Laurie's World

So today was a full day…we were up, done with breakfast and at the temple to meet Riam (our favourite ChiangMai tour guide) by 10:15am. After catching up, we talked about what fun things we might want to do…Sketched out the next few days and then decided to go to Mae Tang Elephant Park. We went there 2 years ago, but it was a great time–so decided to go again. Probably got a little too much sun today…but what else is new?

Here we are waiting for elephant show to begin…

Jackie–Suda is still there painting away : )
I wanted to buy her picture–but restrained myself…We did give her extra treats though–she is 6 years old now!!

Here is BK and Russ riding their elephant…That water looked VERY refreshing–pretty sure it made the elephants happy!

After the elephant trek–we rode in an Ox cart back to the camp. BK was given the reins and she drove the ox most of the way actually…She did a good job given the major differences between driving an ox cart and say, driving Carmen!

After the ox cart brought us back to camp–we went down to the river and got on a bamboo raft for a relaxing leisurely float down the river.

This one was before goofy hats…

and this one was after…

Then–lord help us–they let the kids steer the raft for a bit!! Russ went first…He may have a future in this actually : )
Looks very professional…

Then BK went–the raft went a little off course in the transition between drivers….but it was quickly fixed and we were back on track.

On the way back to ChiangMai from Mae Tang…we went to Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep Rajvoravihara. It is a very special temple way up high on a mountain near ChiangMai that has over 300 steps to get inside. The view of the city from here is fantastic…and the temple itself is gorgeous…all gold. See Troy’s blog for pictures of the view and the temple itself.

The only pictures I actually took were when we were playing this game with some sticks to see what your personal Ancient Chinese Prophecy is. You shake the box of sticks until just one falls out, it has a number on it that you then go to the wall and pull the slip of paper with the same number. Mine said (and I am NOT making this up!) “The 9th number tells that you should not go away”. So what do you think of that?? Sounds like a sign to me…

Brooklyn had a little trouble getting just one stick to fall out–but she eventually got it…

After all this we stopped in town and BK and Russ booked their Thai cooking class. Can’t wait for them to learn all about it. This is BK’s second class now–so no excuse for her to not be cooking Thai at home all the time now…

We ended up up going back to Ginny’s Place for supper–just can not beat their food for quality and price–and we stayed and chatted with Capt Bob for a couple hours. It was nice to see and talk with someone from back home…he has lived in Thailand for 8 years now–but was originally from our neck of the woods (Bellevue)…

TTFN

Hi loyal followers…sorry to drop off the grid…this is usually is what happens when things slow down and i get lazy. Literally all we did today was breakfast, MOVE ROOMS, lunch, pool, massage, supper, bed.

NOW I feel like I am on vacation!!! But feeling a little sleep deprived due to the horrible horrible hard bed…so gonna remedy that soon…

stay tuned

We spent yesterday traveling, so not much to report. We had a relaxing morning…went up to the market for some souvenirs etc. Mr Sawang picked us up around 12:30pm for our 3 hour ride to airport. Arrived in plenty of time…then caught our plane to my favorite place in the world (other than my house).

Chiangmai!!

We checked into our hotel and all seems fine….very fine actually…

We wander out to the streets in search of a light snack (we ate at the airport before getting on plane and had to drop $30 for a meal…almost made me barf!!)

Found a banana pancake stand…yum yum!!

Then went across the street to see Sopa….she is our very favourite place to go for massage here in Chiangmai…well she has moved across the street and a bar has moved into her old place. So the bars here are full of young Thai girls scantily dressed that hook up with older (sometimes very old) fellows. There is a whole way of making money associated with this that is too complicated to explain here…but suffice it to say…it is an industry all its own. Anyway…Troy and I were getting foot massages and there was a show right outside our window…like party central…hard not to watch…but I just closed my eyes and relaxed…I think Troy enjoyed the show. Russ was also getting a massage, but he was laying down and BK was getting her hair cut…needless to say…we will go earlier today so as to enjoy more of a wholesome family environment…

