Protests in Bangkok

I don’t know if many of you are keeping up with the situation in Thailand with the Red Shirt protesters and their clash with the government, but I wanted to let everyone know that we are safe and sound.  We left Bangkok May 14th, at 9:20pm on a flight to Phuket, Thailand.

We had gotten to Bangkok on Wednesday, May 12th, at 9:00am after an overnight train from Chiang Mai.  At this point, the protests had simmered down but the protesters were still encamped in the same area that they have been occupying since March.  There had not been any violence for a while so we assumed our plans wouldn’t be affected.  For one thing, the protests are happening in a very small area of the city.  Bangkok has approximately 6.3 million people so think of it as basically Houston (times 3 though).  The protests were not happening in the tourist parts of the city so tourists could keep clear of it.
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Elephants, tigers, and pandas, oh my!!

Chiang Mai has become the wild kingdom for us.  In the past few days, it seems like we have packed in all the interaction with the southeast Asia animals that are on our to-do list.  Since we are here for a whole week (for my massage training), we wanted to knock out as many Thailand experiences here in Chiang Mai, rather than put them off for later in the trip.

Chris driving his queen, Lindsey, through the jungle

I finally got to ride an elephant and it was a fantastic experience.  We ended up with a large male, about 10 foot tall, who pretty much did whatever he wanted.  It seemed like he would walk a different path than all the others and would even make his own way through thick brush, stopping in tall grass when he was feeling hungry.  We got to ride him for about an hour through the jungle passing through rivers.  We stopped about half way and met up with a lady in a tree house selling bananas as a snack for the elephants.  It was a crazy experience to feed the hungry animal.  He would throw his trunk up over his head and blow air at us, waiting expectantly for another banana.  One after another we fed him, and not until his mouth was full did he chew them.  Then quickly he was done and his trunk was begging for more.  He got a little angry when we ran out, snorting banana breath at us.

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Spending time in Chiang Mai

First off, we want to let everyone know that we really appreciate all the comments.  It is great to know that the blog subscription service is working and there really is someone out there.

Only in Thailand can the internet get a "massage"

Well, we decided to try to fix our photo memory card problem when we get back to the States. We don’t really trust the computers here now and I think we may have found the main culprit in the spread of computer/internet viruses.  Who knew that in Thailand, even the internet could get a “massage”? ; )  Therefore, you will have to wait for the blog posts about our travels during the “virus” time period.  We feel that it is hard to explain some of the stories and sights without pictures (such as our police bribe story as we were trying to find our way to the bowling alley in Vientiane, Laos).  In addition, the computers and internet speed here makes it a monumental task to post pictures and these blog posts.  We plan on posting stories from our daily travel journals and more pictures when we get back to the States (the land of quick internet).

Well, travel plans change.  We had thought we would spend some time in the Golden Triangle, where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet.  We were hoping to cross the border into Myanmar to add one more country visited to our list, but bus travel would have consumed too much time.  We decided to head right to Chiang Mai, which turned out to be a good idea.
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