DID: Wasn't sure if I'd be able to write a post for the blog today after Rhys managed to rip the 1, 2, A and right arrow keys off the laptop before we realized what he was doing. I've managed to get the A key back on, and the others still work without the key on top. Might be hunting down the Apple store when we get to Bangkok!
Visited the Maesa Elephant Camp, about a 45 minute drive from the hotel in the mountains. Got to feed them (bananas and sugar cane), sit with them, watch them bathe, play soccer and paint, and rode one around the jungle. Jason thought it was weird to see elephants doing ‘people’ things, the rest of us were highly entertained. The paintings were selling for $200+ (and people were buying!)
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| Entrance to Maesa Elephant Camp |
On the way back, stopped at an orchid garden. Such gorgeous flowers, wish I could overcome my black thumb and grow them at home.
Afternoon spent washing the mud and elephant dung off of everything (ewww). Thank goodness for the great laundry service across the street from us!
Jason also had his massage. Wasn’t as happy afterwards as I was, said it was painful and not in a ‘productive’ way. We definitely didn’t have the same masseuse.
Dinner back in the old city centre. Going to have to come back in the day time with map, don’t have a sense of the layout yet.
ATE: Breakfast @ the hotel. Crazy good, again. Boys and I did Western options (French toast, bacon, omelet, toast, orange juice). Jason did the Thai brekkie (soup rice with pork). Fruit plate, deep fried dough sticks with frosting, guava juice. Rolled away from the table after we couldn’t fit in another mouthful.
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| Soup rice with pork |
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| Duck jellies |
Lunch @ elephant park. Pad see ew for Gavin, chicken with cashew nuts + rice for Rhys, pad kee mao for Jason, spicy chicken soup for me. Not the best we’ve had here but still very good (and a long way from the kind of stuff we’d be eating at café in a zoo back home!)
Coffee break at the orchid garden. Thai iced coffees made from locally grown coffee beans. Apparently the local opium growers were put out of business and given coffee beans as a replacement crop. Either they’ve made the switch successfully or there’s some residual opiates in the soil which make their way into the beans – either way a very pleasing drink!
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| Happy iced coffee drinkers |
Dinner at Huen Phen, featuring Northern Thai Cuisine. Jason and I had the set meal for 2, including Burmese pork curry, green bean chicken stew, spicy ground pork/lettuce wraps, spicy pork sausages, crispy pork, pad prik dipping sauce, sticky rice, cold banana soup. Really unusual flavors, everything was so good. My favorite was the pork + lettuce, Jason’s was the pork curry. GnR had cashew chicken and rice (they can’t get enough of it!)
Dessert at Mango Tango (www.mymangotango.com), down the street from the hotel. Might be eating dessert here tomorrow too. Had the mango tango plate, including a mango, mango pudding, mango sorbet, and warm mango rice. We all went crazy over the rice, the only sensible thing to do was of course to order another serving. Again had to roll away from the table when we could no longer fit in another bite!
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| Mango Tango |
Side note: at first when we were planning this trip I was concerned that we were hopping countries too much and thought it might be better to do many cities/areas in two or three countries rather than doing seven. However, from a food standpoint, I think changing it up has been really good for us. At nearly 3 weeks in Japan, we were just starting to tire of Japanese food as it was time to leave. Everywhere else, it’s been enough time to try everything we wanted to without having to feel repetition or symptoms of “palate fatigue”. Between that and keeping breakfast as normal as possible, I’d say these are the main reasons we have been able to stave off frequent requests for McDonalds. (and there have been exactly zero requests for pizza or pasta, shockingly! Not even from me!!)
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