So after all that we came back to hotel to get some sleep…and I have to say sleep was not all it could have been. I am pretty sure we have found the all time…over the top…most rock hard beds in all of Asia!! But…that I can potentially deal with…what was far more challenging was the ding ding ding ding ding ding of the elevator bell ALL NIGHT LONG! So I am not a complainer by nature….but I did go straight down the hotel desk this morning and request they move us. Sounds like this won’t be a problem….so we will see what they come up with for tonight…

I will keep you posted…as I am sure none of you will sleep until you know I am sleeping…

L

We just got back from a most amazing AMAZING day. We went to Erawan Falls. It was a 1.5 hour ride in the Sangtow to get there.

Russ looked pretty comfortable actually…

We then hiked UP about 2.5 kms (although I must admit it felt like a LOT more going up). We stopped along the way to have some fun…

We did see monkeys other than these…but these one were SO MUCH CUTER!!!!!!!

There are 7 tiers of waterfalls…absolutely gorgeous waterfalls and the hike is a 10 star hike.

Not gonna lie–some of the bridges are a little sketchy looking…

There are lots of places to stop and swim/splash/play in the pools. And…it really is a MUST to do this to cool down the core body temperature. I thought I had sweat a lot before…but this was a whole new level of sweating. Let me know if you are tired of hearing about all the sweating we do : )

Then we had to hike down…seems like it would be easier, but given the rough terrain–it had its own challenges…

The path is very au naturel (as in we were hiking through some pretty dense amazing Thai jungle. Unique experience to say the least.

We had a cool drink and some chicken on a stick at the bottom before we started our ride home…

Asked the driver to stop at a fruit stand on the way back to see if we could buy some pomello…that is the new fruit we like that Riam introduced us to last year. It is like a very big grapefruit, but not so sour…YUM! Anyway–he did not know what we were talking about but stopped at three local markets on the way and we looked. We did not find any Pomello until the last one…but we did find many other yummy things to eat. The deep fried potato balls (not their real name), sticky rice and banana in banana leaf (also not real name), some kind of deep fried ground sausage, deep fried banana, these other dessert things that look like a taco but are a bread outside with different fillings (egg, merangue, cucumber). They are sweet and taste very different than you would think–YUM!!

Anyway–seeing a theme with the “deep fried”. They do seem to deep fry a lot of stuff here…not sure at all, how they work over those hot woks…

So seeing a shower, massage and some sleep in my future…we are heading up north to Chiang Mai tomorrow. Mr Sawang is going to come get us and take us to Bangkok airport around 1pm…then we catch a 6:15pm flight to Chiang Mai…could not be happier about this–I LOVE CHIANG MAI!!

TTFN

Gonna work on this blog entry once I get some coffee in me…

OK–done!! So I am going to blog about yesterday–but first let me tell you about my morning. I am sitting in the breakfast room and at 8:26am..it near to perfect here right now. There is a gentle breeze and the temperature seems tolerable–guessing 78-80 and the humidity seems not so bad…so i am going to sit here and blog about yesterday. Just too tired to do it last night.

Yesterday we decided to ride the train to Nam Tok.

This would be the train that runs on the railway constructed with POWs and forced Asian labour I told you about before. We then had prearranged to have a taxi meet us at the last stop and take us to Hellfire Pass, which is the place where the worst atrocities occurred. There was a pass hand cut through the mountains by the labourers. They were forced to work 18 hours days with one small meal of rice per day. Anyway, very very sad and certainly the last sad thing i am going to go see on this vacation…
For those interested in a short history lesson…

http://www.hellfirepass.com/historical_facts_hellfire_pass.html

After an amazing hike through the jungle, we made our way back to the taxi which was actually a Songthew. This is a small pick up that has been modified to have a cover and a shield from the wind…then there are 2 benches in the back and you ride on them.

