Day 13-Continued again

Eating Poop

Boiling Poop

Making Paper, Poop paper that is.

The finished product...Poop paper a la carte

Tigers were awesome...

Day 13-Continued

Day 13-Chiang Mai

Custard Apple, it's amazing...

It was so amazing watching these elephants actually paint...

David had one elephant poking him in the chest and another playing with his head

I'll admit, they scared me a little

Chatting with the elephants

Today we ate Custard Apple—yumm. We also played with Elephants and Tigers—the pictures tell the stories better. And we finished our day by making paper from Elephant Dung…poop paper--hehehehehe, my maturity amazes me…

Day 12-Chiang Mai

Beetles preparing for mating...we interrupted...

Handsome husband...

Silkworms

Making Silk...

Silk Threads

Day 11-Chiang Mai

Blurry Zebra

Our especially adventurous day started out with an amazing breakfast buffet. After digesting for 5 minutes we thought it would be best to go zip-lining. So, we drove out to a village with the company, “Flight of the Gibbon” and went flying through trees for about 3 hours. We covered about 2 km in zip lines—it was great! In the evening we went to the Night Safari in Chiang Mai--it was ok, really wet and rainy...but the animals were cool, our pictures aren't that great...but, you get the point!

Day 10-Chiang Mai

Funny Sign in our Hotel...

Today was low-key thankfully. We are pretty beat after yesterday. We went to the airport and arranged for airline tickets for our trip to Laos to visit Grant & Jolene Hillier (Jolene is one of David & Annabelle’s daughters). After that David and I went to the tailor and were measured to get some custom suits made. For lunch we went to a restaurant called, “Just Khao Soi,” Khao Soi is a curry-based noodle dish from Northern Thailand. As you can see the food was excellent! Tonight finds us practice our haggling again at the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar (we’ve improved significantly) and staying in downtown Chiang Mai at the Empress Hotel.

Day 9- Chiang Mai continued

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep is located in the Doi Suthep National Park. It was pretty impressive and the view from the Wat was amazing. It was kinda neat seeing the rain clouds roll in. We finished Sunday with a visit to the Sunday walking market—where we perfected the art of haggling—did I say perfected? Ok, we sucked at it. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better in that regard. Finished the day by eating supper at the Jerusalem Café—some of the best Greek/Mediterranean food I’ve had in a long time—weird that I had to come to Thailand to have great Mediterranean food.

Day 9- Chiang Mai

We started early today but heading to the Chiang Mai Zoo. So far on this trip this was one of the coolest experiences. We were literally feedings Hippos that were about 6 feet from us, Giraffes were eating out of our fingers—and did I mention the crocodile that David held? We also did the slightly precarious luge—it was fun, nobody crashed. The Chiang Mai Zoo, up to this point, has definitely been a highlight. After the zoo we headed to this awesome little vegetarian restaurant called, The Pun Pun. The food was all organic and delicious!

Day 8- More Pictures

Day 8- Chiang Mai

Church

Ants carrying centipede...ewww

We went to church on the CAA campus today, the entire service was in Thai. I was pretty much terrified that a gecko was going to fall on my head during the service…I survived. After church we had potluck lunch at the Bell house and visited with some people. The afternoon we saw the coolest waterfall on earth!!! David, David, Annabelle, Michael and I went to the Buatong Waterfall. The greatest thing about this waterfall is that the minerals from the water flow over the terrain and harden. This causes what looks like a sandy colored rock-like surface under the water. The awesome thing is that this surface is very “grippy” and we actually walked up the waterfall! It was stunning and really a perfect way to spend the Sabbath. After the waterfall we stopped at a gigantic Wat—I’m not sure what the name of it was—but I will find out later. Anyways, it was pretty crazy to see how lavish, ornate, and excessive these Buddhist temples can get. We slept well tonight!

Day 7- Chiang Mai

Front of the Bell Residence

I'm such a good lil wife... hehe

This bus trip was much better than the previous one. David and I were at the very front of the double-decker bus, so we had a huge window in front of us and to the right of us. We slept okay, but it was great to finally get off the bus and stretch. Annabelle picked us up at the bus station and toured us around Chiang Mai a bit. We got to the Chiang Mai Adventist Academy campus around 10:00 am and just crashed. We awoke at around 1:00 pm and had lunch with Michael and Summer Lee (the student missionaries in Chiang Mai this year), David, and Raene. After which I did laundry…woohoo…can’t get much more adventurous than that! David, David, and I walked around campus for a bit to see the set up. Rest of Friday proved to be a restful, relaxing time.

Day 6-Koh Chang to Bangkok to Chiang Mai

We left Koh Chang today and headed back to Bangkok. Had a few hours in Bangkok, but we were able to bum around at Daniel and Bekah Mohr’s apartment for a few hours (sidenote: What are the chances of running into former Walla Wallaians in a gigantic city like Bangkok 1:3,000,000—we literally ran into them at the bus stop our first day in Bangkok). Anyways, we took a double-decker overnight bus to Chiang Mai. We should arrive in Chiang Mai at around 6:00 am.

Day 5- Koh Chang

David is in love with the breakfast buffet, mostly because of the banana jam. He eats an average of 6 pieces of toast w/ banana jam. Today we had amazing Thai massages on the beach. I wish I had thought to take a picture of the little Thai man crawling over David’s back—it was hilarious. Thai massage is quite interesting—the masseur practically crawls up your back and then stretches your legs and arms into crazy Yoga positions to stretch out your muscles. More walking on the beach …bumming around is excellent.