May 29 – June 2, 2016
Chiang Mai, Thailand
We arrived in Chiang Mai on the evening of the 29th. We stayed at a pretty decent hotel (another SPG property) but not quite as awesome as our hotel in Cambodia. The hotel was right next to the night market and by the time we arrived, we were pretty hungry so we went in search of food. The food we found was not so impressive. The market too, was very much a tourist trap and it was raining off and on. We were starving so we tried out some of the food at the market but were quite dissatisfied. So we decided to have a second dinner! This time we checked reviews and found a really nice spot in the middle of town. The food was much better here.
The next day we had arranged for a cooking class. We were picked up from our hotel early morning and started off with a trip to a local market. Our teacher pointed out some of ingredients commonly used in Thai cooking. Palm sugar is one key ingredient, but now that makes me sad because it probably resulted from destruction of cute forests :-(. It can probably be replaced with regular sugar though. Anyway, after the market we headed to a small farm outside town where we were going to have our cooking class. The most exciting part…we got hats! We cooked a 3/4 course meal outside on a deck/patio type set up. We got to smash some crazy thai chilies in a mortar and pestle for our curry paste, we used fancy new ingredients like galanga, lemongrass, palm sugar and teeny tiny little bitter eggplants and we woked the wok…get it! We got to choose how many thai chilies we wanted, I think we both chose 4…5 was the highest recommended, I believe. Our food was HOT and scrumptious and the mango sticky rice was so yums. The banana soup dish was meh. Probably won’t make that again. We are both now, gourmet Thai food chefs. We can make 1- 1.5 dishes, maybe.
I think that night it rained again and I somehow convinced Lil’ Sun that we should go eat some Japanese food…I was missing Japanese food. We found a place, run by a Japanese lady who had married a Thai man, I think? The food was adequate but nothing to write home about, so I won’t.
The next day was especially exciting because we were going to the elephant sanctuary! Again, we were picked up early the next morning and whisked off to the sanctuary. On the way we stopped at another market where our driver had us try sticky rice on it’s own. It’s surprisingly addictive…something about the texture. Oh and we got some tea, Lil’ Sun got some thai iced tea.
After weaving through some very precarious, winding, mud roads we arrived at the sanctuary. The first step was to change out of our normal tops into our elephant shirts…I don’t know what they are called, but think of the shirt Chris Isaak and his chicky eventually wear in his Wicked Game video. Yeah, we looked as sexy as they did and you’re welcome for the excuse to watch that video. I just used the excuse to watch that video and it seems I don’t remember it correctly because in my mind, at the end there was a color image of them looking like a mundane vacationing couple. Instead, there’s a black and white image where they still look pretty hot. Hmm….anyway! They told us we have to wear these shirts so that the elephants think that we are part of their herd. We started off with feeding the elephants. There were 4 female elephants. One was an old lady (the matriarch), one was a pregnant lady, there was the cute, giant, baby (named Yaya) and her mama. We fed them bananas and sugar cane. The were so sweet. Yaya was just collecting sugar cane from everyone. She only ate them once she had a whole trunk full of them. Silly puppy!
Both of us got elephant kisses from the old lady…it might have been because of our sexy elephant shirts. After feeding, it was time to take a bath. The guides led some of the elephants down to a pond and we followed. No shoes were allowed, so we walked through some elephant dung…and then we realized that the pond was full of elephant dung and the old lady was adding more as we stood there waiting to bathe her. Good times! In the very squishy, dungy pond, we rubbed the mud all over the elephants, to help them exfoliate? I don’t remember why. The bottom of the pond was like quicksand so you would get stuck in place and then when you try to move it’s likely that you’d fall over. It was entertaining to watch. After the mud bath we went down to the stream and did our best to wash off the mud from the elephants. Only, to then watch the elephants throw mud on themselves. I know they need the mud for sunscreen. In light of this, I’m not sure if our bathing process made any sense.
While we were washing the elephants in the stream, the old lady moved away from the group so she was getting ignored but then she seemed jealous that she was not getting attention. So, the guide had to cajole her back to the group so that she wouldn’t feel left out. I don’t know if this was us anthropomorphizing or if the old lady was actually feeling left out. We just went with it. She seemed happy after she got some love. It was a truly marvelous experience. I’m glad that Lil’ Sun found this humane elephant sanctuary that rescues elephants.
