Maesa Elephant Camp

There were about 70 elephants at this camp. I have never seen so many elephants. They put on an hour show where the elephants danced, played soccer, painted beautiful pictures, played instruments, hoola hooped, and other crazy stuff. We got most of this on video so this was our only photo.
Elephants taking a bath in the river.
The ladies with the baskets are there to catch the drifting elephant poop. What a job.
As you can see, Chase never did get brave enough to get too close to the elephants.
Feeding the elephants sugar cane.

Feeding the elephants bananas were so funny, cause their trunks were so strong that you had no chance of holding onto the bananas for very long with having trunks swarm you.

Our 30 minute elephant ride was awesome. We had to hold on tight cause we went up and down some hills and into a river. At this point in the ride our elephant trainer jumped off to take a picture for us. But we were cracking up cause our elephant kept wanting to take off and not hold still, so the trainer kept shouting at our elephant to hold still. So we had the stubborn elephant, but he gave us a good ride.

I think our elephant was 34 years old, elephants can live to 100. They are considered good luck and prosperity to the Thai people.

Buddhist Temples (Wat) - Chiang Mai

Here we are in one of the many Tuk Tuks we took to cruise around town. I think we paid our driver about $10 to drive us around for 4 hours to take us to a few of the buddhist temples around town.
This statue is called the 3 Kings.
Chase chatting with the monks. A lot of the temples have monks walking around or have certain times set for you to chat with the monks. Kind of like our missionaries.
Do you think this monk is real??


Eating at a restaurant called the Jerusalem Falafel which was pretty good. I never had a falafel before, and even Chase liked it. And they had great pita bread and dips.

Ratilanna Riverside Resort - Chiang Mai

Mae Ping river, this was our view each morning as we ate breakfast. Chase loved their chocolate chip muffins and we did as well.
Chase playing peek a boo after a swim.

So the second half of our Thailand adventure we headed up north to Chiang Mai. This resort we found was beautiful and was right along the Mae Ping river. It was slightly further from town would have been are only complaint. But the staff was so nice and we loved our room, we had nice lounge area on our balcony and sweet bathroom. And you can't beat 60 minute Thai massages for about $15.00. I had never gotten a Thai massage before, usually just Swedish ones, it felt great but I ended up laughing in the middle of mine. They do more acupunture/stretching type moves. And I think I was imagining Cole getting a massage right after me which made me laugh as well.

Phi Phi Island Hopping Tour

The famous Maya Beach where they filmed the movie "The Beach". This island was gorgeous. The white sand was baby soft and the water was a clear aqua blue. I could have stayed here all day. It was the grand finally of all the 7 islands we hit that day on our speed boat tour, and it was gorgeous.

Chase looking for his dad who was out snorkeling. Here fishy, fishy, fishy. The snorkeling was great since the water was so clear. So many pretty fish.

Chase fell asleep on his dad for a quick snooze in between islands.
Chase and I feeding banana's to the ocean fish. You don't see this every day. Chase thought it was so cool to see fish this close.

They served us some crab, shrimp, calamari, vegetable skewers that were so good at one of the islands we stopped off at. Just don't eat the hot peppers. The thai love to use very hot peppers in their cooking.
Cole sipping some coconut milk straight from a coconut. Life is so tough.
Cole and I love this picture of the Muffin Man. He is the best and was such a trooper on our day of island hopping. Our tour guide Chris and his helpers just loved Chase. He was laughing at us that Chase swam in the ocean with us, cause he said Thai people don't let their kids swim in the ocean. However you will see a family of 4 all on a moped riding around town.

Big Bhudda & Phang Phang Restaurant - Phuket

While in Phuket, we decided one afternoon to take a cab to Patong Beach to walk around and get something to eat (about 5 min ride from our hotel). However, our taxi driver told us about this great restaurant in Chalong (about 15 min drive) and he offered to take us there, then he would take us to an authentic jewelry factory and then to see Big Bhudda. And he was only going to charge us 200 baht (about $6 for driving us around for 4 hours). He was right, the restaurant was amazing. It was right on the shore, and you could pick out your fresh crab, prawns, lobster, whatever from the holding bins for them to cook. If I was going to die tomorrow this is where I would want to eat. We ordered some pad thai, best ever, peppered fried crab, and some tiger prawns in chili sauce. And it was so cheap. After lunch we went to a jewelry factory where Cole bought me my early Christmas present of a beautiful elephant charm and some pretty peridot earrings (Chase's birthstone). We then headed up a huge mountain where Big Buddha sits and looks out over all of Phuket. Big Buddha was under construction. It is hard to tell, but he is 10 times the size of the gold Buddha I am standing next to. And the view was amazing.

Le Meridian Resort-Phuket

We have been in Thailand the last 2 weeks and we had the time of our lives. We were in Phuket for the first half of the trip and then in Chiang Mai the second half of the trip. It is going to take me several posts to get all of our pictures blogged. But the above pictures are from our first hotel in Phuket(pooket). The beach was amazing. Warm crystal clear water, white sand, great weather, and it was nice that our hotel was on a secluded beach. We had nice room with a patio that had an umbrella and lounge chairs to hang out when Chase was sleeping. It took Chase only about a day to get used to the ocean and then it was hard to keep him out of the ocean and of course the pool, he is my little shrimp. The hotel staff was so nice and they just loved Chase, they constantly would pick him up and play with him. Chase never did get use to the baby elephant that would come to the resort daily. Especially when the elephant played the harmonica, Chase would start crying. But it was so cool. Most of the hotel guests were Russian, Australian, and European. But it was so nice that most of the Thai staff and people spoke pretty good English as their second language. We definately would love to go back and stay at this resort again.