Just before Christmas I left on my second trip with Rotary,
this time we were heading to the North of Thailand. This 10 day trip took us first to the
Lampang Elephant center and hospital where we got to ride elephants through a
stream and a jungle, as well as see an elephant show where the elephants
painted rolled logs around, threw balls and many other normal human activities
you would not expect that elephants would be able to do. We then spent the night at the top of a mountain which is also a National Park and the morning was freezing you could
actually see your breath in the air, it was really weird to actually want to
put a sweater on and drink a hot drink, but other than that is was a nice change. At the
top of the mountain, which is the highest peak in Thailand, there was a temple and
within it were pictures depicting the life of Buddha and his 4 stages of
life. It started with his birth, then his
enlightenment, his first teaching and finally his death which he foresaw
coming. It was then off to Chiang Mai
for three days, with a stop along the way to see a beautiful waterfall that had
rainbows in its mist. In Chiang Mai they
have a great night market and seeing as we had three nights there we were
released out in the market every evening to haggle for prices with the
locals. During our three days in Chiang
Mai we visited another temple at the top of another mountain, this one had a
great view of the city of Chiang Mai, we also spent and afternoon at a Royal
Flower garden which had different sections for most of the countries in the
world. Another morning in Chiang Mai we
spent at the zoo, where they have three pandas on loan from China and they
actually look like giant teddy bears! Our
last night in Chiang Mai we went to a Northern Style Buffet where you sit on
the floor, at long tables, have northern Thailand food as well as watch a Thai
Dance performance which was really cool, they even danced with fire at one
point. As we were up in the north we
went to the Golden Triangle and went on a boat ride on the Mekong River so even if we
were technically in Laos and Burma we didn't actually need visas! Interesting fact about Thailand is that
gambling is illegal and that the Thais go to the Golden triangle to casinos on the
other side of the border to gamble. The following
days we went to the garden of the King’s mother at the top of another mountain, it was quite a beautiful garden and chalet where she used to live, we
also went to the white temple which is true it its name and is entirely white
with a few sliver accents, but it was only remodelled to look the way it does 14 years ago and is
still under remodelling as the artist had put modern touches in, he has added
pictures of modern movies such as Avatar, Alien and Star Wars among other things
as well. Finally we made it to Christmas day and our
second last day on the trip. Christmas
morning we spent going around a world UNESCO heritage site which, was a
collection of temples and a monument to one of the first Kings of Thailand. That evening they had a special dinner for us
and our leader of the trip had been to Scotland the month before and brought us
back a fruit cake so for all those you have had plum pudding it was a cake
version of this and all the exchange students got to experience it. Let’s just say the ice cream was more popular
but most people did try it. So that was
our final evening of another great Rotary trip.
Since coming back from the Rotary trip I got to experience New Years in Thailand. The funny thing about New Years is that the
Thai people decorate for New Years as North Americans would for Christmas, so
in the main square of town they had a huge Christmas tree with Santa’s sleigh,
elf hats, people dressed up as elves all around the main square as well as the
ever present food vendors selling delicious Thai food. They also had a Thai pop star named Pancake
come and sing, however, the most exciting part was when the countdown started and
it was in Thai. This was the most exciting part because because after 18 years of always expecting the countdown to New Years in
English this was the first time that is was in a different language and it did
not feel weird.
Finally a little bit about Thai host families, they like to
take you out for the entire day without any previous warning. As my host family is no different one day just before New Year they woke me up and said we were going out so up I
got and expecting it to be a normal day where we would go out in the morning and
be back in the afternoon, however I was much mistaken. We left around 10 am and visited a resort
that they own and that they are going to get up and running in the next ten years as
right now it isn`t worth the time and effort for them, then it was off to a
flower garden, where the flowers were also made into statues of whales, seashells and other sea life (not quite too sure why the sea theme). We also stopped along the way to
visit one of my host dad's friends, we also had to stop for lunch and
dinner. Then seeing as the highway was
busy with traffic back into my city as we were about two hours out from Korat
we drove through a National Park and got home around 11 pm. This is really just a typical outing for them, they think nothing of driving two hours out and then more to go see
anything. It was a great day out with my
host family, even if it was unexpected.
