Exciting News!

I have some excellent news: some of our sixth grade students began to read English words today!!! Hooray! I'm so impressed by how much progress they've made, especially considering the fact that we just finished discussing phonics last week. I couldn't believe it! Today in class, some of the students were able to piece together the sounds of fairly complex words, like window. Go little Thai kids! Charlotte and I were so excited, we were jumping all around the classroom. I actually think we were more excited about the entire thing than the students were. While they're making tremendous progress with their English, I still haven't seemed to make any improvements with my Thai speaking skills. I've learned to just laugh and smile along with them whenever I try to say something in Thai. Oh, and we finally managed to take a few pictures while we were teaching today. We'll certainly try to take more, but for now here's one of our sixth graders during story time. They really liked it, especially since the book had pop-ups and funky textures, like fluffy "fur" for the dogs and smooth "bumps" for the frogs. I must admit, though, the book was somewhat tricky, even for a native English speaker. Who knew that U is for Uacaris, a type of monkey? I guess I learned something new today, too.

Story time!

What else? At the office, Charlotte and I are still working on writing the mahout-elephant booklet that we hope to sell at the elephant camp's visitor's center/souvenir shop. So far, we've discussed the history of the Asian elephant in Thai culture, the plight of mahouts and their changing identities from past to present, and the importance of elephant camps to the conservation of domestic and wild elephants. We've only just started and have much more material to discuss, but so far so good!

Skewers at the ready!

There wasn’t much work for us to do at the elephant camp today, though, since we interviewed all of the mahouts last week (to get info for the mahout-elephant profile section of the booklets). However, we still managed to give Tao, Bean, and Nung trunk rubs!

In my excitement about our students’ breakthrough, I completely overlooked our food update. Last night, Charlotte and I gathered together some very tasty bits and bobs for a yummy food stall dinner. I decided that we should try a Thai-style “breakfast for dinner,” so we bought an egg roti (similar to a crêpe with a fried egg in it) and two Northern Thai sausages that were much shorter and fatter than sausages in the US, much like the bananas here. The combo was superb, if I do say so myself! The sausages were super tasty and slightly sour. They went perfectly with the crunchy cucumbers that they came with. Then we had these really funky (by which I mean downright gross) balls. I had no idea what they were, and I’d left our Thai phrasebook at home, so I didn’t get very far trying to ask what they were. I just bought them anyways, and hoping for the best, popped one in my mouth all in one go. The verdict? I don't particularly care for mysterious gelatinous balls. They had a very slick, slimy texterure when coated in coconut milk, and were filled with what tasted and smelled like sugary, pan-fried garlic. It was an interesting combo to say the least. I had to wash them down with my green tea and black sesame milkshake. (I had to add the green balls to my short list of unpalatable items, right next to Charlotte’s funky squid-on-a-stick and this bitter root vegetable I recently encountered in some soup). Aside from that, everything’s in tip top taste and order! 

Egg roti-sausage-cucumber kabob!

A Not So Lazy Sunday

Oh, man. Charlotte and I were so tired last night from our crazy Muay Thai lessons that we slept in until 10:30 this morning, despite the fact that the super-ambitious Olivia from last night had set our alarm for 8 AM. So much for getting an early start! In spite our laziness, we soon took advantage of what was left of our day. Even though it was pouring all morning with no sign of letting up (it is the rainy season here, after all), we donned our raincoats, hopped on our squeaky bikes, and headed over to our new favorite (yet nameless) restaurant for another steamy bowl of kao soi and some roasted chicken. Apparently, plenty of other people had the same idea, as the place was packed with people downing bathtub-sized bowls of steamy soup. And even though neither Charlotte nor myself are big meat eaters, we packed that chicken away! It was so tasty, but I can't figure out for the life of me what they did to it....Charlotte thinks they drugged it, but I'm pretty sure it's the Thai iced teas that are drugged, not the chicken. I'm definitely addicted to their tea!

