adventuresofalifethaim

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 13-15: Shopping, Street Food, and Denial

Here we are: the finale. I’d blame poor wifi for the fact that the last three days of our trip are being combined into a single post, but really I think it’s just me being in denial that it’s over, so I didn’t force myself to write. 

I also find it apropos that this post comes to you at 4am...Jet Lag’s finest hour. 

We spent our last few hours in Phuket with an unceremonious breakfast at the hotel and I said a painful goodbye to my new friend, Tubby the Tortoise.

We caught a shuttle to Phuket airport and had yet another spectacularly efficient experience with Bangkok Airways. They’ve spoiled all other airlines for me. They’re even more amazing given my fresh experience with US Customs, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Bangkok part 2 didn’t have any set plans. We stayed in a different part of the city to experience less of the main tourist areas of the city center. We were enjoying a nice leisurely walk when suddenly Stacey saw a 7 story shopping mall and that was the end. She couldn’t be held back.

Just kidding. This was actually part of our plan :) 

This mall was CRAZY. I’m not lying when I say it’s seven stories.

We tried to tackle floors 1-3 that day. I'm not sure whether to consider the fact that we did a success or a failure. Half of the stores were similar to night market vendors: Thai snacks, shirts, accessories, etc, that you could haggle over a price. Oh, and you can’t forget suits. So many suit shoppes. After saying no to no less than 127 different suit vendors over the last 2 weeks, I finally gave in.

I’m not going to lie. I kind of felt like Iron Man as they assembled the suit on me. Call me “Wool-Poly Blend Man”. Anyway, you can’t complain with $200 for a tailored 3-piece suit, shirt, and tie made in less than 24 hours.

No foreign trip, let alone a foreign shopping trip, would be complete without a trip to the local McDonalds. Things Thailand McDonalds does well: 

Spicy fried chicken

Attempts to be artistic

Things Thailand McDonalds doesn’t do well: 

Everything else.

Fortunately, the 7th floor of the mall had a Charlie Brown Cafe. Let me repeat that in case it didn’t sink in. THEY HAVE A CHARLIE BROWN CAFE.

Things the Charlie Brown Cafe does well:

It exists

Nothing else matters.

No other latte will ever be as good as this one. 

Yes, my rice is shaped like Snoopy. Yes, I was conflicted eating him. Yes, Stacey told me to try and steal the plate. No comment as to whether I did or not.

Other than those two in-mall culinary experiences, we prioritized the rest of our meals for delicious street food.

Pad See Ew with fresh kiwi juice

So many dumplings. Not pictured: Insanely delicious chili sauce (thai peppers and cilantro that was very similar to Hmong kua txob). 

Veggie stir fry with more dumplings and fresh squeezed orange-guava juice. Pictured: that delicious sauce I just talked about. Also pictured: my adorable wife, best friend and greatest adventure buddy ever.

On the trip to the airport, heading home, Stacey asked some good thought probing questions about our feelings about the trip (any regrets, things we did a lot of, etc). It was pretty easy to say that this trip was an incredible success and 2 weeks we will never forget. So many incredible adventures. Elephants. SO much delicious food. Elephants. Pretty cool humans. Elephants. Also, we will NEVER forget our wonderful elephants. 

Retrospective thoughts / advice for anyone wanting to travel to Thailand:

Elephants are magical. You cannot spend too much time loving them. Karen Tribe was so incredible and I’d love to spend more time there.

(Safe) street food is so delicious. We saw so many vendors during our first few days that looked sketchy (and probably were), but it wasn’t until the later half of our trip that we found really clean and decent looking vendors. Prioritize street food for meals over restaurants. We did a pretty great job overall. 

Phuket was great to experience. It was completely different than Bangkok and Chiang Mai, which is what we wanted. Phang *click* Nga bay was beautiful and was the highlight of Phuket for us. However, if I were to plan again and not have to worry about plane ticket prices being $500 more, I’d go to Koh Samui. Phuket beaches are pretty in pictures. Less pretty when you want to play and make sand castles.

Combining the previous two points: Our “resort” in Phuket was advertising a “calm” beach experience, which sounded great. What I failed to realize is that this meant we couldn’t easily find food options. Given a busy beach with great food options, or a quiet beach with limited options, I’d prioritize for food options.

Make time for a floating market. This was probably the only thing we didn’t do that I wish we did.

Get a foot massage every day. You can’t go wrong for 100-150 THB ($3-$5) for a 30 minute massage.

Don’t overbook. One of the best things we did was to have only a single event planned each day. This ensured we 1) had good adventures planned but 2) gave us flexibility to add things as our energy levels allowed. Aside from the floating market, there isn’t anything I felt like we didn’t do, and we never felt like we were rushed. We had the benefit of great friends who traveled before us (Thanks Pogues/Russells!) to help guide us here.

Do research, get advice, but create your own adventure. 

Find a travel buddy who gets excited at little things. Stacey’s smile is what I live for, and seeing her light up when she sees something seemingly inconsequential makes me fall in love with her over and over again. 

It’s now 6am and I need to go to the store for some milk so I can eat some American cereal (maybe I’ll find some Fake Chocolate Chex®). Thank you for following our adventure!

