goodbye Thailand

For our last few days in Thailand, we've done our best to soak up as much of Chiang Mai as possible.  We've gone back and eaten at our favorite places a second time, done some shopping at the Sunday walking market, visited the old city and checked out what's left of the old city wall, Todd fulfilled his promise of eating a scorpion, swam each day at our favorite pool (with a hot tub and cold plunge), went on an early morning adventure to some hot springs (drove 30 minutes up into the mountains in 55 degree weather and nearly froze our fingers and noses off), and ate ourselves into comas at our delicious hotel buffet.

With our trip coming to an end, we are a mixture of happy and sad about it.  We've had so much fun, eaten fantastic food, done zero dishes, swam laps in pools almost every day, had lots of great massages, and explored this wonderful city and culture together.  However, we are pretty excited to sleep in our own beds, to smell the clean (relatively exhaust-free) Hawaii air, see Nana, and say hi to our chickens.

Gordy has said that this is one of his all-time favorite places, and Todd and I both agree.  Till next time Thailand...

so much to be thankful for

Even though Thanksgiving is not much of a holiday in Thailand, our little family of 3 celebrated in our own way - 

First, we enjoyed another morning of a delicious all you can eat breakfast buffet at the hotel.  Gordy may turn into a watermelon / croissant soon due to the number of each that he's been consuming.

Next, we went to our favorite pool to swim laps.  Todd swam 100s, I swam 75s, and Gordy alternated 50s and 75s.  We swan 15 of them and Gordy smashed me on all of his 75s - smashed, not just kinda beat.  After our set, we made good use of the hot tub and cold plunge.  

We followed up the pool with some delicious Thai food in the old city and a stop at a secondhand English book shop.

We decided to really torture ourselves with a gym/weights session in hotel gym and then a short stint in the sauna.

Finally, we walked to a pop-up night market in the back parking lot of the Big C (supermarket) and picked out lots of mysto-foods to try.  We ended up with quite a feast that we enjoyed in our hotel room and then fell asleep with full bellies.

We are all thankful for so much this year - each other, our friends and loved ones, the fact that we are able to go on such a cool trip... we are very lucky.

elephants, elephants and more elephants!

We spent the last two days at an elephant sanctuary called the Elephant Nature Park, which is a place that rescues injured and captive elephants and relocates them to their park.  The park has over 250 acres of land and over 100 elephants!  It costs around 1 million Thai Baht to purchase an elephant on top of the costs of running the sanctuary and food for the elephants (each elephant consumes 10% of their body weight each day), so they provide hands-off tours of the park and overnight stays to make money.  The intent is to allow people to observe the elephants in the most humane and non-zoo atmosphere, and to allow the elephants to live the rest of their lives in a safe space.

Since most of the elephants have been rescued, many of them have injuries (broken legs or hips, feet damaged by land mines, missing tails, large and visible tumors, etc.).  A lot of them are quite old and some of their eyes are life-less from years of torture.  However, there's a new generation of elephants that have been born in the park and these little tykes seem to be full of energy, have no memories of chains and torture, and are quite playful.

We spent our 2-days doing walking tours with a very chatty guide named Pealie (pronounced pee-lee), making an elephant cake out of sticky rice bananas and watermelons, and learning quite a lot about the elephants and their stories.  However, our most special elephant encounter didn't happen during any tours... while on one of our many "break times", we walked down to a little dirt path that was right next to a fence and up walked three elephants.  One of the the elephants tried to take Todd home with her (Todd was not feeling accommodating and so he had to pry her trunk off his hand quite a few times), another was a young rascally one that wanted to play but was put in her place a few times by the grown ones, and the 3rd was a sweet lady named Sanur.  She stayed with us for more than 30 minutes smelling our hands, eating berries that Gordy found for her on the ground, and just checking us out.  Sometimes, we'd all just stand there staring at each other and it was like she was reading our hearts and seeing into our souls.  Those 30-minutes were super special and I don't think we'll forget the experience.

After our time at the sanctuary was complete, we moved onto our last hotel stay - the Khum Phaya Resort.  We haven't even been here for a day, but we are all very happy with our choice.  It may be the nicest resort we've ever stayed at!  Our room has a king bed and a twin bed for Gordy, a jacuzzi bath with jets in our bathroom, a lanai with a step into the hotel pool and a delicious buffet breakfast with fresh fruit, an omelette stand, and tons of other choices.

final days in Nimman

The area that we've been staying in is called Nimman, which is on the north west side of the city outside the old city walls.  The good things about the area: 

- Lots of good / fresh food with tons of vegetarian / vegan options

- Tons of massage parlors with good prices

- Everything is walkable

- Many people speak at least some English

- Good access to 25m and 50m pools

The not so great things about the area include:

- The air almost always smells of car/truck/scooter exhaust

- The international airport is nearby, so loud aircraft flybys are frequent

- There's not a lot of nature to be accessed on foot

- Tons of low-hanging electric wires are strung up everywhere

All of the above being said, we've been thoroughly enjoying our stay in Nimman.  The first 2 days we walked everywhere averaging 12,000 steps per day.  Yesterday, we booked a 2-day scooter rental and have been venturing a bit further and walking a bit less.

We've been achieving our goal of 1 massage per day, have consumed a lot of different types of Thai and Burmese food (including pad thai and green papaya salad), have gotten in pool workouts every day and have visited 2 different night markets.