It was very refreshing–I like riding this way bcz you can see more than from the inside of a car…but if the weather turns, it can be kind of miserable. Fortunatley for us–we had great weather. It did rain on the train ride up–but by the time we got to Nam Tok–it had stopped : )

We then went to Nam Tok Falls…very nice–had a dip in the water to cool our feet. BK and Russ climbed up to get some nice photos of them in the falls. We did not have suits though–so just dipped our feet…

One more stop at the Krasae Cave…Huge cave right along side the railway line…not the most fantastic cave we have seen…but nice to see and tick off the list. Amazing view of the river however…so definitely worth it.

The driver brought us back to Kanchananburi and took us to the south more local area where we had heard about an amazing noodle place from Bea (Troy’s inside Thai connection to Kanchanburi who works at Iyara’s in Redmond). She was right the noodle soup was fantastic…very different flavours than other Thai dishes…we just squeaked in before they closed…so we were lucky to have made it.

Came home to hotel–took dip in pool and then clocked out for the night.

The kids went to pick up our laundry–9 kilos of the sweatiest nastiest laundry ever, I am sure–for only $6…gotta love it!!!

Got a text from Ruby at about 3:44am…she was shopping!! and doing well…must be a day off from diving. Also have heard from Jay–she is still out floating on the water with her Granny and Grandpa–having a great time…they had some rocky water–but survived : )

Miss everyone!!!

L

FIRSTLY–Happy Canada Day to my Friends and family to the North!! We are thinking about you today : )

So we are kinda used to the rain coming from where we come from (Seattle), and Russ having spent a winter on Vancouver Island–same same! But still wish it wouldn’t rain on my vacation…

We started off the day a little slow–did not set the alarm–just as i said we wouldn’t. Had a very nice breakfast at the hotel and were ready to head out to see what Kanchanaburi has to offer around 11:30 or so. Very civilized : )

We wandered down the street toward the Bridge at River Kwai. It is about 900 meters from our hotel…so took about 12 minutes or so to walk it. Explored the bridge for a while…BK, Troy and I were here 2 years ago when we came the first time with the whole family, but Russ had not seen it…there are always new things to see and do however–so we were all entertained…

Here is a picture of us on a Japanese train that the Japanese used to haul ammunition on supplies for their POW camps to build the 415 Km long Death Railway from Burma to Bangkok.

We walked across the bridge also…there are places to step off the rails if a train comes : )

We then hired a longtail boat to give us a ride down the river. It cost 700 baht/$22 USD for a two hour/3 stop tour. It was worth it for the breeze alone!! The stops and scenery were just value add. I was very hot and humid here this morning and early afternoon (more on the weather later).

Personal favorite–Russ enjoying the breeze!!

The first of the three stops on our longtail tour was the Koapoon Cave Temple…On the walk from the boat launch to the caves there were some nice vantage points of the River.

It was really neat, hot and humid and a lot of bats–I have some fabulous video…so no pictures after I went in…

Second stop was the War Cemetary…This is where the skies opened up! So we got very wet!! But it brought the temperature down a little and cooled us off…There are about 1,500 of the over 115,000 who died as part of the building of the Burma to Bangkok Rail during the Japanese occupation of Thailand during WWII. The heavy rain stopped just as we were finishing up here…OK–we were pretty happy about this.

The third stop was the JEATH (Japanese, England, America, Thailand, Holland) War museum. They use this acronym because they feel death “sounds too horrific”. It was built in 1977 to pay hommage to the more than 16,000 POWs and 100,000 forced labourers who died of diseases due to starvation, and lack of medical equipment. There were photos and memorabelia on display. It is unfortunate that the preservation of the artifacts is very poor and likely will not allow them to stay readable for much longer. They do not allow pictures, so i have no photos of this place at all.

So after the tour, we stopped at market area for a mid afternoon snack, pomello, banana chips, chicken on a stick–YUM YUM. then the skies opened up again–but we had to walk to 900 meters (1/2 mile) back to our hotel. So we got soaked…Thus my title today–thanks for listening.