amazing and busy day in Chiang Mai

I think I need some new adjectives that are synonymous with amazing because I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but today was truly amazing! Despite being packed with activities, we never felt rushed and even took some time to relax with a coffee this morning and take a dip in the pool this evening.

We woke up to scrambled eggs, bacon and croissants...YUM. Then it was off to visit two temples. The Thai architecture is interesting and the temples are so ornate. The first one we saw had an older part made out of stone that had been partially destroyed by the Burmese, but has been restored enough for us to enjoy looking at it. :) It had carved stone elephants and intimidating dragons on it!

After the temples, we made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up breakfast foods for the rest of the week and enjoyed some delicious iced coffee. We ate a quick lunch at an Italian place and then it was elephant camp time. Our plan was to go back to the house after lunch to drop off groceries and change, but we forgot and were halfway to the park before we remembered. We decided to continue on, so the elephants got to see me in a dress :)

I really enjoyed the elephant camp. When we arrived, there was still time before the show, so we walked toward the elephant feeding area and spent time feeding bananas and sugar cane to the elephants there. It was quite the experience to get so close and actually touch elephants!! Their skin is quite rough with little bristly hairs and their trunks are much stronger than I thought they'd be! The elephants had gotten into the world cup spirit and many had flags of participating countries painted on their foreheads and sides.

After the feeding, we watched the elephants "bathe" in the river. I don't think they'd really do this in the wild, but they were trained to lie down in the water and it was funny to see them with just their trunks sticking out! Then it was show time. These elephants do much more than walk around a ring with someone on their back. They danced, played soccer, challenged an audience member to a game of darts (aiming for balloons), and even painted!! Seriously...the paintings were way better than I could do (I suppose that doesn't say much, but when we get the pics loaded, you'll see!)

When the show was over, we walked around the camp and read a LOT about elephants. We also wandered to the nursery where we saw a mama and baby elephant. The baby was surprisingly little and had much longer hairs all over his back than the adults. He was quite social and came over and let us pet him! We were sad that we had no more bananas to share with him!

We left the elephant camp and decided to pull off the road where we saw a sign for a waterfall. It turned out to be a national park hike with a series of 10 waterfalls. It was definitely my first time hiking in a dress AND I don't think I've sweat THAT much since playing touch rugby with the Bombers on summer evenings in St. Louis...it was like every pore in my body was crying, BUT it was really nice to get out and move and enjoy the beauty of the country! :)

It was quite refreshing to ride back to town in an air conditioned car and when we arrived back at the house, we jumped right into the beautiful pool. (Thanks again to Ton and his family for welcoming us) After a quick dip, we were joined by Ton's mom and sister for dinner at a nice Thai restaurant (tried some dishes of northern Thailand and they were delicious). It feels like we are always full here, but that's cuz all the food is so good!

After dinner, Ton's mom dropped us all off at the Chiang Mai night bazaar where I bought a skirt and a couple other souvenirs (not too much, cuz we still have to pack light!) Then we finished off our walk at a fish spa.

Yes...that's right. A fish spa. Ton's been wanting to try it, so he convinced us to join him. I was...nervous (for a "tough" rugby player, I'm pretty much a wimp). So...we walked in, had our feet washed and then we were sent to the fish tanks...there were seats with lots of pillows and windows for looking out over the night bazaar. I was still not feeling so good about sticking my feet in a tank with a bunch of sucker fish. As you can see in the picture, I kept my feet out until everyone else started! Mari was taunting me A LOT...calling me a wimp and telling me to get tough(all friendly teasing, of course). Ton and his sister were laughing (not at ME, but at the sensation). So, I finally took the plunge...and started squealing. I think I repeated over and over "I do not like this, I do not like this" all the while, laughing and squealing.

After about 10 min, they brought us some juice and I started to get used to the feeling...it was...kind of like putting your feet into a very bubbly jacuzzi or something. I GUESS the idea is that the fish (who do not have teeth, just intense "suckers") feed off the dead skin on your feet. It seems pretty gross, but our feet do actually feel softer :) I even went so far as to put my hands in the tank. Mari was impressed that I got over my initial dislike!

We're back at the house now and it's getting pretty late, so I should head to bed, but a couple side notes...

1) today we tried longong and dragonfruit and loved them both. I'm planning on having dragonfruit for breakfast!

2) I tried to stay up for the Germany v. Spain match and FAILED last night (Mari made it for the first 30 min), BUT we will be watching the final on Monday morning (1:30am) somewhere in Chiang Mai before heading back to Bangkok and then on to somewhere else in Thailand.

ok...I'm failing to sound interesting at this point, so I think it's bed time!

Good night!

-Michelle