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 12: Sunburns and shopping

Our last full day in Phuket was just what we wanted it to be. No plans and lots of sun. Well, sort of. Enough sun for me to turn pink. But the good kind of pink. Not the “Oh crap I used sun tan oil instead of sunblock in Hawaii” kind of beet red pink. 

We spent a good amount of time at the pool reading fantasy novels. Fantasy for me was wizards and elves and magical swords. Fantasy for Stacey is drama regarding high priced clothing. Potato potato. (I know you didn’t read that like two different words. But now you’re going back and looking at it again and reading it like two different words. Gotcha!)

After my skin was sufficiently sautéed, the sun granted me mercy and gave way to a nice refreshing drizzle. We decided to just stick it out on the beach outside our wonderful villa, which ended being a terrible mistake golden opportunity to listen to our wonderful Chinese neighbor work on his American rap skillz. My favorite was listening to him psuedo-karaoke “Because I Got High”, but have no idea what the lyrics meant. I hope he has a long and illustrious career.

We caught the afternoon shuttle to Patong, because apparently we haven’t had enough people try to peddle suits, tuk-tuk rides, or massages. I almost purchased some fake nike workout clothing. Almost. But then the guy called me “darling” and I just couldn’t trust him to make good judgements with my money. 

The good news of the day is that we found a massive Thai grocery store, so that made Stacey happy. I mean, how can you go wrong in a grocery store that has it’s own mascot?!

While this picture does show how awesome this mighty mouse is at striking a power pose, it doesn’t convey the serious dance moves he(?) was dropping just moments earlier. We wanted to stick around and watch, but then we saw that we weren’t welcome in the store.

Any place that doesn’t allow dumpling isn’t a place I want to be.

After walking around what felt like the whole town just looking for a simple Thai restaurant, we found one that served pretty authentic food.

Fine dining at its finest. Moral of the story. Don’t go to Patong for cuisine. However, you CAN go for massages, because there are 5 massage parlors for every restaurant. I wish was being sarcastic. Well, maybe 20% sarcastic. 

Sarcasm aside, they do magic with their hands.

After realizing we only had 180 THB left in our pockets (about $6), we decided to not wait for the hotel shuttle and just tuk-tuk back and call it a night. But did I mention that Patong is a party city? This means that you can’t just take a tuk-tuk. You have to take a party tuk-tuk.

I’m not even mad.

Fun 🐘 fact of the day: Elephant trunks have over 40,000 muscles (and can lift over 770 lbs), compared to the human body, which only has 639 (I have 634...considering how many sit-ups I’ve done while still not having a 6-pack, I’m convinced I only have a single ab).

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 11: Life’s a beach

Today was the first day we stayed in one place, and it was great. So were all the other days. It’s just been a great collection of awesome days. 

We slept in, had breakfast: oatmeal, pancakes, fruit, omelet, NOT fake chocolate Chex® because some gross dude was using his hands to fish stuff out of his bowl and put it back into the jar. I will forever curse him and his posterity. 

The day then called for some post breakfast chillaxing by the pool, with copious amounts of naked Asian child, despite our best intentions not to see it. I thought he’d just escaped and his parents were surely trying to catch him to put some clothes on him. Nope. They were all fine and dandy with their 4 year old dragging his little wang along the pool bottom. 🙄At least there were awesome statues in the pool.

As part of our “Honeymoon” package, we received a complimentary couples massage. I don’t know if you can call it complimentary when you paid extra for the package, but I guess marketing isn’t subjected to the same rules of conduct as the rest of us. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Anyway, this was Stacey’s first EVER massage (as in, real massage on a massage table).

Needless to say, she enjoyed it.

After a quick power nap and game of 5 crowns (our favorite card game of the trip), we made our way over to The Old Siam restaurant for our “Sunset dinner on the beach” (also part of our honeymoon package), though we couldn’t actually see the sunset and weren’t on the beach...but the dinner was good.

We started off with some delicious drinks, a roselle smoothie and a watermelon fizz.

Note the cozy little bottle of mosquito repellent, courtesy of the restaurant? It was appreciated and necessary.

This was chased by some delicious apps; chicken satay and spring rolls

Followed by the main course of stir fried veggies, green curry with chicken, and stir fry chicken with cashews.

And all tied together with a fresh fruit platter; watermelon, pineapple, dragonfruit, papaya, and mango.

I made Stacey try the papaya. She didn’t like it. 

Tomorrow will be more pool and then we’ll venture to Patong for whatever life chooses to throw our way!

Fun 🐘fact of the day: Elephants love to swim. They will use their trunk like a snorkel in deep water. I wish that Chamhpooh would come swim with me tomorrow at the pool! Then she could spray the naked Asian kids until they ran away.

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 10: Bond, James Bond (Island)

You can’t complain when your day starts off like this:

Phuket, you may have terrible traffic, but your morning views make up for it. Today was our last planned adventure: Sea Kayaking in Phang Nga bay, home to James Bond Island.

We had a little bit of time to kill before they picked us up, so we decided to explore our hotel in the light of day (we arrived around sunset last night, so we didn’t get to really see the beauty of it.)

We had a delicious breakfast (they had bread pudding AND Fake Chocolate Chex®) and then ventured our way to Phuket city where we boarded our super crowded with crazy rich Asians boat (it wasn’t actually that crowded, but there were a lot of crazy rich Asians).

