Chiang Mai part II

The next night we decided to stay at a sort of boarding home instead of the hotel. This was a new experience for me, but one I rather liked. The owners of the house didn't speak English at all, but they were very hospitably and friendly. The house was just few blocks away from River View Lodge and very cheap-- I could stay there for a month and pay less than $500 dollars!

elephant bath

We had one day left as tourists so we decided to go to the elephant camp that Pastor Prachan had suggested. It is called Maesa I think. Anyway it was incredible. I had no idea the kinds of things elephants are capable of!!! 

Painting!!!!

http://www.gallerymaesa.com/gallery.php#

 I promise, I watched an elephant paint this without help. All the trainer did was pick out the colors and hand them the brush. Mom was speechless :D

After the show, mom and I payed extra to go on an elephant ride to a remote villages including long neck karen, Karen, and Hmong. The elephant ride was insane. We were going on these really steep mountain trails on a very wobbly elephant in the jungle! It lasted about 20-30 minutes and our elephant kept going off the path on to the hillside to nibble at some grass. Scared me half to death.

JUNGLE :D

The villages were very interesting...we got a few handmade scarves and stuff. It was very special for me because I was able to speak a little Karen with the people. I think they were very exited by this because not many people bother to learn Karen; it is a pretty obscure language after all.

This lady let me take a picture of her and her loom. 

Things for sale at the longneck village.

They have a church!

The school

The church

Rice 

A Karen spinning wheel. They make their own string out of cotton that grows on trees, then weave it into beautiful material that can be sown into clothes or bags.

Last on our to-do list was TIGERS!!!! We had our taxi take us to "Tiger Kingdom". This was a must for me because it has been a life long wish to pet a tiger. I can still hardly believe that I got to do it! We decided to see the adult tigers and the baby tigers. The pictures say it all :D

we got a coconut while waiting :)

It was so amazing! I couldn't stop smiling all day. I just kept thinking "Wow, I am sooooo lucky!". When we go back to the hotel, we met Pastor Sayan, founder of the home of Blessing and a friend of Pastor Prachan. We all went out to dinner and planned to leave Chiang Mai the next day.