elephants, bungee, and tigers. oh my!

So today is my first official day of teaching. However, I do not have any level-1 classes, so I don't actually have to teach for another 3ish weeks. So all I have to do is sit in the office. I feel like I'll get a lot of blogs done this way. I am going to sit in on another teacher's class today, just to get the feel of things. I'm a little less worried about the fact that I don't know how to teach, but I'm sure I'll be scared again once I actually have to teach. But because I don't have any level-1 classes, most of my kids will know more English, so it won't be quite as daunting.

I feel like I should address the red shirt situation before talking about actually interesting things. The red shirts in Thailand represent farmers, workers, etc., who want to change the dates of voting for parliament (or that's my basic understanding, at least). They get pissed off sometimes and set things on fire. They set tires on fire to keep out soldiers so they can riot in certain areas. In the past 14 or so days, things with the red shirts have gotten a bit more violent. There have been more riots, and the police/military are stepping in more actively to end the situation. Last week was supposed to be the first day of school, but all schools, banks, embassies, etc., were closed. Most of the violence in Bangkok was in Siam, which is pretty far away from where I live. My neighborhood/whole side of the city saw no violence or red shirt action. Had I not been told that all of this was going on, I would have no idea from what I see on a day-to-day basis. For the past five days there has been a curfew in Bangkok, so no one could be out after certain times. While I'm sure this seems terrifying to outsiders, it was only put in place so that soldiers and police could more actively fight red shirts. So, all of that scary stuff being said, I have been perfectly safe. There has been no threat to my safety, and things have been going quite well for me. I know people are worried about the situation, because CNN and BBC make it seem like Bangkok is a straight up war zone. That is not the Bangkok I know. The worst thing I have seen in Bangkok was a thunderstorm that came in rather harshly last night. So...I'm good :)

Because school was closed last week, Nick and I decided to go on a little vacation. We went to Chiang Mai, which is in the North of Thailand. It was about a 14 hour train ride (barf). We left Bangkok around 4:30 pm on Wednesday and arrived in Chiang Mai around 7:30 am on Thursday. We got off the train and were immediately attacked by taxi drivers. This happens all over Thailand (with taxi drivers, suit salesmen, tuk tuk drivers wanting to take you to a "ping pong show") and it's really quite annoying. Anyway, we found a hotel that cost a whopping $15 a night for a nice room (with air conditioning, a tv, fan, and hot water). And they provided free transportation from the train station. What more could you ask for? We got to the hotel, and it was super nice. Here is a picture

Anyway, we got there and got all checked in and then wanted to see what kind of trouble we could get ourselves into. We talked to a hotel worker, and said that what we really wanted to do was see some elephants. Chiang Mai is known for elephants. There is a beer here called Chang that has elephants as its logo. I'm definitely getting a tattoo of one of those elephants. So we scheduled a private driver to take us to see some elephants. We drove way up into the mountains and got to the elephant camp. We walked around a lot and saw some elephants and fed them, and all that good stuff. There were just elephants everywhere, and they were HUGE! Here are some pictures of walking around and feeding them, etc.

After we walked around for awhile we went to an elephant show. They danced, and played soccer, and threw darts at balloons, and they painted. I swear to God....they painted pictures. It was so awesome! I wanted to buy one, but they were like $60, and that seemed ridiculous.

After we walked around and watched the show, it was time for our elephant ride! We signed up for an hour ride versus a half hour ride, and I think that was a wise choice. We started off with all of the other elephant riders, and then we took a different turn that took us up a very steep path. We went up, up, up, up, and up through the mountains. It was pretty terrifying at times, because it felt like we were going to be thrown off the mountain at any moment. Especially on the way down. It was really steep and we were just perched way up on top of this huge animal. It was an experience I will never forget. It was a gorgeous view, and just an all together amazing day.

That night we didn't do too much. There was a curfew in Chiang Mai, so there really wasn't too much we could do, aside from hanging out at the hotel and swimming. The next morning we set up another private driver so we could go.....bungee jumping!!!! Nick was pretty anti-bungee the morning we went (he didn't want to die before seeing how LOST ends). I was still going to do it, because I knew if I did it so would he. And I was right! We got to the place, and I wasn't really scared at all because I wasn't letting myself think about it. We filled out all these forms saying that if we died it was our fault, blah, blah, blah. They walked us back to where you jump, and it didn't seem all that high, so I still was feeling good about it. They attached all these crazy things to our legs, which made my feet go instantly numb and turn a really cool blue-ish color. They then started lifting us up to the jumping spot. The ride up seemed theatrically and dramatically long, but that is probably just in my head. The whole way up the guy was giving us directions, but I honestly wasn't really listening. Once we reached the top he threw off all the slack rope, and that was straight up terrifying. I thought it was going to drag us over with it. That was the point that I began to get really scared. He finished telling us what to do and told us to get up and stand with our toes over the edge. I swear, that is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. At that point I was pretty much shaking all over. It sure looked high up. I knew I wouldn't be able to jump all by myself, so I was pretty glad Nick and I were jumping together. The guy counted to three, and then......wooooooo! The first second off the platform was SO AWESOME. I can't wait to do it again. It was the scariest and most freeing thing I have ever done.

This blog is getting obnoxiously long. Anyway, right after bungee jumping we went directly to the Tiger Kingdom. We got to spend fifteen minutes with tigers and play with them! Well, not really play with them, because they were huge and scary, but we got to pet them and stuff.

So that was our vacation!

ps, I saw a motorbike yesterday that had four people on it. One person was carrying a laundry basket.