With full tums, we were ready to begin on our journey to...(drumroll, please)...Doi Suthep! One of northern Thailand's most sacred temples, Wat Phra That Doi Suthep is one of the two sacred peaks located in the Doi Suthep-Pui National Park and was established in 1383. For some reason, the whole part about this being a mountain temple completely escaped my mind, so I proposed to Charlotte that we ride our bikes up there for a nice Sunday outing. In fact, I knew that this was one of the mountain temples, but it just didn't register that if we rode our bikes to this mountain, this would involve a change in incline and in elevation, both of which can be very noticeable on a bike. Somehow, though, Charlotte didn't seem to think this all the way through, either, and we were soon pedaling up and down the city's puddle-laden sois (little streets).

Charlotte atop her trusty bike.

The super-slippery rocks at Nam Huaykeaw.

Trying not to fall in!

  Our first stop was the Huaykeaw Waterfall near the base of the Doi Suthep mountain. It was the perfect place for a bit of a rest and rock-scramble. The waterfall was nice, but it somewhat weirded me out how the water looked soapy. I'm not sure if that was from some sort of mineral deposits, pollution, or something else. I was trying to decipher some of the signs around the falls, but they were unfortunately all in Thai. All I managed to pick out was that the source of the water is much farther away, like near the Burmese border, I believe. No matter, we had quite a bit of fun scrambling about, and trying not to fall into the mysteriously milky-ish brown water. This is easier said than done, let me tell you! Those rocks were more slippery than Charlotte after a Muay Thai lesson. (Ewww!) 

Charlotte cooling off in the waterfall mist.

Once we had our fill of sliding and scrambling, we went to retrieve our bikes and begin our ascent. As we were unlocking our bikes, a song-tao driver kindly offered us a lift to Doi Suthep. "No, thanks! We need all of the exercise we can get, since we keep eating so much!" I replied with a laugh. He gave me a quizzical sort of look, and waved us off with a "good luck!" I quickly learned we'd need all the luck we could get to reach the top. Barely a minute into the ride, I realized that I was absolutely mad for suggesting that we bike up the mountain.

The mountain is 1, 676 m. tall, and we hardly had the proper bikes, what with Charlotte on her rusty old thing and me barely covering any ground on my squeaky, 5-ton beach cruiser. For three hours, we "rode" our bikes up the twists and turns of the winding mountain road. To say we actually rode our bikes up the mountain wouldn't really be accurate, since the max I could ever ride was about 200 m, after which I'd have to heave myself off my tank of a bike, and give it a good push until I could hop on again. Naturally, Charlotte and I were both soaked to the bone in sweat, and we frequently had to stop along the road for a water break or to day-dream about mango smoothies. (Ok, the smoothie part was just me, but I'm sure Charlotte would've gladly accepted one, had she been offered one.) Strangely enough, Charlotte seemed quite chipper about the entire ordeal, even though I seriously thought I was going to keel over dead just as soon as I rounded the next corner (from a heat stroke or from trying to bike while standing up, a skill which Charlotte thought it'd be best to master while riding in a two-lane road up the mountain). On the bright side, we provided endless amounts of entertainment for everyone that passed us. Some would wave to us and cheer for us to keep riding whenever we pushed our bikes (which was, admittedly, the majority of the time), while others couldn't help but laugh and smile at our (pained?) expressions. Every time we rounded a corner and saw that the road ahead was only steeper than the one before, Charlotte and I would moan (or in her case, curse). Two Westerners passed us on their motorbike on one such occasion, and they nearly fell off their bike they laughed so hard.

We weren't the only bikers, though! There were quite a few though old Thai dudes cranking up that beast of a mountain. They all had skinny little chicken legs, and always cruised passed us with the greatest of ease. When I saw one of them zooming back down the moutain, I thought we were surely getting closer to the top. Only when we'd been biking for 3 hours did we finally ask someone how much farther it was. While I was expecting it to be just around the next corner (we were almost in the misty cloud layer), we were informed we'd only covered 5 km and still had 6 more to go! Ack! Even though Charlotte had taken our suicidal bike-up-the-mountain to be some sort of test of her will ("You made me start this crazy ride, Olivia, and I'm going to finish it!" she kept saying), we both decided we needed to catch a song-tao the rest of the way if we ever wanted to see the temple before nightfall.

Soo tired!