They provided a delicious lunch as we drove out to the islands. The business owner is a former doctor and cancer researcher, and one of his highlights of the trip is the healthy, organic food, which he coins as “the best meal of your entire trip”. I’m not going to lie, it didn’t disappoint. More on the delicious food later.

After a beautiful boat ride, we arrived and boarded our sea kayak, with our trusty guide, Soiree (I actually have no idea how to spell his name, but he was awesome, so from here on out, I’ll just refer to him as “Awesome”).

We traversed through a secret “bat cave” (which Awesome said was because it had bats, but I choose to believe it’s because we’re super heroes), we entered an awesome mangrove.

Where we met some new friends: Franky the Freaky Fish:

And Rafiki

Flora and fauna aside, the geology of the islands was just spectacular.

We made a quick stop in the “Love Room” (because if you look up, the trees form a 💚

And then continued into another lagoon, which was at low tide. 

You could see the ground just crawling with crabs. Stacey thought they were gross at first until I convinced her how tasty they were. I still don’t think she was convinced. 

We then took a quick beach break at what I’m dubbing “Heavenly Beach”, not because it was a cool beach or anything, but specifically because my awesome picture made it look like angels were descending upon the beach as we arrived.

A lot of people opted to get out of the boat and swim. I opted to let Stacey row us around, because I’m a caring husband and want her to be healthy 😅

Don’t worry, I eventually took over.

Watching Stacey row for so long, I got hungry, which was fortunate, because dinner was incredible!

Fresh seafood, with pineapple, massaman curry, and steamed veggies, along with shrimp and onion tempura and some delicious chicken stuff. I may have had seconds. If this wasn’t the best meal of our trip, it was definitely a contender.

While waiting for dinner, Awesome taught us how to make a traditional Thai lantern thingy (Loy Krathong) that they float into the water every year in November during the full moon (and make a wish). He did all the cool designing, we just folded banana leaves.

If you notice, there is a pair of super adorable love birds kissing, in homage to our love. Awesome was very precious.

Once the sun set, we paddled back into the bat cave and lit our lanterns, made our wishes and set them free.

But being eco friendly, we also picked them back up and brought them to the boat, because we love Mother Nature.

As soon as all the lanterns were extinguished, we were given a magnificent show of bioluminescent plankton. Every ripple in the water would create a cascade of light as the plankton released their light for the world to see. And by world, I mean 50 tourists on floating kayaks. But to them, it was the world.

It was an incredible day, with beautiful scenery from start to finish. Tomorrow is a relaxing day with no plans other than our free massage and dinner on the beach!

Fun 🐘 Fact of the Day: Elephants have vibration sensory feeling in their feet and can detect earthquakes (and other elephant movement) from miles away. Apparently, during the 2004 Tsunami, many elephants started fleeing well before the water started receding. That last part may be a myth, but the first part is still a cool fact!

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 9: Phuket, let’s go to Phuket

🐘During the planning phases of our grand adventure, our initial idea was to go to Koh Samui per the recommendation of our great friends. Unfortunately, the money grubbing fat cats of Bangkok Airways (owners of the Koh Samui airport) decided to make it stupidly expensive to fly there from Chiang Mai, so we said, “Phuket, let’s go to Phuket”. So here we are.

Feeling bad about all of the healthy food we’ve been eating, we opted to finally make it to the gym.

Clearly, Stacey hasn’t lost a beat. Me on the other hand...my 6 pack is just being insulated in a cooler. 

After a grueling 30 minute session (15 of which I probably sat on a bench, sweating unnecessarily), we ventured to our last Chiang Mai cuisine house: Cafe de Siam.

Stacey was finally able to get her Thai iced tea that everyone has been talking about. It was the first and the last one she’ll probably get 😅

An uneventful 10 minute ride to the airport later and we were waiting for our flight to Phuket with our trusty luggage, waiting for our next adventure.

Notice the grocery bag attached to the smaller bag next to the bigger bag? Yup, that’s full of snacks. We found a local grocery store last night. Stacey may have gotten a little excited.

I’d like to take another moment to inject a plug for Bangkok Airways (winner of the World’s Best Regional airline: 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018). Our flight was supposed to leave at 2:15. At 2:00 the gate still wasn’t open and we were sure there was no way we were going to leave on time. 17 minutes later we were in the air. It was incredible. I still get chills thinking about it. Not all heroes wear capes.

Speaking of being in the air...

I have a fat crush on clouds. They are majestic and beautiful and anyone who disagrees is a serial killer. 

But anyway, we landed without incident and found our friendly chauffeur waiting to whisk us away to our beach-y paradise.

Actually, he didn’t speak any English and wasn’t our driver. He was just a peon paid to hold a sign and call someone when someone else who may be pretending to be Devin Minson showed up. 

After surviving moderate amounts of traffic (I mean, it’s an island, how can there be so much traffic? *wink*wink*Hawaii*wink*wink*) we made it to our hotel, and were greeted with stunningly delicious hibiscus tea and a romantic welcome to our beachfront room. 

I may or may not have insinuated that we were “recently married”. Hey, if they chose to interpret that as “honeymoon”, that’s on them. 😄

After exploring the beach

And our “outdoor” shower, we realized that there were no restaurants nearby other than the fancy one in the resort. Being the simple people that we are, we just wanted a nice, simple pad thai. But no, they couldn’t just do a pad thai. They had to put a massive prawn on it.

