Thailand Part 2, Elephants, 2016

On our second day in Chiang Mai, we did a 8 hour "elephant owner for a day" program. This was the highlight of our trip!! Seriously, it was so cool. We started out petting the elephants and taking a lot of pictures because I mean, how many people actually get to touch an elephant?! This was a momma elephant and her 3 year old and 2 month old kiddos.

Of course my favorite was the baby.

Ryan is a brave soul!

They loved eating that sugar cane! It made quite the crunching noise when they were snapping it with their teeth. 

I got to hold this baby (350lb) elephant on my lap. I tried to stay upright, but he was too strong and pushed me to the ground so he could lay on me/snuggle me - just thinking of that makes me smile! It was fun to see the elephants act like a dog or cat would as far as playing games/reacting to their owners. 

Next, we were each given an Elephant to take care of for the day. My elephant's name was Patwo. First we fed them sugar cane & bananas.

Then we smelled their poop (not stinky!) and learned more about the different commands (go, stop, lay down, etc.)

And then we rinsed them off so that there wasn't any dirt to rub into their skins while we road through the jungle. How cool is this picture?! A rainbow AND me washing an elephant

Patwo was good at giving hugs! 

We then mounted the elephants and went on a ride through the jungle! 

We made it to the waterfall/water hole where the elephants played in the water. 

We had a quick coconut rice snack - so good!! 

Then we got in the water to give the elephants a bath. We used a brush and scrubbed their entire bodies. 

This place was beautiful!! 

Our elephant tour group. The elephants were using their trunks to spray us from behind 

Then we played with the elephants in the water - trying to sit on them while they kept trying to lay down. Much harder than it sounds?! 

Finally, we had an amazing lunch with fresh fruit and Thailand food - loved all of it!!

We had a short ride back and said goodbye to our elephants. Love this picture - like I said, Patwo was a good hugger!

Before we left to go back to the hotel - beautiful scenery. Once in a lifetime experience!!

Thailand Part 1 2016

Ryan and I celebrated our 10 year anniversay (which was on Aug 29) by going to Thailand for just over a week. I choose Thailand because I have always wanted to visit and now was our chance. I was really nervous to leave my kids that long (7 days in Thailand and 3 days of travel) but I knew they were in great hands. This is us being dropped off at the Denver airport .... about to be traveling for 30 hours straight. 

Our first stop was Bangkok - the capital. Most of the streets looked liked this and I love that they had hot pink taxi's over there! In the back right, you can see the man in the white shirt standing by his tuk tuk. That is one of the many ways we got from place to place. The tuk tuk drivers are everywhere and are ready to take you where you want to go. 

In the tuk tuk.

On our morning walk - check out the electrical wires!! 

The first day we took a shared mini van north about an hour to the city of Ayutthaya. We walked around some really neat temple ruins and got to see the Buddha statue that a tree grew around. 

Temple ruins

The next day in Bangkok we went and saw many of their famous Temples. We made a quick stop by the Grand Palace to take a picture in front of these awesome pink elephants. We would have loved to tour the Grand Palace but the king had recently died and it was closed to the public.  So we took a tuk tuk to the Wat Po (reclining Buddha) temple. I think we would both agree this temple and its grounds was the coolest one we saw.  

At Wat Po

The HUGE reclining Buddha (the reason Wat Po is so famous)

They had the coolest statues everywhere

I wish you could see these arches up close - so neat!

These towers were my favorite. All of the flowers and design on the outside were all 3D.

Next we took a tuk tuk to find the Big Buddha. Our driver dropped us off here and told us to walk down this alley - ummm just a bit scary.

Luckily, he wasn't lying and we found a HUGE Buddha. 

There are food vendors everywhere in Bangkok. One of my favorite things we got was coconut ice cream, and it was only 40 baht (about $1.5). Yuuum! 

We also spent a little time by the pool eating more coconut ice cream and fresh pinapple juice. 

Our last night in Bangkok we traveled across town to a restaurant on the top of a Marriott. We heard the view was amazing and it did not disappoint! 

The next morning we went to the airport to catch a flight up to Chiang Mai. Chicken porridge anyone?

Our first day in Chiang Mai we hit the ground running and found all the temples nearby. This one had a really neat door amoung other things.

This temple had some neat ruins to it, but we also saw a lot of monks running around. I believe there was a monk school nearby. 

 Another temple in Chaing Mai.

We grabbed a taxi and headed up to Tiger Kingdom - we got to pet this cute baby tiger! I really wanted to hold it but they had strict rules (probably for a good reason).

So neat!

Our last stop in Chiang Mai for the day was a temple way up in the mountains. This is a view from half way up. 

 These were the stairs to get to the top - it was a good workout!

At the top looking down - cool place for sure! 

The next morning we had our elephant owner for a day tour - our favorite part of Thailand!!