Nyuuuh!

Thankfully, a song-tao driver saved us from our insane ride and drove us the rest of the way, just in time to see the temple 15 minutes before it closed. What a close call! The temple was well worth the trip (in a song-tao, that is...I don't recommend the biking method), and looked spectacular with all of the mist. There were also tons of jungle bugs humming and buzzing, which made for some very nice background music of sorts. We trekked up the 300-something stairs to the temple, and explored the temple, which gave us a chance to recuperate a bit before making our descent. (I certainly would like to go back again, though, so we could have more time to explore!) As it was, it was getting pretty late, and neither one of us wanted to be flying down the mountain in the dark.

One of the many paintings lining the walls of the temple.

An elephant-adorned lamp post.

The famous golden chedi.

We made it!

The ride down the mountain took us 27 min (just to give you an idea of how big it was), and that was with me going at an instantly-wear-your-break-pads-down type of speed. Although Charlotte screamed down the mountain with careless abandon, I was slightly more cautious (with my bicycle riding history and all) and sqeaked down the whole way. I'm pretty sure I rubbed my braked pads down to tiny nubs, if there's even anything left. Oh, and when I reached the base of the moutain, my legs looked the the windshield of a car that's just completed a cross-country road trip. As I was cruising along, all these bugs and dirt clods smacked into my legs, imparting them with a lovely, thick layer of mucky muck.

For din, we stopped by the Sunday Street Market and picked up, among other things, these tasty chips things. The bottom is a thin wafer/chip with a dollop of some mysterious creamy substance and topped with this sweet, shredded coconutty thing. Very vague description, but they were very yummy! A great way to end our day!

Outta Muay Way!!!

So that witty title...the "Outta Muay Way"...that's what I'm going to be telling people that get on my nerves now that I've been taking super legit Muay Thai kickboxing lessons!  I'll set the stage for you guys.  Olivia and I sorta had a relationship going with the instructors before we even started taking lessons.  The boxing arena is literally 15 yards from our apartment.  Handy, eh?!  But anyway, every time Olivia and I ride by on our ever-so-trusty-yet-rusty bicycles all the instructors are lounging around outside.  They always say "Oh! Hello!" They always sound so friendly, and genuinely excited to see us...I feel its safe to say we're right on track to becoming best of friends!  Maybe that's an exaggeration, but because the guys were so friendly, Olivia and I managed to overcome our fear of the place.  "HUAH HUAH YAAAAA!!!" noises always float up to our room.  Its generally accompanied by loud thumping noises...sorta like if you threw a watermelon against a wall.  But we were right! Everyone is so cheerful!  And the watermelon-hitting-cement noises, we now know, aren't that scary.  It's just 110 pound super jacked Thai men side kicking punchingbags...or each other.  And the HUAH HUAH YAAAAA!!! noise? Well, that's apparently what you're supposed to say when you punch things really, really fast.  But lemme fill you in on the deets of our instructors.  There is Tree.  He's in a boxing competition tonight! More powa to ya brotha!

This is Tree.  Don't underestimate him! He's a Muay Thai master!

Olivia in her typical stick-up-the -butt stance she adopts when trying Muay Thai

Then there's Saman.  He likes to laugh at us a lot.  But then again, they all do.  I think I'd vote him the friendliest of the bunch though.  There's Gah.  He's super serious.  And has trained in Australia and Japan.  He's pretty legit.  He also told me I was beautiful...and asked me if he could take me shopping on Sunday (at least I thing that's what he was getting at.  His English isn't very good).  Diesel...I know you aren't reading this...but for those of you that are...don't worry.  I told Gah no thanks.  Back to instructors.  There's A.  He speaks the best English, and has very helpful hints on mastering the finer details of Muay Thai.  Ohm is cool too.  He has stitches on his face, and the biggest bruise I have EVER seen on his leg.  I invented a dramatic story in my head at lessons today about how he got those injuries, but if i wrote it all out it'd make this blog post WAY too long.  Oh there is also Kob.  He looks really young.  But that could just be due to the fact that some Thai people don't seem to age really.  He's TINY! But super jacked, and he kicks things SOOO hard.  Lastly there is Jack.  He isn't an instructor, but he's this fat american dude that has been doing nothing for the past four months but take muay thai 2 times a day.  Yeah...you're probably wondering the same thing I am. How's he still fat?!! I have no idea.  But anyway, all the instructors like to yell at him.  They say.."Lazy Jack! One million situps!" or "Jack sparrow! You go jogging, jogging!" I think it'd be too hard to try to explain everything we do at Muay Tahi.  But Olivia and I did 4 hours of it today.  I don't think I even get this sore during training camp!  I'll wait till Saman stops laughing at me every time I try to do a left-leg side kick, and then I'll have Olivia film it, and we can post it on the blog.  But I can tell you guys about the food we ate today!  I was feeling ambitious after Muay Thai lessons today, and ordered the "super bowl"of this super tasty curry, pasta combo. Sounds disgusting.  But probably the most delicious thing I've had since I've been here.  It's called Koi Sow. 

