Elephant Ride!

Our first stop this morning was at a market, seemingly out in the middle of nowhere, that is famous for the Thai delicacies found in some of the stalls. It's amazing how many of the vegetable they find to eat and to cook with such a variety of herbs and spices, most I've never heard about.

Because we drive right past the Elephant Conservation Center and Elephant Hospital, we convinced our guide to stop so we could ride an elephant! As we entered the grounds a group of elephants and their trainers, called mahouts, were coming towards us. The baby elephants, 4-5 years old, were leading the way. One of them was very interested in us and ran its trunk all over Susanna's face, as if it was kissing her! What a treat! The adult elephants then paraded past us.

Eash couple rode an elephant on a seat with the mahout sitting on the elephant's neck. The first thing we did was to walk into a small pond so the elephant could pose with us for a picture. Our mahout told us the elephant we were riding was a 23 year-old female named Pa Tee Dee. She loved the water and tried to spray the elephant in front of us. Then the mahout tickled her behind her ears and she laughed! It was just as I imagined it would be - fabulous!!

We stopped in Lamphun to see the oldest temp Lin in the Chiangmai Mai District. Since they had had a funeral ceremony for the recently deceased king, they had decorations up all around the temple grounds. There were many chapels that contained a gold Buddha or two or three but the dominating feature was the real gold covered chedi that was a cross between a pagoda and a stupa. It has a square base and the round spire. It contains a small royal relic of the Buddha.

Silk Worms

We entered Chiange Mai (pounced "chi-ang my" but it is pronounced so quickly it sounds like "chang my"). This city of 2 million was once the home of our guide so she had lots to tell about her city. We visited a craft area to learn about making silk, paper umbrellas and wood working. For supper we walked along the night market and found some street vendors with some very good Thai foods