“It has eyes! I didn’t expect it to come with eyes!”

I was tricked into ordering their signature Wagyu burger, winner of “Phuket’s best burger 2018″. I quickly realized there must not have been a lot of competition...

Lesson of the day. We don’t do fancy food well. Fortunately tomorrow we’ll be on a boat. Boats don’t have fancy food, I’m pretty sure there’s a law about that somewhere.

Fun 🐘fact of the day: Happy elephants wag their tails and flap their ears (if you look closely at our previous pictures, all of the elephants near us were happy, because they found their human soul mates). But if their ears are wide and tail is straight up, it means they’re about to open a can of whoop @$$ and you should probably run, even though it wouldn’t do any good cause they will find you...Liam Neeson style.

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 8: An organic, free range, cage free sort of day

Our last full day in Chiang Mai 😢 We mixed it up a little and spent our time with humans. They’re not nearly as awesome as elephants, but some of them know how to cook delicious food, so we decided we should learn how to as well.

We started our Thai cooking adventure at the most legit farmer’s market on this side of the Ping River. 

If you didn’t know, Stacey’s favorite place in the world, besides anywhere elephants are, is the grocery store. She’s really cute this way. Anyway, it was great to finally get to watch her take in all the wonders the Thai agriculture. I’m not going to lie, though, I was a little shocked at how behind they are.

I mean, they still make colored eggs sit in different cartons than the white eggs?! This is 2018 people.

And then when someone asked me what color rice I wanted, I told them I don’t see color. #equality

After getting over the blaring lack of rights for food stuffs, we decided to play a game of “Things we love and things we don’t love.”

Thing we love: mangosteen! 

Thing we don’t love: Unseasoned crickets. What do you think we are, barbarians? “Give me salt or give me death” - Patrick Henry, Jr.

Thing we love: Chips!

Thing no one should love and should be banned from life: Durian. I mean, seriously. It tries to warn you with it’s violent outer shell and increasingly violent inner smell (feel free to turn that line into a rap song). It’s the official fruit of masochism. 

After learning all that was to be learned at the market, we headed over to the Thai Farm Cooking School, Chiang Mai’s premiere organic, free range, asbestos free cooking school. That may or may not be true, but their farm is beautiful and our instructor was pretty skilled with a knife. (Na ha!)

After touring the farm and picking some fresh veggies, we started making our first course of the day: soup! 

Stacey made delicious Tom Yum soup.

I made a more delicious Tom Kha (OK, I’m admittedly subjective because I love Tom Kha soup, but it was really delicious!)

Next up: Spring rolls!

These were far more tasty than they were pretty, the way all food is supposed to be.

Springs rolls were followed by curry, and stir fried chicken and veggies.

Green curry (Stacey), yellow curry (Devin), stir fry (probably Stacey’s cause it looks delicious), and some sticky and non-sticky rice, because we’re equal opportunity rice eaters. Not pictured: some delicious papaya salad that we didn’t make, but was made for us and eaten before I could take a picture. #sorrynotsorry

Final course of the day: Mango sticky rice.

I’m really not sure what all the garnishes are for. I just wanted to eat the mango.

Stacey is so pretty 😍. Oh, and the colorful sticky rice is also pretty neat too.

Stacey’s delectable mango sticky rice.

My plagiarized photo of the instructors mango sticky rice. Mine wasn’t pretty, but I ate it anyway. 

Because we didn’t feel fat enough after all this food, we went back to the night bazaar for one last time to get some chicken satay and Thai shave ice (it would probably help to mention that this was about 5 hours later...) 

I’m not sure how, but the ice tastes like coconut. I have a sneaking suspicion that it rains coconut water in Thailand.

Tomorrow we fly to Phuket for some relaxing beach time. We earned it. Vacationing is hard. 😉

Fun 🐘 fact of the day: Elephants sweat from their cuticles (it’s one of the ways you check to see if they’re healthy). With how hot it’s been here during the last few days, I won’t be surprised if I start sweating from my cuticles.

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 7: 🐘 part ✌🏼, and more bazaar

Oh elephants, how we love you. Today’s agenda called for more elephants (can a day ever be a bad day if that’s the agenda?) Our first elephant escapade (days 5-6) were with the Karen Tribe, and were some of the best moments of our lives. Day 7 would be spent with Patara, a camp designed to rehabilitate and eventually reintroduce elephants back into the wild. Before our trek back up the mountain to the camp, we needed to stop for breakfast because our current super fancy hotel is dumb and doesn’t include it with our stay (-10 points). Unfortunately street vendors aren’t open at 6:45 (talk about terrible customer service), so we walked over to Burger King to see what awesome unique Thai variations they had. They didn’t. Next attempt: McDonalds. Also a fail (are you really surprised?), so we resorted to Starbucks, where at least I was able to get a fancy juice (hibiscus with pomegranate pearls and and mango peach smoothie). At least we got a fancy Thai name for our order!

If that actually says “Buttface” in Thai, I won’t even be mad. Well played barista. Well played.

Similar to Karen Tribe, we spent a good amount of time when we arrived at the Patara camp just playing with a few of the elephants. The resident baby did not disappoint with his playful nature.