In case you were wondering....we ate the whole thing.

And that's saying something!  Olivia and I also had a HUGE craving for some bread/carbs of some sort.  Yesterday the only bread-like substance I could find was this box of cookies.  They are a combination of chocolate wafers and saltine crackers.  I ate 7 of them.  But today we found this sort westernish bakery.  Olivia and I kinda went overboard.  We got a whole rum-raisin cake.  A slice of banana cream pie (neither Olivia and I really like banana cream pie...but it's apparently Love at First Bite's  specialty.  And since they made it using these delicious mini Thai bananas we figured we'd give it a go.  Good thing too! Superb!) And I got a Tres Leches cake. It was soaked in condensed milk.  Just like everything else here.  But it was oh-so-tasty. 
Sorry this post is so bad.  I'm just super tired from Muay Thai...ZZZZZZZ.....I guess it's just a bean in my yogurt! Hmmm...I was trying that saying out.  It's one Olivia and I made up today.  It means "It's kinda weird, but don't dwell on it".  Or more along the lines of "Don't worry about it".  That sort of thing.  We came up with it when Olivia was eating her yogurt this morning and found it was full of beans and corn. 

Beans and corn, anyone?

Naturally she ate it anyway.    

HAHAHA!! Olivia is gonna be mad when she sees I posted this....

Super Mondo Gianormous Donut!

We have been quite so busy these past few days, working at the Track of the Tiger office in Chiang Mai, the elephant camp, and the school. However, it would be best not to discuss our business plans (at Track of the Tiger) just yet, but you'll be happy to know that things are looking up for the elephants and their mahouts! For now, I'll fill you in on our work at the school and our yummy eating adventures (of course!).

I'm not sure what the name of the school is, but it is in a small village right near the elephant camp. The principal has been very warm and welcoming, and is eager to have whatever support Charlotte and I can offer, probably because it'll be better than whatever English the children are learning now. All of the children are fun to work with, and seem to enjoy their classes. Well, at least I think they are; Charlotte begs to differ, as I had predicted. We try to make the classes as interactive and fun as possible, by turning lessons into games and suchlike. I would never really want to be a teacher as a profession, but for now, I think it offers some excellent challenges for both of us. The language barrier naturally makes everything we do take a million times longer than it normally would, since we usually have to act out or illustrate on the chalk board whatever we want the children to do. And even then it can be difficult to communicate! For example, I had the sixth graders make name cards to place on their desk, as I figured I'd better learn their names soon enough. However, rather than increase attention and focus by having each student called on by their name, it merely resulted in the children erupting in great peals of laughter. I know my pronunciation of Thai words is pretty bad, since no one at the restaurants ever understands me, but I certainly didn't think it was that awful! Oh well, I suppose this will be a learning experience for both the students and myself. I do feel sorry for the students, though, because they always have such sweaty, smelly English teachers! Charlotte and I go to the school right from the elephant camp, where we're usually mucking about with the elephants and their mahouts. By the time we've walked to the school in the blazing afternoon sun, we're drenched with sweat and reek like a bunch of dusty elephants! Poor kids!And we just continue to bake in their classrooms, which simply have old creaky fans to circulate the hot, stuffy air. We've managed to find a wonderful method of cooling down, though: black sesame milkshakes! The heat just makes the milkshakes all the more enjoyable when we arrive back in Chiang Mai.

