Blogs from Chiang Mai, North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 3

Thailand is known for its elephants and after Shelby went on an elepant craze in Cambodia (elephant pants, elephant shirts, elephant paintings, elephants, elephants, elephants), it only seemed right that we spend a day interacting with elephants. In Chiang Mai, it turns out elephants are in large supply and many companies provide ample tours. Our hostel owner Som informed us that most of the parks in the north of Thailand are very good and reputatable. They don’t allow riding on the elephants, they have handlers who work specifically with an elephant to ensure they understand basic commands (eat, good, stop, back, etc.) to provide a safe environment for tourists, and mostly they roam free. This is not the case in all places in Thailand or around the world so do your research first. Most elephants who ... read more

On Wednesday, January 23rd, I took the 6PM direct flight from Mandalay (Myanmar) to Chiang Mai (Thaïland) where I arrived about 8PM. The flight had been with Air Bangkok and this flight operator was surprisingly good. Both airports are pretty small and I can’t say that that bothered me. :-) In Thaïland I was a bit nervous to cross the border because my passport is almost full (2 1/2 pages left) and I was hoping the immigration officer would be nice and put the stamp on one of the pages where there is still some free space but even though she was nice, she put it on the half page where I had hoped would fit my stamps of Laos and Cambodia ... Well, we’ll see how far I can make it with my passport... ^_^ ... read more

Jan 24th, This morning we had a meeting to evaluate the trip. One important part of Thai culture is “saving face,” so we were told ahead of time to only give positive feedback (even if they kept pushing for us to tell them things we didn’t like or thought they should change). Our teacher, then, is supposed to email them privately with any ideas for changing the program for next year. This is soooo different from American culture, where everyone feels more than welcome to speak their mind. I do, however, have to say that I wouldn’t like not knowing what people are actually thinking. This cultural preference also prevented us from being able to freely talk about our ideas and give and suggestions or critiques to improve the program. After the course evaluation meeting, we ... read more

Jan 22nd, This morning started out with a nursing conference between our college and several colleges in the Chiang Mai area. Three of our group members were chosen to present at the conference on the selected topic of Domestic Violence. Each group did a presentation on this topic, and it gave us the opportunity to compare rates of domestic violence in Thailand versus America. The biggest take-away from the conference was understanding that a desire for power is the common denominator amongst perpetrators of domestic violence. The conference and the lunch following provided a great opportunity for us to mingle with Thai nursing students and get to know them better. After the conference, we were given a free afternoon. We chose to spend our time at a lake. A few of my friends and I rented ... read more

Jan 20th, The best day of my life. Ahhh! I wish everyone could experience what we got to experience today. Pictures and words don’t do it justice. We spent the day at an elephant camp, and it truly was a dream. Elephants are my favorite animal (even more-so after today), so being able to take pictures with them, cuddle them, and ride them through the river and forest was pretty much the best thing ever. On our way back to the camp this morning, we casually passed a man riding an elephant down the road. We were all freaking out, but little did we know, we were going to get much closer than that with the 50 elephants that live on the property. We started off with a show and got to see elephants play soccer, ... read more