We were given the overview...blah, blah, blah, I’ll skip to part where we meet our elephants!

I was paired with Wan Mee, a beautiful 30 year old (what can I say, I like younger women).

As expected, Stacey and Behkoh became BFFs right away. I can’t blame either of them. They’re a beautiful pair. I’m not even jealous. 

I think it’s just because she feeds her treats when no one is looking.

Once Behkoh and Wan Mee saw how adorable Stacey and I were, they agreed we should have a precious double date.

So of course we needed to help them get their hairs done.

Nothing like bathing in super muddy waters to really get that clean feeling. Not pictured: The baby elephant swimming up behind me and pulling me off of Wan Mee. I’m only mad that he swam away before I could dunk him back.

After bathing, it was time for some long, sultry walks in the jungle.

Behkoh really enjoyed the animated stories Stacey would tell her while they were walking. She took really good care of Stacey, making sure no tigers attacked her.

👋🏼👋🏼🐘! We will miss you!

Three days of elephants wasn’t nearly enough time. They truly are the most magnificent beings on this planet. We’re just lucky enough to share it with them.

After getting home and showering for what felt like an hour (that muddy bath was more mud than bath), we ventured out again to try and tackle another corner of the famous Chiang Mai night bazaar.

Starting with some fresh pad thai from a street vendor:

Feeling energized from the delicious cuisine, Stacey felt motivated to finally purchase steal an elephant vest/kimono/thing (she paid $6). 

She’s happy. I’m happy. Tomorrow is cooking class!

Fun 🐘fact of the day: Elephants only sleep for 45 minutes at a time on their side, stand up for 10-15 minutes, then sleep for another 45 minutes on their other side. In total, mature elephants only sleep for ~4 hours per night. Based on my recent sleep patterns, I’m finally beginning to feel like I’ve truly become an elephant!

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 6: Life after Elephants...until tomorrow

Spoiler alert: despite all my prayers and wishes, we weren’t woken up by an elephant trunk coming through our cozy cabin window. However, we did still wake up to the glorious sounds and smells of mountain farm life.

After a delicious breakfast of scrambled fresh chicken eggs, dragon fruit, toast, bacon and sausage, our elephant family came to say good morning.

Little Devin felt bad for bullying Stacey, and sincerely apologized.

Stacey reluctantly accepted. Just look at the smile on his face! He was so happy that he decided to give her a love tap!

We really just couldn’t get enough.

After playing and saying our temporary goodbyes (because we WILL return...someday), Sunday took us to the mountain rice fields to pick rice and Karen cucumbers.

But all good things must come to an end, and we said our goodbyes to the humans that were so generous and hospitable to us, and curated this incredibly magical experience for us.

After the windy trek back down the mountain, we arrived at our new hotel in Chiang Mai, showered, and headed back out to the streets to experience the famous Chiang Mai night bazaar. 

But first, another foot massage (after all, playing with elephants is very taxing!)

As you can imagine, getting a massage leaves you pretty hungry, so we choose the only logical option...street vendors!

“I’d like tres dumplings please. Khop Khun!”

Chicken satay, more Khao soi, and Thai gyozas, which are just normal gyozas, but sold in Thailand!

Tomorrow...more elephants!! But at a different camp. I have to admit, I kind of feel like I’m cheating on Chamhpooh. I hope she’ll forgive me.

Fun 🐘fact of the day, sponsored by our delicious Thai street food vendors: a baby elephants first solid food is their mothers poop. This is because it’s basically pre-digesting sugar cane and grass. Mmmm.

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 5: Dreams do come true

Rather than end today’s post with a fun 🐘 fact of the day, I’ll start with one:

Elephants are the best. And they have accepted Stacey and I as one of their own. It’s a fact.

The topic of today’s post, if you haven’t guessed, is about how inferior humans are to these majestic beings. My mortal mind is incapable of stringing together any combination of words befitting of their glory. But I will try. For you, dear reader.

We started this day (which will forever be known as “The Most Magnificent Day” going forward) with a delicious breakfast at our LOTR themed boutique hotel, Le Charcoa:

Fun fact: I thought I was being funny when I said it was straight out of Middle Earth. Nope. The rooms are actually named after characters from The Hobbit:

Anyway, our friendly Karen Tribe driver picked us up exactly at 7:30, as promised and we made our way 2 hours into the Chiang Mai jungle to the Karen Tribe village where Stacey and I would be initiated into the Elephant tribe AND spend time with some humans who also had some cool culture. But mostly the elephant part.

As soon as we arrived we ran out of the car and were greeted with the magic that dreams are made of.

This is Buchan. He’s the Big Papi of the tribe and loves bananas, and warm hugs.

We spent a good amount of time feeding and getting to know each of the elephants and building a connection (at least that’s what I did). We were then paired with an elephant based on personality. Stacey was matched with Maree (the pregnant one):

I was matched with Chamhpooh, the mother of 👶🏻🐘 Devin! (Ok, his name really was David, but all the tribe people said our names were the same, and I wasn’t going to correct them.)

The best part is that I was also paired with Little Devin! Stacey thought he was a bully (he was), but he was just so playful and always wanted attention (pronounced “food”). 

You just had to keep your head on a swivel because he’d charge you whenever he got a chance!