Today, we decided to head out for an adventure before breakfast to the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.  This is one of the most important temples in Chiang Mai and was built in the 19th Buddhist century.  Legend has it that a monk found one of the Buddha's shoulder bones.  Part of this bone was placed on the back of a white elephant and sent into the jungle.  The elephant is said to have climbed up Doi Suthep to the top, trumpeted 3 times, and then died.  This was interpreted as an omen and the temple was constructed in this place.

To get there, we drove west on our motorbike past the university and then rode back and forth on switchbacks up the mountain to the top.  It took us about 30 minutes total and because it was so early in the morning, the air was quite cold.  But we made it before the tour buses, so we had the place to ourselves for a solid 20 minutes.

After we parked our bike in the parking area, we started up the 306 serpent-lined steps to the temple.  

The temple was beautiful with so much detail on all the buildings and some really great views of the city of Chiang Mai.

Today is our last day in the Nimman area.  So, we are going to celebrate by checking out the Sunday walking street market (in the old city), playing in our hotel pool, and another massage!  

Tomorrow we'll have our last hotel buffet breakfast (we are all still loving it) and then we'll get picked up in a van and transported to the Elephant Nature Park - a sanctuary for rescued elephants.  We have all been really looking forward to this part of the trip and Todd and I can't wait to see Gordy's face when he sees an elephant in real life!

successful 1st day

After our breakfast and hotel pool session, we ventured out into town on foot with a few destinations in mind - a scooter rental shop and second-hand shop / cafe.  We were successful on both fronts with some good scooter options to consider, a nice lunch of fried mushroom balls and a smoothie bowl, and a kids chapter book that only cost 20THB (60cents US).  

Along the way, we also found a few super markets to check out where we got some juice and snacks for our room, a vegan restaurant where we tried some vegan nuggets and a jackfruit curry, and a pharmacy for some nail clippers to trim a tiny monster's talons.  We also found a 25m pool that was only an 8 minute walk from our hotel where Todd and I got a decent swim in.

The real highlight of day, however, was the massage that followed our swim.  We found a small and quiet hole-in-the-wall spa where the manager called in backup to accommodate the 3 of us.  Since this was Gordy's first professional massage, we decided to error on the side of caution and went for a 30 minute back, neck and shoulder massage while Todd splurged for the 60 minute oil option.  Gordy and I were setup side-by-side in a small room on tables where we could face each other.  For most of the massage, his eyes were closed and he had a small smile stretched across his face.  His masseuse was fantastic and was mostly gentle while giving a small amount of solid pressure which Gordy later describe as "she went after it!".  We kept all of our clothes on and the massage mostly consisted of pressure and stretching - we were thrilled.  

At the end of the massage, we were given cups of hot tea and a few small cookies (Gordy got extra cookies because his masseuse loved him) to enjoy while we waited for Todd and the endorphins coursed through our bodies.  Gordy proclaimed that it was the best massage of his life and he's already asking to do 60 minutes next time and wants the full body option.

We finished off the night with another venture into town for a vegetarian Thai dinner that included butterfly pea noodle pad thai, tempe red curry, and crispy banana flower salad.  

Then, we showered and were all asleep by 7:30pm.  We enjoyed ourselves so much that we are planning / hoping for somewhat of a repeat today!

we've arrived in Chiang Mai

After 16.5hrs of in-air time, and a hectic hour-short transfer in Incheon S. Korea, we've finally made it to Chiang Mai, Thailand.  And while the flights were long, they were some of the most comfortable that we've ever experienced thanks to Korean Air's in-flight meals, modifiable window tint, slightly more spacious seat area with a little more legroom than US airlines, free entertainment, and Gordy's favorite perk - disposable slippers.

Todd and I didn't manage to get much sleep on either flight, but Gordy was out cold nearly from take-off to landing on our second flight.  So, he was up bright and early this morning (4:45am) ready for breakfast and some pool time.  And, the breakfast did not disappoint!  We prepaid for the hotel breakfast buffet because of the great reviews that we read online and it turned out to be the best breakfast buffet we've ever had.  The highlights included freshly fried local eggs, a salad bar, fresh fruit (watermelon, papaya, and bananas), waffles with honey-maple syrup and curry-fried rice.

After breakfast, Gordy played in the (cold) pool until his lips turned purple and his body had the shakes.

We haven't figured out what's next on the agenda, but it will likely include a walking adventure to find a motorbike rental, a pool to swim laps, and a massage!

ulu tree

6 months into our Olohio adventure and we finally put an ulu tree into the ground!  Our friends down the road donated it to our farm, and we spent Sunday evening clearing out a dead lime tree and some guinea grass (not california grass) in order to locate it in the perfect spot.  Now we just have to wait 2.5-3 years (according to google) for our fruit to appear!

For those who don't know what an ulu tree is, it's breadfruit.  The large, green fruit grows from the tree branches and can be easily picked with just your hands.  We usually leave it outside to drip it's sap for a night and then we wash it, coat it in olive oil, wrap it in aluminum foil and then bake it at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.  It can then be chopped up and eaten as is (tasting like a potato), or it can be chopped, tossed with spices and more oil, and baked again at a higher temperature to make fries, which is Gordy's favorite.  We also put the fruit on salads once cold, put it in burritos and chilli... it's delicious almost any way you eat it!