Tuesday, April 19, 2011

I'm Back!!!

Hey Everybody!!!
Sorry to all those listeners out there for not posting lately. Songkran just came through Thailand and put a damper on my internet availability. For the holiday 11 buddies from the program and I rented scooters and took a 500 mile road trip all around Northern Thailand. Our fist stop was in Pai (pronounced Bye) which is a small backpacker town where travelers from all over the world come to visit. We met people from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and even a couple people from California. We stayed in bungalow's for the night there and only 6 of us had enough energy to continue the trip the next morning. The five survivors call ourselves Hells Kitty's. Here are a couple photos of the bungalow's we stayed in and the members of Hells Kitty's.

Best seat in the house
Two person river front bungalow's for 200 baht a night. (that's 3 dollars per person...)







Hells Kitten's in front of the Mae Hong Son Lake
We left Pai early Friday morning and hit the 108 North bound to Mae Hong Son. I cannot describe to you how amazing the drive is. The Mae Hong Son province is the highest province in all of Thailand. We wound our way through 1023 curves (not making up this number. look online for yourself) of mountain highway and arrived in Mae Hong Son Friday evening. Four other buds from the program took a bus up to Mae Hong Son to join us for the night. This city during Songkran is unbelievable. The entire city is centered around a small lake and the street surrounding the lake is packed with venders.

 Saturday morning the six kitty's had to split up once again. Only three of us (me, Gerrit, and Mike) had the guts to finish the remaining 400 km of mountain road. The rest turned back. We filled up on gas, grabbed a quick bite and hit the road by 6 am. We took our sweet time on the road. We stopped at a couple waterfalls and even had lunch with a Thai family we met on the road that day. The original plan was to make it to Mae Sarieng on Saturday but we were having too much fun on the road so we traveled another 100 km to Chong Thong to make our trip in the morning nice and short. The three of us  stayed in the honey moon sweet on the Chong Thong river for 700 baht including breakfast (that's about 4 dollars per person).








The trip ended on Sunday morning at 7:30 when we arrived safely in Chiang Mai. This concludes our amazing journey around Northern Thailand. Love you all and thanks for listening.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011




Jumping for Joy

I know a lot of my readers aren't going to be too excited to hear this but yesterday's activity was bungie jumping!!! 8 other students and I jumped in a taxi immediately after our morning class and headed up to the hills looking for something exciting to do. Well, we found something exciting to do!!! Anybody who is even considering going bungie jumping should definitely do it. It's the most incredible feeling I've ever experienced. Check out some of the pictures above.

Sunday, April 3, 2011














Chiang Mai in 24 hours...

Today was the most jam packed day of crazy adventures I've had on my trip so far. 9 friends and I started the day waking up at 8 am to meet with our tour guide we rented for $12 for the day (that's a little over a dollar per person for 9 hours of touring). The first thing on our "to-do list" was to check out the Wat's within the city walls. The Wat's are absolutely amazing. Every inch of the Wat's we saw were covered with beautiful art. The level of detail put into these temples is unbelievable. The photo's should be posted above. After a couple hours of Wat touring we piled back into the tour van and headed for the hills and the Mesa Elephant Kingdom. This part of our adventure was probably the coolest thing we did all day. We were able to see the elephants play soccer, play basketball and even paint. When the show was over the elephants gave us all big hugs with their enormous trunks. It was so much fun. When we left the Elephant Kingdom we headed down the hill to check out the Tiger Kingdom. That's right, I said "Tiger Kingdom." Words cannot describe how amazing it was to play with a full grown female tiger. They are the most beautiful animals I've ever seen. And so powerful!!!