Chiang Dao and Bangkok
The past two weeks have been really busy for us! Last weekend we went to Chiang Dao with our friend Calvin. We had another friend go to Laos for the weekend so she let us borrow her car! We were excited to explore and drive on the other side of the car and road. The lesson we quickly learned was to not try and leave to go out of town around rush hour. It was stand still traffic for an hour and a half before we made it on the highway. Chiang Dao is only an hour and a half away; so basically it took us the same amount of time to get out of town as it did to drive all the way to our destination. We stayed at a place called The Nest. There are two resorts to choose from: Nest 1 and Next 2. Nest 1 (where we stayed) had cute bungalows in the jungle, a pool, massages, and a fabulous Western restaurant. Nest 2 was a short walk down the road, and had a backdrop of the Chiang Dao mountain, a little bit bigger bungalows, and an authentic Thai restaurant. We ate most of our meals at Nest 1 and one of our dinners at Nest 2; both restaurants were amazing!
On Saturday we went on a hike to the Chiang Dao Caves. If you have ever been to Lurray Caverns in Virginia, or just been caving in general - they seem to be similar. At this particular cave it is also a Buddhist temple, and you must hire a local guide to go on the 45 minute tour. It was pitch black, and our guide carried around an old kerosene lamp and took us into nooks and crannies that opened up into large rooms. We saw a lot of bats, slipped a lot, and took deep breaths to get us through the tight spaces! Below are pictures leading up to the cave and our trek inside the cave!
After the cave, we drove to the Chiang Dao National Park and explore a waterfall. The waterfall was massive, and made up of a limestone like rock with some type of moss or algae growing on it that made it easy for us to walk up and down the waterfall! With our pass to the National Park - we also gained access to the Hot Springs close by. It was a beautiful location and the boys really enjoyed the relaxing pools. We were basically the only people at these two normally busy tourist spots which made the experience even more enjoyable!
The next morning we hiked to Wat Tham Chiang Dao that overlooked the mountains. Calvin has been in Chiang Mai for a little over a year now and said that this Wat was his favorite one (and he’s seen a lot of wats)! The hike is a total of 550 stairs - but the first 250 were the hardest with a steep incline. However, it was enjoyable because they had signs posted as you walked that had Buddhist sayings. Some were about patience, meditation, and some had slightly morbid sayings like “when you die”. It was a well maintained trail with beautiful wildlife and we enjoyed seeing the monks dormitories along the way. As we were climbing the final steps to the top of the Wat, we passed a small group of people walking down. We heard this loud snap and turned around to find a massive tree branch fall onto the stairs where we were seconds before. We watched the group dive out of the way and barely miss getting hit. So scary! (This was not the first time we experienced a tree falling - there was a small landslide next to our building a couple nights before and then a branch hit the roof of our school damaging the roof. Only a couple more weeks of rain until we won’t see any for a long time.) Once we got the top, we realized the Wat was built around/into the mountain and it had a breathtaking view! Even though most of the temples are similarly decorated, their beauty never seems to fade. We hope to go back to Chiang Dao in November to hike the Thailand’s third highest mountain at 2,220 meters!
After the hike, we headed back to Chiang Mai to pick up our friends from the airport.
The next weekend we traveled to Bangkok! Rhianna had a professional conference for our schools IB Middle Years Program and I just tagged along to see the biggest city in Thailand. While Rhianna was attending her conference I traveled around the city with our friend Calvin. The first stop on our walk across Bangkok was Lumpini Park. Lumpini Park is a massive green space in the middle of large city, similar to what I imagine Central Park in New York would be. We trekked around and saw lots of different animals and people...and even caught a few Pokemon.
After a while in the park we set our sight towards Chinatown. Along the way, we ran into many friendly and helpful Thais. They asked us where we were heading and would give us the best ways to get there and other sights to see. One guy even hailed a tuk tuk, negotiated the price for us, and set us on our next adventure. The next adventure happened to be a ride on a long-tail boat. We got to feed a large school of some type of fish, negotiate some prices in a small floating market, and enjoy some other sights along the Chao Phraya River.
