Amazing Thailand

Sawasdee,

We are all sleepy in Chiang Mai this evening. It has been a long 12 days! Where to start the story is always the hard part...so I guess we will begin at the beginning. We all arrived in Bangkok safe and sound and began our journey together adventuring around the city. Bangkok is amazing, a city of contrasts, smiles and so much good food. We traveled by boat, train and tuktuk, saw Wats, Buddhas and modern shopping malls. After a few days in the major metropolis we headed out to Sukhothai, the ancient capital of the Siam empire. We arrived on a hot afternoon and decided that the day would be best spent at the local public swimming pool. We played frisbee with some children and enjoyed ice-creams of unusual flavors. After an excellent dinner we collapsed in our beds and woke up as the sun was rising.

The next few days were filled with bike riding around sandstone ruins, eating foods of the spicy nature and playing games with each other which always seemed to end with a few people laughing so hard that they cry and make funny snorting sounds. We loaded into vans and set our sights on Mae Sot, a small town on the border of Thailand and Burma. Here we stayed at the lovely Ban Thai guesthouse and got to know Thein, the man who runs it. He is an amazing man who introduced us to a Burmese Monk named Askin who took time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about the Saffron Revolution and the Peace Movements in Burma. He told us of his peace walks around the world and how he has been teaching and organizing for peace and democracy in Burma. An amazing experience that really got us in tune with the environment.

We then headed into the jungle for a 3 day trek through amazing bamboo forests. We camped by a waterfall that is 5 football fields wide and swam in the crystal pools below. We trekked through rivers and into a Karen hill-tribe village, met the chief and drank local rice-wine with him and our guides. After a not-so good sleep due to many roosters that decided to crow at about 4 am, we climbed on top of elephants and set off down the mountain. Elephants are amazing but after 3 hours on the back of one you have pretty much reached your elephant-riding limit. However, the ride is somewhat more comfortable when the Karen Mahouts (local villagers who "drive" the elephants) hop off and let us take over. We sit on the heads of the beautiful mammals and steer them through the forest.

After our jungle adventure we arrived in Chiang Mai, a lovely city in the far north of Thailand. From our base here we went rock climbing and caving in the northern mountains. We repelled 60 meters into a cave that has live stalactites and flow stones which sparkle when exposed to light. We spent the last 2 days crawling our way in and through the earth to emerge on top of peaks that only bats usually see....

WOW, and this is just the beginning! We have a few more days here in Thailand then we are off the the lovely mountains of Laos to float down the Mekong river and eat as much sticky rice as we can!

Until next time...

SE Asia Crew!