After I beat him in a wrestling match, he was a little sad, so I had to give him a pep talk.

I may have told him that Stacey had a little crush on him, so it didn’t surprise me that he immediately went and tried to impress her with his incredible acrobatic skills.

Little known fact: Monday is Elephant Spa Day, and it just so happens that Stacey & I know how to give a great elephant scalp massage.

Little Devin was making fun of me, saying that I “missed a spot”, so I dealt with him the same way my brothers dealt with me...

He didn’t think it was funny and decided to go get dirty again.

So we had to have another heart to heart talk.

Once we got them all cleaned, it was time for exercise AKA climbing up the jungle mountain. Because I’m on vacation, Chamhpooh & Maree said they’d carry Stacey and I. We said we’d return the favor if they ever visit Seattle. The only problem was that we had to get up...

Years of parkour served me well, but Stacey....well, let’s just say if at first you fail...

...let the elephant just heave you

And we were off!

We let Little Devin lead the way. 

I told him not to get distracted. He didn’t listen.

After an half hour of riding on the back of an elephant I can understand how Asians can squat so well...

The appetites we worked up from all the rigorous exercise was satiated by a delicious hand prepared lunch of fried chicken, pastries, sticky rice and fruit. 

Despite eating all morning, the beautiful elephants were hungry again, so we had the authentic experience of making herbal medicine with tamarind, salt, pepper, bananas, rice, and some weird bitter green thing using a heavy duty mortar and pestle you powered with your foot at one end while someone stirred/pounded at the other end.

The rest of the group failed to pass elephant initiation and were sent home. This left Stacey and I alone to walk Chamhpooh, Maree, and Little Devin over to the banana fields for more feeding. It’s incredible watching them dismantle the tree trunks in order to eat the juicy center. As always, Little Devin was being a bully and trying to steal bananas.

Or my phone

The evening was spent with the tour leader, Sunday, and his family. Stacey was given woman duty making super meticulous scarves:

and I drove around and visited a bunch of different houses in the village. I just couldn’t help but feel connected imagining this was exactly what a Hmong village was like. The tour leader, Sunday, was the first Christian convert in his village, and we talked a lot about the differences between Shamanism/Animism and Christianity (he spoke English very well, and also a little Hmong, but the tribe spoke their own dialect of Karen). 

We “helped” with dinner, I.e. I helped pluck a few feathers and watched as they gutted a fresh chicken.

Dinner was more delicious fresh vegetable salad and soup, fried rice, chicken, and fresh fruit.

After dinner we were taught how to hunt crickets (which are very delicious apparently). I killed a massive one that could probably star in a Japanese movie.

I just loved experiencing life as a tribal villager, even if it was just for a hot minute. So many life lessons learned in just one day. I take far too much for granted and it was such a precious reminder that happiness is more about who you are with, rather than what you have. I couldn’t have asked for a better best friend, travel buddy, and wife than Stacey. It’s a valuable lesson I will never forget. And elephants. I will never forget my elephants.

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 4: Chiang Mai with bonus foot massage!

Third day of hearty fake chocolate Chex® is in the books! We needed to leave for the airport by 11:30, which left us plenty of time to pamper ourselves with a foot massage. Stacey has now become addicted and don’t be surprised if we end up getting them every day. I won’t be mad.

Our airport cab driver was much less awesome than the human GPS we had on day 0.5, but he definitely thought his attempts at telling jokes in English were funny. His one redeeming quality (aside from getting us to the airport alive): he had the world’s tiniest cell phone!

Stacey may have tried to steal it. It wouldn’t have been that bad of an idea after he overcharged us for the ride and conveniently no longer spoke English.

The flight to Chiang Mai was outstanding. Take note US-based airlines: it has been proven that you can still offer meal service on a flight that is in the air less than 60 minutes! Char siu chicken with chow mein. If Bangkok Airways ever offers Seattle-based flights, I’ll become a frequent flyer.

After checking into our quaint bavarian-styled hotel in Chiang Mai’s old city, we took a walk to the premiere wat in town: Wat Chedi Luong. It’s a massive wat built in the 15th century that was toppled in half in 1544 by an earthquake. Even at half the height it’s still remarkable!

Stacey was cold, so she asked to borrow a shall to protect her cold, heathen shoulders. She’s going to punch me when she reads that. The entire grounds held probably a couple dozen mini temples, each with their own Buddhas.

If you look closely, you can see the super thick wool sarong they made Stacey wear because she was showing her heathen legs.

Like a parent isn’t supposed to have favorite children, you’re not supposed to have a favorite wat. But guess what. It happens. And this one has elephants. So it wins.

Afterwards we walked around and cherished all the adorable school children as they bought sweets from street vendors. Wagering that our immune systems weren’t nearly as strong as theirs, we opted for dinner at a more “healthy” establishment: Poppy’s Kitchen

Devin: Khao Soi with delicious watermelon juice.

Stacey: Pad see ew with elephant juice.

As we finished dinner, a local performer started singing pop music, so we decided to stay for another round of drinks. This time I opted for the absolutely amazing kiwi juice (seriously, they may have put cocaine in it and I’m not even mad).

He’s channeling his inner Bruno Mars.

We finished the night walking back to our hotel. Seriously, this place could be from Middle Earth, but only if Middle Earth had a district for spa treatments.

