride out to the Tiger Kingdom. here we had a fabulous lunch buffet and then went to take pictures with the tigers. Obviously this is not something that would ever happen at home. The tigers are real, they are not drugged and seem well trained but we couldn't help but feel ever so slightly anxious.





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Testing

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The adventure begins!

This morning, I woke up at 5:00am to begin the long journey to Bangkok Thailand where my year long adventure is scheduled to begin. First stop was the Vancouver airport where we had a three hour layover before continuing on to Beijing. The flight from Vancouver to China was 10 hours and I was extremely happy to have a first class seat. I have never travelled first class before and was delighted by the level of service! The seat reclined to a full sleeping position and I was able to watch some good movies and then sleep. I am now waiting in the Beijing airport for the flight to Bangkok. It is now 3:46am in Red Deer so I have almost been traveling for a full 24 hours!

Leaving home was hard stuff! It is never easy to say goodbye to the people that care about you. When I plan these big trips, I never really think about the "leaving" If I did, I might well change my mind and stay home! Anyways, here we go!


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