Chang Mai

1.5 days to spend in Chang Mai is definitely not enough time. We flew in yesterday around 2pm and headed directly to a fabulous cooking class. Our chef was great and they gave us a cookbook to take home. Hopefully we can remember everything he taught us. I think the fried bananas were definitely my favorite. We also made Tom Yum soup, Curry, Stir Fry and Pad Thai. (And yes, even Suzy cooked)

Elephant snot. We can safely check getting elephant snot all over us off our list of things to do in our lifetimes (although I never knew it was on my list until today). Suzy finally got to ride an elephant today (hooray!) and as you ride along on your elephant he perioducally stops and asks for a delicious banana snack by throwing his trunk back. Well, I think our elephant, Vadi, had a bit of a cold as every time he threw his trunk back for a snack, we got an elephant snot shower. mmmm....it was still great fun though.

We continued on our tour through a village of Karen people and later through a Hmong village, which were both actually interesting to see because our guide was great and told us some things about the different tribes rather than just walking through. Life in the suburbs sure is easy with our neat gadgets like electricity and running water! We also stopped at a waterfall between the 2 villages, get excited for more waterfall pictures!

Suzy also made her first strides towards making the 2012 US Olympic arching team today by shooting her first crossbow. She still has some room for "improvement" before trying out for the team.

After lunch we did some bamboo rafting, very Tom Sawyer-esque. Alana did a great job row, row, rowing our raft down the stream as well as being the choosen victim of our guide, Cosmo's, continuous attempts to throw people in the river - "no wet, no fun!"- twice. Although she did manage to bring him along with her once.

Wish we had more time in Chaing Mai, but the sun, sand, and Chinese New Year festivities beckon us South to the Island of Phuket.

For anyone else planning on coming here two things:

1. If you come from Laos make sure to switch out your money beforehand or you will be stuck with unwanted kips. No fun at all

2. There is a tour where you can actually play with Tigers. We met several people that said this was awesome and from the looks of their pictures it was.

Oh and, think we fixed the comment error. Comment away now :)