Elephants tomorrow!! If an elephant sits on me and I die, just know that I died doing what I love: getting squashed by elephants.

Fun 🐘fact of the day: Although the elephant trunk is really huge, weighing about 400 pounds, it is so dexterous it can pick up very tiny things including a single grain of rice. I really hope one of them picks me up with their trunk tomorrow. That’s all I want for my birthday and Christmas presents.

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 3: The Old City, OGs, and rain

Day 3 is our first last full day in Bangkok. Where does the time go? :) We woke up early so I could grub on some more delicious fake chocolate Chex® before our journey up to Ayutthaya. It was just as delicious as I remember.

We joined about 20 other people in two tour vans for the ~1.5 hour drive north to Ayutthaya - the old capital of Thailand. Watching traffic here is mesmerizing. It’s like a school of fish, or a flock of birds. Seemingly random, yet everyone moves in harmonious rhythm. It’s a beautiful thing. Also, their traffic lights have timers so you actually know how long you have. I will use this singular fact to disprove anyone who claims American traffic system is superior. Anyway, I digress.

Our first stop was Wat Phu Khao Thong. Honestly, I don’t remember why it was special (beyond just looking super awesome), but it did have a ton of original Buddhas that they had to remove from the temple while they renovated it. While this seems like an extraneous detail, it actually meant we were able climb the temple!

Next stop was 4th largest reclining Buddha in Thailand! Basically, the history lesson for today is that Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia were always at war with each other, and like burning down each other’s wats, even though they’re all Buddhist. So yeah, lots of mostly destroyed Buddha statues, but still some spectacular history and breathtaking ruins (not sure if “ruins” is actually appropriate here as many of the structures are still considered temples, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

Stop 3 (after enjoying a canned pomegranate juice), Wat Maha Tat, AKA home of the Buddha in a Bodhi Tree.

Aside from the plethora of “getting ‘a head’ in the world” Dad jokes, this place was SO cool! I felt like Nathan Drake and the burden of saving the world rested upon my unique combination of gravity defying parkour skills, curiously large knowledge of archeology, and keen ability to wake up centuries old monsters that rest below sacred Southeast Asian sites. If you can’t tell, I REALLY enjoy the Uncharted game series...

Final stop of the tour was Wat Phra Si Sanphet, which was equally as cool as Wat Maha Tat, but in different ways, because I don’t want the Wats getting jealous of each other.

There was also a new non-temple building (something about monks not living there). I preferred looking at Stacey, but the building is pretty too. 

It wouldn’t be an Authentic Thai experience if there wasn’t a fishy market attached to it somehow. 

It’s OK though. The rain washed all the smells away.

That’s a lie. It didn’t.

After a quick non-rain shower, we headed back out in search of a fun dinner spot, and found a great little gem called Madame Musur where we indulged in Pad Graprao and Khao Soi Gai

It was all very delicious. Tomorrow we fly to Chiang Mai! Only two more sleeps until elephants!!!

On a less elephanty note, our tour today was led by a native Thai woman and consisted of ~20-25 people. Interestingly, the entire tour was conducted in “English” (na ha!). However, of the entire group, only Stacey and I were native English speakers. Not sure if that makes us fortunate or not, or if it speaks to American’s deficiency at learning new languages...

Fun 🐘 fact of the day: Elephants can run at a maximum of 25 mph. I may run faster when I see them. 

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 2, part deux: Bangkok wats!

Day 2 was a resounding success! Despite getting to bed at 3am, we miraculously woke up at 8:30 to enjoy a “traditional Thai breakfast” that we unintentionally paid for as part of our hotel stay. It didn’t disappoint, but I’m not sure how traditional scrambled eggs are. They did have a hearty variation of chocolate Chex that I couldn’t pass up.

Our first destination was the Grand Palace. It’s just over a mile from our hotel, so we opted to walk instead of tuk tuk in an attempt to burn off all the authentic pastries I ate for breakfast. I’m not sure what was more exciting, the palace, or the trek there. So many street vendors. So many tuk tuk drivers trying to hook us up with the “best deal”. So many other drivers trying to kill pedestrians. So many fish simmering in pungent aromatic pots. So many elephant statues. So much awesome.

Grand Palace was pretty neat. Stacey wore offensive pants, so she had to buy awesome elephant MC Hammer pants to cover up her evilness. Best 200 baht we’ve spent yet. The best part about the palace wasn’t the absolutely incredible architecture, or being constantly reminded how not easy it is to take your shoes off, but rather the super educational murals:

I call this one: The Walk of Shame.

This one has 3 of my favorite things: making out in a bush, walking around naked, and poking tigers while naked.

Devin: “I wish I could do that with my tail.”

Stacey: ”What if that isn’t his tail?”

Devin: “...”

This serves as a powerful life lesson. It’s all fun and games until a giant dragon comes and crashes your no-pants party.

But seriously, there was some pretty incredible architecture and an emerald Buddha that’s probably worth at least $1 billion dollars...next heist movie anyone? Ok, I probably just crossed a line.

The Grand Palace was followed up with the less expensive, but more awesome Wat Pho, my personal favorite visit of the day. I mean, beyond having super awesome wats, where else can you take pictures of monks taking pictures?

(Notice the awesome Hammer pants?!)

