February 26, 2015 (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

Today was another interactive day. It began with driving to the umbrella making shop. The first thing we saw was a factory line. One lady was making the paper from tree bark, other ladies were working on the skeleton of the umbrella by shaving and putting together pieces of bamboo, and stringing and putting them together. A few other ladies were attaching the handmade paper to the umbrella.  There were multiple sizes and colors and designs and material. Some were made out of paper, some were made of cotton.

Next we drove to the zipline which was up in  mountains of the jungle. The zipline wasn't just one it was 14 ziplines. On this tour we also saw Gibbons, which was appropriate since this zipline was called "Flight of the Gibbon." Gibbons aren't monkeys but small apes with long arms and no tail.

One of my favorite parts was ziplining to a tree house in the jungle and staying there for a little while we waited. The longest zipline was very fast and one girl in our group was so scared that she started crying! I have never had so many ziplines in a tour, it was fun!

On the way back to the Rimping Village, we stopped by the silk shop and silver shop. The silk shop showed us how they make silk. Silk comes from silk worms. When they make a cocoon the worker takes multiple cocoons in hot water which releases the silk string that is around the cocoon. These strings they thread through a hole where multiple threads go through and turns into a thicker silk thread. There are two natural colors of silk they have in Thailand: white and yellow. The more common color comes from the Thai silk worm eating the Mulberry leaves and the white one comes from the worms eating from the Tapioca leaf. The silk becomes soft when it is washed and dyed. Moving on we saw the weavers weaving silk fabric on the loom.

Next we traveled just down the street to the silver making store. The shop wasn't that cool but I had never seen people working with silver before.

We ate dinner and went shopping at the Night Market for one last time. I was looking for an artist to make a painting of a bird. We eventually decided on an artist that will paint me a picture of an Eclectus Parrot. Let's hope the painting will make it home :)

February 25, 2015 (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

It was our first full day in Chang Mai, and it was also an elephant based day!

We had to wakeup, eat breakfast, and get out the door by 8:30. We drove towards the Patara elephant farm and as we arrived  there were Asian elephants just roaming around. We were even able to play with them even before it all started!:) My elephants name was Ning and my trainers name was Jame During our elephant experience we experienced bare back riding, playing with baby elephants, feeding the elephants straight in the mouth, bathing them, and more. One of my favorite parts was seeing my big teenage elephant lie down on his side. Another favorite part was playing with the baby elephant that was 1 or 3 months old! I was not expecting to hand feed my elephant but it turned out to be good. Towards the end of our trip we stopped by a river and washed our elephants! 

On our bare back riding section we learned that there are three ways to get up on an elephant, the leg, the trunk, and lying down. It seemed like I was literally on my elephants neck, Ning.  Ning is 14 and a girl.The trainers also gave us instruction on commands for the elephant.

There are four ways to identify if an elephant is healthy; 1. Is to look if they are flapping there ears and wagging there tale atlas a couple times a minute. 2. Is to look if they have tears under there eyes and not dry because if there dry there eyes might have an infection or something. 3. Is to observe if they have dirt on the side of them which means they are laying down at night and not standing. 4. The last one is to look if there dung is wet, not to grainy and to see if they have more than five droppings.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped by a Buddhist temple where our tour guide Wanna prays.The temple wasn't one big building it was kind of like a garden with little buildings around. The public bathrooms are ranked #1 in Chang Mai! We only saw one monk but we still saw one. Inside one of the places where people pray there is a pretty big golden Buddha right in the center. Buddhism is a faith that believes in reincarnation, and to get to Nirvana (heaven) you have to be reincarnated until you become a boy Monk. There are no gods in Buddhism there is only people that they look up to like Buddha. 

Back at the hotel we stayed in the room showered up and got ready for our Thai dinner and show.Our dinner was on the floor with cushions, and no table besides the food platter. The Thai seating was surrounding the stage where the dancers would perform. We watched two kinds dancing, the first one was Thai styled, and the second one was the tribal dancing. One of my favorite dances was the golden dear, because the dear was made up of two people and would hop and shake around.

On the way back to the Rimping village we hopped out of the van early and again walked around the Night Market. This time we were mainly looking for art. We walked back over to the art square and asked the man who did the Macaw last night if he could do a special bird. He talked to us and told us no because he only could only paint a few birds. But the man did tell us that there was another art place. The art place turned out to be an underground bazaar which I was not expecting. We looked around seeing some shops that might be a painting an African Grey Parrot.