Koh Lanta, Thailand
On the 31st of May we headed south for some island hopping. We started off in Koh Lanta, which is one of the less visited islands. And, since May/June is off season, there were almost no tourists there. We flew a different airline this time around and overall found it much nicer than AirAisa but we had a short layover in Bangkok and our luggage did not get on to our flight to Koh Lanta. So we threw the requisite American hissy fit and then went to the hotel and waited for our luggage. The trip there was interesting because we had to van it and then ferry to get to Koh Lanta. We decided to stay at a smaller, more affordable hotel this time around. It wasn’t super fancy but it had air conditioning, it was right off the beach and there was a cute little bar/ restaurant. We chilled at the beach for a couple of drinks and then took a tuk tuk in to town to explore. We wanted to go snorkeling so we went to a few places to price out some options. We settled on a dive group that was taking a few people out for their dive certification and said we could tag along to snorkel. Whoop whoop!
We wanted to eat around there but many of the restaurants were closed for the season and others were because I think it was like 4 in the afternoon. So we wandered around a bit more and figured out how we were going to wander over to Koh Samui eventually. We chatted with the lady that arranges bus trips for a bit, while there was a downpour and then went in search of food again. The places that the lady had recommended were all closed so we just picked a place randomly. It was right on the water and there was a nice deck from where you can watch the island world go by. Lil’ Sun got macked on (do people still say ‘macked on’?) by random smoker dude and then we ran away. Our next objective was to find some mango sticky rice. Did I mention that it was peak mango season and we had an agreement to eat mango everyday or multiple times a day, if necessary. We found a street vendor that was selling it. She was a really nice older lady and she let us sit at her cart to eat our mango sticky rice. We also tried a local treat that was basically a fried crepe with mango inside. It was okay, but the mango sticky rice was amazing! We chatted a bit with the lady that made the crepe, she told us her father was Pakistani like Lil’ Sun and I. She had never been though. After mango we headed back to the hotel. That night we chilled by the beach a bit more and then went to bed early. I didn’t mention this before but our hotel was like a thatched bungalow and our bathroom was outside our room and didn’t have a full roof. And, because it was very wet there were tons of snails, frogs, and bugs. It was kinda cool but also kinda slimey. Oh our luggage finally arrived!
Early the next day we headed off on our snorkeling trip. Luckily it wasn’t cancelled because of rain but as soon as we got on the boat it started pouring. The sky looked really amazing; half was black with rain and the rest bright…very creepy looking. We got breakfast on the boat and continued on to our destination. Our destination was a little island named Koh Bida. Really, is more a giant rock in the ocean than an island. The waters around this island however are rich with life. The diving trainees went in first and then we followed with our guide. Our guide was a very sweet Thai woman who was married to the owner of the dive shop who was German I think. Pretty much as soon as we got in we started seeing cute, colorful fishies. The water was pretty rough so it was murky and visibility was low but we saw the tails, fins, and some of the body of several black tipped reef sharks. It was pretty cool! I believe the Chinese dive students had hired a photographer for the dive. It was their last dive before they got certified. The photographer was kind enough to offer to take our pictures as well. He asked us if we wanted to try a free dive and he would snap some shots. Lil’ Sun is a good swimmer, I am not, so of course she said yes and I also said yes, why not right? So Lil’ Sun did a beautiful free dive and the photographer snapped an amazing, ethereal picture of her coming up from her dive. I went in for my dive, inhaled a bunch of water, got water in my goggles, got like 2 inches down, freaked out and came back up. So, um my picture, not so cool. So, um, I’m not sure what happened to it. In my defense, the water was getting super choppy and a storm was coming in, so it was a bit hard to control the situation. He did get a picture a bit later with us just snorkeling. As the water got more choppy, something, I think plankton, started stinging. It was a very small sting but as the water got more intense the stinging increased. At this point, I saw the panic face on our guide as she told us we’re going to swim really hard and that we need to get back on the boat ASAP. I don’t think we realized it at the time, but I think the water had become dangerous. So we swam as fast as we could against the current and then the guide flagged the boat to come get us. What makes me think the situation was worse than we realize, is that our guide told us afterwards that she was impressed with how calm we remained. Little did she know, we were just clueless. Anyway, we survived. So did the divers, although one of them that was doing an introductory dive looked absolutely petrified. I don’t think she liked it. And with that awesome experience under our belts, we headed back to Koh Lanta.
That night, we got more mango sticky rice from the lady we met the night before. It was still super yummy. It was a short, but amazing couple of days in Koh Lanta. The next day we headed to Koh Samui!
nomadshak 
I know I’m biased but I LOVED this entry! Still waiting for you to come over to make me a gourmet Thai meal showcasing 1-1.5 dishes! 🙂
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This is looks like fun.
I imagine you will get to SA by 2018.
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