We decided to skirt by Chinatown and head towards the Grand Palace. Along the way we passed through a few streets that were lined on both sides with automotive parts that were stacked taller than me. If it was just in one spot I would not have really noticed, but it literally lined both sides of the road for maybe 6-8 blocks!
We finally arrived to the Grand Palace to learn that it closes at 3:30p...30 minutes prior to our arrival. So we just walked around the outside of the wall and planned our trip back to the hotel which included a fun ride on the BTS SkyTrain.
The next day we explored the various shopping opportunities Bangkok has to offer. We started in Terminal 21 where each of the 5 floors are a different city theme including Paris, Tokyo, and the Caribbean. Next we walked down the street to EmQuartier a 4,000 square meter shopping mall with over 400 labels and even a waterfall! We were hoping to go to the Human Body Museum Bangkok, but it too was closed. Then we jumped in a metered taxi and headed to the airport. I was headed back to Chiang Mai, but Rhianna stayed in Bangkok for another day of the conference.
As you can see the Rome level on bottom, then Paris, then Tokyo...
Next level was Istanbul...
Then London...
Then San Francisco!
The conference was at NIST (New International School of Thailand) and is ranked as the number one school in Thailand (I think…) It was a great campus and had everything to offer Apparently it is very hard to land a job there because no one ever leaves! Overall, the conference will really overwhelming, insightful, promising, and I could write a blog post on it, but will only make sense to other teachers - so I won’t. Below are the pictures of the school - we had some fun on the playground! Sunday night we went to a Lebanese restaurant - which I was proud of myself for trying a new style of food - and loved it! There was a World Market next to the restaurant where we went an got comfort food :) As we walked back to our hotel, I stopped to get a massage!
This is the 5th floor gymnasium - we had all of our meals here.
Design classroom...
View from the 5th story tennis courts! The turf field separates the classrooms from the gym complex and pool.
5th story tennis courts
This gym had three courts! I thought I was on a college campus.
Elementary playground
Built in trampolines!
You can't see the prices....but it was around $10 a bag!
This past week we had a soccer game at home, and one of the parents wanted to take the team out to his Korean BBQ restaurant if we won. The school arranged the rides for the boys, but to our surprise we didn’t realize we were going to be going in a songtheaw. (see picture below) Our GPS took us to a closed down restaurant in the middle of no where (after already driving 30 minutes and its getting close to 7pm). One of the boys found the other location in his phone so we kept going another 20 minutes until we finally arrived. It was a great restaurant and Korean boys on the team showed us how to cook, prep, assemble, and eat the food. This was our first time eating Korean food and we loved it! The flavors were great and the boys were surprised we didn’t think it was too spicy. We had a great time and the players were really happy to spend time together outside of school. Unfortunately the story goes downhill from here...or actually, literally. We all piled back into the songtheaw and headed back to campus. As we started to drive up the mountain, it started to downpour like I've never seen it rain before. The driver didn't speak much English, but kept saying "I can't see, I can't see" as we were driving 10 mph. For the next 45 minutes we slowly drove up the mountain until we get about 3 miles from school and the driver pulls over. Shes crying and tells us we need to get out (it was raining so hard the tires weren't getting any traction). So we all climbed out in the pouring rain and stood there while she drove around the steep corner. The driver then calls her friend to come pick us up in a different songtheaw to finish the drive. Five minutes later the other driver arrives, and safely delivers us back to campus. The boys didn't seem phased and had a great time singing Justin Timberlake.
Update on the car: SO we thought we were all set to buy a car when we asked to see the documents that go with the car and the Blue Book. One of the Thai staff went with Ben to read over the documents and it turns out, the current owner never changed the documents. So essentially he was selling us a stolen car... or that is what the Thai police would think if we ever got pulled over. Our Thai staff advised us not to buy the car since it would be extremely difficult or almost impossible to get the correct paperwork and insurance, so we had to say no. So back to looking!
Thanks for keeping up with us and hope everyone is enjoying their Pumpkin flavored treats since their is no pumpkin over here :)