February 24, 2015 (Chiang Rai, Thailand and Laos)

Today we were driving to Chang Mai, not Chang Rai, thats where we are now, but first we stopped by some other places. First we drove to the Golden Triangle where three countries meet in one river, Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. At the Golden Triangle there was also a big statue of Buddha and some other art. The Golden Triangle was also known for dealing Opium, because three countries meet but now the country has banned Opium throughout all of Thailand. We next drove to the Opium Museum where we learned about Opium and how DRUGS ARE BAD! In the beginning it took us through a tunnel which made it seem like we were taking Opium, it felt sketch! The drug Opium is created by a poppy flower and when in a bulb sliced open, then collect the oozing substance then boil it, smoke it or inject it as a pain killer or as a drug.

 Back at the Golden Triangle we traveled to one of the countries of the triangle. We didn't travel to all three of them but we will eventually make it to all of the countries of the golden triangle. We did travel to Laos which was really right next door. To get to Laos we took a tiny speed boat which had a pretty big engine and a prop that was connected to a rod and far out from the back. In Laos all we did was shop around some stores, because that is where we were dropped off. On the way back we cranked the boat, this thing does go pretty fast!

We ate lunch at a nearby restaurant and then were on the road to Chang Mai. Our first stop on our road trip was the White Temple to get some bamboo sticky rice with beans. To be honest it was not my favorite but it was unique. Our second stop was at the hot spring! There were multiple hot springs where we drove. When we arrived Kendall decided to hot spring boil some quail eggs, which Mom and I did not eat. Kendall got the eggs from a man selling Chicken and Quail eggs. Some or all of the hot springs we visited smelled like eggggggggssss. We put our feet in one of the hot springs, it wasn't big enough to swim in unlike our hippy hot spring in Utah. There was one big hot spring that we visited that had water gushing out of it!

Arrived in Chang Mai we checked into our hotel, Rimping Village before going to town. In town we visited the Night Market. The Night Market was filled with cheapoe stuff but also had some modern art that had a Macaw which I mainly liked!

We had dinner by the water then finally made it back to the Rimping Village to sleep.

February 23, 2015 (Chiang Rai, Thailand)

White Temple, Black House, Mountain Village with Tea Terraces- became Red Bull, Karen people, Long Neck Karens, Dinner along the Kok River 

The day started off with going to breakfast and getting right in the van for a big touring day with Mom, Kendall, Wanna, and A. We first drove next door to the magnificent White temple. The White Temple is one of the top 5 ranked temples in the world, and was also built over a time of 15 years! The temple was designed and painted by Rong Khoon. Rong Khong didn't just design and paint the temple but he also paid for the temple. He got his money from receiving a commission from the king. The king gave him a commission of contemporary art because most of the other painters were painting old style paintings. Anyways the White Temple had heaps of detail, it didn't just have art based on religion it also had contemporary art too.

Next we traveled over to the Black House on the way to the Tea farms and Chinese town. The Black House was the artist, Tawan Dutcha's home which includes many buildings filled with his antiques. Tawan Dutcha has many horns of animals as part of his antique collections. Tawan Dutcha died three months before we visited his old home. After Tawan Dutcha opened his house up to the public he moved out to another house nearby.

We had a pretty long drive to our next stop, the tea farm. The tea farm was sort of similar to the rice terraces. The tea farm had rows and rows of tea one over another up the mountain. This tea farm wasn't always a tea farm it used to be an Opium farm! Opium is a drug used to relieve pain but has addictive methods.

At the China town we didn't to do much but Mom shopped and we also saw a school that was getting out. The women did have interesting and colorful tribal headdresses on. 

Back down from the mountain and on the flatter land we stopped by a market and the Long Neck Karen’s! The long neck Karen’s is the tribe from Myanmar (Burma) who came to Thailand pretty recently. They get their names, the Long Neck Karen’s from there many rings around there neck not stretching there necks but pushing down their shoulders. Only the women have the long necks with brass rings pushing there shoulders down. Some of them had many rings around their neck particularly the older ladies. The young girls start putting rings on when they are around 5 or 6 and begin with 1 or 2 and add one every year until they decide not to keep stacking.

We ate dinner with insanely fast service then drove back to the hotel. We finished the night off with riding the rickshaw around the loop pulling and getting pulled by Kendall and Mom.