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Published: February 13th 2012
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It has been a wonderful month. It started off with traveling with one of my bestest buddies Danielle for 3 weeks. We did a whirlwind trip of Thailand, the first week of which I will post about now. We started in Bangkok for 2 nights. Nothing magical happened there except that I fell off a curb and sprained my ankle pretty bad (surprise!). Our next stop was Ayutthaya, a former capitol of Siam, and home to an amazing array of ancient ruins. We spent a day exploring the former kingdom, and also got terribly lost. We decided to walk everywhere we went, which, in theory, would have been a great idea. Unfortunately, due to bad maps and personality conflicts, we ended up walking on the side of a very busy road in a bike lane for a few hours. The highlight was the pack of wild dogs snarling and chasing after me. We left Ayutthaya the next day for Sukhothai.
Sukhothai, the first capitol of Siam, before Ayutthaya, is a world heritage site, and the ruins we much better preserved than in Ayutthaya. We decided to rent bikes this day (my ankle was very happy) and rode around the park
for a few hours taking pictures and seeing the amazing sights. This was a great day, and also very short. The highlight of Sukhothai was that it was the weekend of Chinese New Year, and the whole town was out celebrating when we arrived that night. Danielle and I split ways that night and she discovered a carnival in the midst of a Buddhist temple opening. She said it was a very strange contrast...people popping balloons with darts across from monks praying and blessing the temple. On my walk I stumbled upon a stage with dancers, singers, and raffle drawings with 3 blocks of round tables with thai people eating, drinking thai whiskey, and dancing. I got invited to join one of these tables, and I drank thai whiskey with the men and danced with the women. They even taught me how to dance like a proper Thai women, but the more drunk they got the more they appreciated my spastic dancing. Apparently Sukhothai is home to many Chinese Thai people, and they were partying all weekend. I am really happy we stumbled upon this, as it was one of my more culturally memorable experiences for my first month in
Thailand. Unfortunately, no camera for this one. The night ended with me getting a ride home on the back of one of the women's motorbikes. They were very concerned for my safety and would not let me walk the 3 blocks home by myself no matter how much I insisted it was no problem. Such nice people!
We left for Chiang Mai the next day. Here we spent a few days letting my ankle rest, shopping at markets, and drinking a little too much on our last night in town. Well, what was supposed to be our last night...we missed our plane the next day. (Damn you Thai whiskey!) Danielle went to an elephant sanctuary which she found to be an amazing experience. A lot of places in Thailand offer elephant rides, tricks, etc, but Danielle went to a place which is truly a sanctuary for elephants, where they are well taken care of, are not there for show, and are truly in a good place. The lady who runs the place is also attempting forest conservation by designating trees as holy, which are not cut due to buddhist principles. One tree at a time...
This is where
I will end this post. Next up, the beach!!!
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