Friday, October 25th
Today was the start of our 3rd weekend adventure! This time, with three of us (Mama Fonteno included), we took on Thailand travels to Chiang Mai. Our flight left at 10:50am, so we got a taxi to the airport at 9:00am after a classic Amazon Cafe.
Our flight landed at 12:45pm, and we took a short taxi to our hotel, the Icon Park Hotel. The lovely lady at the front desk, Katie, welcomed us and made everything so easy from here on out. She called a taxi service to take us to the Tiger Kingdom. This was the highlight of our entire Thailand experience so far! We were with a baby tiger, white tiger, and bengal tiger! We had a photographer follow us around to make memories of the experience, and the staff was super friendly as well! They knew all of the right poses, and made this experience so much fun. We ended up staying long enough to see a Tiger show as well.
After Tiger Kingdom, we were wiped out! The taxi took us back to the hotel, and we chatted with Katie some more before deciding on where to have dinner. We ended up walking across the street to this delicious Thai family restaurant. We ordered family style and tried papaya salad, a beef stir fry, and a yellow curry. Everything was very tasty, and the owners of course were very nice just like everyone else here.
We were so full, a walk downtown sounded nice. There was a place called Old City a couple of streets over, so we took a stroll for about 30 minutes and saw a few temples and enjoyed the night.
We headed back for the night, because Saturday was about to be a very busy, but fun day! Stay tuned.....
Saturday, October 26th
The day came early, with a 6:30am shuttle to the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary. The ride was about 1.5 hours to our destination, and we picked up 3 other people along the way. Once arriving, we were told to change into "Traditional Clothing" and sit down to learn about the history and difference of all the elephants. Each of us received about 15 bananas at first to then head down to spend time and feed the elephants. This was amazing! They were so sweet, and taking pictures was a lot of fun. We learned elephants eat about 10% of their body weight, so we were feeding them with bananas and then cantaloupe for a continuous hour. After feeding, we headed to change into swimsuits and get directions on bathing elephants in mud and the river. We headed down to the mud and got to rub it alllllllllllllllll over the elephants. Prepare to get dirty, but have tons of fun! After getting dirty, we headed to the river for a rinse off and playing with the elephants in the water. This was a blast, and everyone in the class had such a great time! One nice thing about the elephant class was the photographer is included, so you can just enjoy your time and not worry about getting pictures the entire time. The taxi returned us to the hotel about 1:45pm, and we showered, relaxed, and took a mini nap before our cooking class.
4:30pm - The shuttle picked us up from the airport, and the other 8 people in the class as well. When in Thailand, a cooking class is a MUST! This was such an amazing experience, with so much history and culture learned throughout the class. Niti was our teacher, and she made the experience so much fun. We cooked 11 dishes, including spring rolls, curry, pad thai, mango sticky rice, and many more! Akha Thai Cooking Class was the name and it lasted until about 9:15pm. We learned a lot of little trick like how salt added brings out the cream taste and how fish sauce is a key ingredient to giving Asian food its flavor. Such a unique experience, and you get a recipe book at the end of the class with detailed instructions and ingredients on every item cooked.
9:30pm - The taxi from the cooking class dropped us off at the famous Chiang Mai Night Market. We wandered the streets and bought a couple of souvenirs for some loved ones back in the US. About 10:45pm, the market started to close, and everything was shut down by 11:00pm, so we called it a night and headed back to our hotel.
Sunday, October 27th
Mom had a different flight this day, so she got up early to catch her flight back to Hat Yai. Cynthia and Megan slept in a little longer, and had some leftovers from the night before. We headed on a short walk before checking out and heading to the airport.
One tip of advice from us: do not travel with Thai Asia. You do not get anything on your flights, not even water (unless you want to pay). We were forced to check a carry-on bag for 1,000 baht because the combined weight of your carry-ons cannot weigh more than 15lbs (7.0kg). Our gate numbers did not match each others ticket, and we were on the same flight! Needless to say, we were just ready to be home after this travel experience.
We met mom once returning, and headed to The Limb for dinner. This was a much needed relaxing day for chores including cleaning the apartment, laundry, working on posters and patient presentations, etc. Tomorrow start our MICU rotation with Dr. Pang, so we needed some downtime before heading into our fourth week!