The Adventures of Sunshine Gypsy: March 2015

The first 2 1/2 weeks of my time in Thailand were spent with my mom, whom I often refer to as Kim, and my sister Targa, whom I often refer to as Little T (yes she’s older, but she’s smaller than me which makes her Little T). We began in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which is in the north. The first few days we bopped around the city visiting temples, night markets, and ate copious amounts of street food.

Backpacks on and we're ready to roll

Taking a ride in the back of a songthaew
(the red truck in the background is a songthaew)

When you give a kid a camera...

They take fun pictures of you

Chillin like a boss

Shoes off before entering temples

Doi Suthep temple outside of Chiang Mai

Self portrait

At the night market getting our grub on

And this, my friends, is a waffle dog...
a hotdog in a waffle... GENUIS!

After two days we were off to the land of elephants. There are two reasons I wanted to visit Thailand - Thai food and elephants. Originally, we wanted to book into a week at the Elephant Nature Park to volunteer, but there were no spots available. There were, however, spot available in the Journey to Freedom program and we snatched those spots up and headed out to the Karen villages for a week. For me, this brought me back to my days in PNG only these villages had toilets and running water - livin' the luxurious life. For Kim and Little T I think this was a bit of a culture shock. We arrived in our first village with 10 other volunteers and met the elephant who lived there named Pansuela. Over forty elephants are owned by this village and all but Pansuela are contracted out to work. Our week with Pansuela involved a day of following her around the forest. A day of visiting the local school to teach English to the children. A day of collecting food for Pansuela. And I can’t remember what else. I got sick and lost a solid 24 hours due to sleeping.

Pretty waterfall on the way to the Karen village where we stayed

A rare moment of sisterly love

On the way to the Karen village

First day in the village taking a stroll with the group of volunteers

Weaving a scarf or sarong or some other amazing thing

Meeting Pansuela

Taking a stroll with Pansuela through the jungle

Lunch came in banana leaves... toss your
wrapper when you're done and you're good to go

Just another day at the office

PIGLETS!! So cute!

Little T with a couple of the kids she taught English to

Part of our volunteer group - Me, Nisha,
Kate, Amber, Steph, and Tucker.

After five days in this village we were off to the next village to see another elephant that had been rescued from the trekking camps due to being underfed, overworked, and abused. Over twenty elephants are owned by this village, but this was the only one still in the village. We also spent an evening at the local school teaching the village children English.

This is how you roll in Northern Thailand... standing in
the bed of a truck and holding on for dear life
Me, Tucker, Amber, Kaitlyn, Steph, and Kate

Me and the mummers sitting on the
steps of our home for the night

Sleeping arrangements... Slumber party anyone?

Teaching English to a kiddo

The view from a hike we did

Most of our volunteer crew - Kim, Cees, Steph, Targa, Amber,
Justine, Nisha, Everiin Kaitlyn, and me.
We're missing Kate, Tucker, and Jolanda

Then it was off to the Elephant Nature Park to spend a night there learning about the elephants that had been rescued. Over eighty elephants live here with over forty water buffalo, over four hundred dogs, and countless cats. Everywhere you went there was a creature waiting for cuddles. I was in animal Heaven! Hearing the stories of the rescued elephants was difficult. My heart hurt hearing of their sufferings prior to their life at the Nature Park, but I was very grateful such a place exists where they’ve been given a new beginning starting with new names and new mahouts who are kind and gentle with them ensuring they live out the remainder of their days in peace wandering the land and getting fat off pumpkin, papaya, and hay.

I'm not sure if you can see it but THERE'S
AN ELEPHANT BEHIND ME!!!

This baby was so playful I had to resist the urge to run over
and play tag. I'm pretty sure its herd would have stomped me.

Another tender sisterly moment

After this our week with elephants was over as was our week with the other volunteers who had all become good friends at this point. We all met for dinner and drinks in Chiang Mai for one more goodbye and parted ways.

On the left: Kate, Jolanda, Everiin,
Kim, Amber, Kaitlyn, Nisha
On the right: Tucker, Cees, me, Justine
And Targa is taking the photo and
Steph had already moved on

Mom, Targa, and I spent two more days in Chiang Mai which involved more temples. At one temple the three of us had a near death experience. Well, we thought it was near death at the time. While wandering around outside of a huge temple gun fire went off. My heart instantly beat out of my chest and my mind was cluttered with panic. Through bushes I could see the end of a truck and gunfire. Targa screamed to get down which I did and then relayed the message to our mom. While laying on the ground I noted all the people casually walking around and the lack of falling bodies for the amount of gun fire. Then just as quickly as it began, it ended. An Asian man approached us (we’re still on the ground at this point) and said, “No no no, it’s ok.” Then a British woman came over and said, “I thought the same thing you did” then walked away. I stood up confused and with vision blurred by tears we carried on our way through the temple. A short while later we heard the “gun fire” again and asked a store clerk what the sound was. He explained that people set off fire crackers as an offering to Buddha. At this point I noticed the inconsistency in the “firing” and had I have been thinking rationally I would have realized the sound didn’t match that of a gun. But, alas, I was not thinking rationally and to be honest, I’d rather make a fool of myself hitting the ground for a fire cracker than taking a few extra seconds to make a calculated decision to hit the ground in a spray of bullets. After the fact we had a good laugh about, though, the feelings of panic as my heart lept out of my chest at the thought danger are not feelings I’ll soon forget.

Temple outside of Chiang Mai

We also ventured to the Poo Poo Paper Factory outside of Chiang Mai. They take elephant poop and make paper out of it. What a cool idea taking something useless and abundant such as poop and turning it into something useful. We did a 30 minute tour of the factory to see how the paper is made.

1. Stew the poop (elephant poop is incredibly fiberous and virtually odorless)

2. Lay the stewed poop in the sun to dry out

3. Mix 80% poop with 20% recycled paper in a mixing contraption

4. Form a ball with poop/paper

5. Put the ball on a screen in water and separate it until you have an even layer of poo paper covering the screen

6. Set the screen in sun to dry

7. Peel off the screen and you’ve got a piece of paper

At the end of the tour there’s an arts and crafts table. Kim and Little T are far more crafty with paper and scrapbooking than I, so they made souvenirs and I watched and did some photographing.

Poo Stew

Just like that our week and a half in Chiang Mai was over and it was off to Phuket. Our week in Phuket involved more temples (so many temples in Thailand - it’s wonderful!), beach days, and island visits. One of the main attractions in Phuket is Big Buddha, which is a giant marble statue on a hill. We paid a visit to Big Buddha for sunset.

In Phuket at Karon viewpoint

I'm obnoxious... She puts up with it

Big Buddha at sunset

A photo I took on the right side of Big Buddha

A photo Targa took about the same time
but on the left side of Big Buddha

Monkeys at big Buddha

James Bond Island

Cocktails on the beach... ahhh the life

Kayaking through islands

Little T left a few days before mom so we had a couple days to ourselves where we soaked up the sun on the beach and did a day trip to the Similan Islands. These islands were stunning and the snorkeling was great too!