Instead of heading back to the hotel to inevitably fall asleep, we meandered in the opposite direction and found a happy little street market, where an adorable Thai lady indulged my need for roti.

We kept following our hearts and accidentally found a gem of a restaurant right along river where the deliciousness of the food was only surpassed by the impeccable view of Wat Arun.

Finally exhausted from our adventures, we made our way back to the hotel, taking as many unnecessary detours along the way as we could, including the world’s stinkiest fish and spice market. 

and an adorable puppy that Stacey tried to steal

The rest of the day consisted of a quick dip in the hotel pool, booking transport for our trip to Ayutthaya tomorrow, a stop at the local grocer for some local crisps, and some pad thai room service because Stacey rightfully distrusted the street vendors.

Fun 🐘fact of the day: Elephants have crappy digestive systems (get it?!). With only about 50% efficiency, they pass an incredible amount of gas, and produce around 250 pounds of poop a day. Elephant pepto should be a thing.

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 2, part 1: the arrival.

We survived! It’s 3am (I think), and I feel like there is a joke to be made about it being 5 o’clock somewhere, but I’m tired and I don’t want that song stuck in my head (too late).

The flight was uneventful, other than the fact it was delayed 2 hours (while on the tarmac) and all the checked baggage for Seattle passengers mysteriously disappeared. Remember how we brought backpacks? #winning. For the record, I think KoreanAir food is better than Delta’s. I may be partial purely because they served Hawaiian Sun guava juice. Also, since when did airlines start serving ice cream?! Most delicious and expensive ice cream I’ve ever had.

Sadly Bangkok airport pales in comparison to Incheon, but it didn’t really matter because it was a mad dash to wait in line at Customs.

I am super proud of Stacey for boxing out this dude who blasted past me while I was trying to get this awesome artistic shot with a mini-wat in the background. Clearly I failed.

With the help of our human GPS taxi-driver Porntepp (that may or may not be his real name), we safely arrived at our hotel. Seriously. Dude spoke 6 English words, looked at the address once and got us here. Maybe I’m overreacting, but he’s an everyday superhero in my book.

Best part of the day: being greeted by mini towel 🐘 in our room:

I have a feeling this is gonna be a great trip! Time for bed. Tomorrow...er, later today...temples!

Random 🐘 fact of the day: similar to humans who favor their right or left hand, elephants also favor one of their tusks for performing certain tasks.

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 0.5: Korea...kind of

Despite the Amazon Video fail, we survived the first flight! Kudos to the pilots for not killing us. This is technically our second day, but my body has no concept of time anymore.

I have to say, Incheon airport is my new favorite airport. From the moment you step off the plane, it’s just...clean. And they have a transfer lounge specifically for layover peons like us! Free showers, free WiFi for catching Pokémon, clean (and free) nap room where Americans can steal your stuff while you sleep. They’ve really thought of everything.

The overall ambiance of the entire terminal is very tranquil, with lots of trees and shrubbery to absorb all the pollution. Not wanting to sit around we decided to explore. I mean, you can’t visit Korea and not go in to a toy and electronics store.

Stacey had to pry me away from hi-tech blenders. Then we tried to find Stacey some hand cream (she’s delicate, ok?). The counter lady started yelling excitedly at her in Korean trying to sell her kimchee. That might not be true, but we’ll probably never find out. Next up: food I can’t pronounce!!

It was actually just buckwheat cold noodle, bulgolgi and a fancy bibimbap bowl (Stacey’s favorite), with some fancy water from the local 7-11. It was delicious. But I still prefer pad Thai. We board in 20 minutes!

[adventuresofalifethaim]

Day 0: We love airports

We’re going to Thailand! I guess since this is technically going to be a “travel blog” we should introduce ourselves. But I’m lazy and the 7 people who will likely read this already know who we are 😅

This trip has been in the works since our first date when we learned of our mutual love for elephants. And when I say “love”, it’s almost borderline obsession. But we’re not crazy. Well, not entirely anyway.

Before we explore the beautiful land of Thai and frolic with elephants, we must survive the trip there. We opted to go the “backpackers” route and forego suitcases, in hopes this will help us pack light.

Stacey is ready to go. I’m ready for a nap. It didn’t help that she peer pressured me into going to the gym this morning at 6am. But she’s the best travel partner, so I’ll follow her anywhere.

We made it to the airport in record time thanks to our amazing chauffeur, YuYen, where we await our 12 hour flight to Korea, followed by a 6 hour flight to Bangkok. We land at midnight local time tomorrow, so effectively we won’t exist Friday, September 14. Don’t worry. I’ll pass the time by catching Pokémon and/or adoring Stacey’s awesome elephant nail polish.

I’m really craving the special Spam musubi that Stacey’s Mom makes for me when we go to the airport (basically a normal musubi, but without nori because I’m haole and that’s how I roll).

——-

On the plane update: So apparently Delta ran out of planes that have screens made in the last 20 years:

It’s ok. We downloaded a crap ton of stuff from Amazon Video to keep us occupied.

...or not. #AmazonVideoFail

At least we have 4 extra inches for our super long legs!

——-

Fun 🐘 fact of the day: Elephants have a super low heart rate, around 27 beats per minutes. That’s about what mine is right now as I enter my travel zen mode.