The funky bus on our way back to Chiang Mai. Check out the fans and ceiling!

Dreaming of milkshakes on the bus.

We've found a yummy little street cart nearby that makes these delicious milkshakes. The menu is in Thai and English (although none of the English is comprehensible!), so we sometimes just take a guess when ordering. Charlotte discovered the nutty-ish black sesame one. Yum! The chocolate banana one sounded good, but I should've known better when I didn't see any real bananas around. The lady used this funky banana powder instead. It still was refreshing, though! 

Super mondo gianormous donut!

Spicy squid Lay's chips

This is one serious donut.

 For dessert last night, we grabbed this GIANT donut stick from a street cart nearby. It's nothing but fried batter, so I suppose it'd be hard to mess that up. However, the key to this heart-attack-waiting-to-happen dessert was the somewhat mysterious but oh-so-delicious coconutty green dipping sauce. It was just slightly sweet, very creamy, and had a slight coconut flavor. What a great combo! We also grabbed some chips to munch on and yogurt for the morning. One of them has "cereal nuts and lotus seeds," whatever those are. They look like beans on the label, but I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what it actually tastes like.

Finally, some yogurt! This one has mixed fruit in it.

Here are a few pics from our day at the elephant camp today:

Tao is posing for his beauty shot.

Roasted pork leg with rice.

As you may be able to tell, I finally learned how to change the format and settings on our blog, since I managed to switch the primary language from Thai to English. Thank goodness! I'm still working on the formatting, but hopefully now it'll be somewhat better than before.

For din tonight, we had this crispy fried fish in this yummy sauce with rice and a glass noodle salad. Charlotte's been craving a fish of some sort ever since she's seen the grilled ones at the local market, and she jumped at the opportunity when she saw this one on the menu of a local restaurant. They brought it out in this dish that was set over hot coals, which kept it nice and toasty as we munched away at it. I do believe Charlotte was very content with her fish, judging by the fact that she's already asleep from her big food baby. I'd better follow suit, since we're starting Mua Thai kickboxing lessons bright and early in the morning!

The long-awaited fish!

(Extra)ordinary Days

Well, I've tried so hard to think of something to say aside from the heavenly food Charlotte and I have been eating the past few days, but I simply must talk about it! It's all so yummy, that I must share our edible findings. At least that'll be a good starting point for this posting.
We recently revisited one of the tasty restaurants down the road for a quick dinner, and although the menu was almost entirely in Thai, we managed to pick some delicious dishes with the old hope-for-the-best pointing/guessing method. It worked like a charm! I'm happy to report that my tolerance for spicy food is gradually increasing, since I managed to eat an entire spicy green papaya salad without keeling over dead after the first bite. Charlotte, however, wasn't as fortunate, and spent most of the meal downing our entire bucket of ice. I'm pretty sure she popped one of those killer little chiles in her mouth as she was wolfing down her food....Charlotte found her new "favorite food of the day," though: crispy fish chips! Well, that certainly isn't the real name for them, but that's what we've dubbed them. They're super crunchy bits of fish (bones and all), and you munch away at them with a bit of sauce and a pinch of rice. Mmmm!

Charlotte before having eaten said chile.

Papaya salad made with fermented fish oil.

Fish chips!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that there are these little spirit houses all over the place, from the shabbiest rooftops to the most ornate temples. They look like miniature temples themselves, only much smaller, and they come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Frequently, people also leave out little offerings of food, like fruit or rice, on their spirit house. According to Matthew, our translator, you aren't allowed to throw them away, lest you wish to be cursed for all of eternity. Ok, so I made that last part up, although it is considered bad mojo if you throw yours away. So what is the proper way of disposing of one, if you must do so? Indirectly throw it away by leaving it at a temple for the monks to deal with. Poor monks!

A spirit house.

In my attempt to take some more pics of everyday Thai life, here's one of a miniature song-tao motorbike contraption. Very handy, but not particularly the safest means of transportation, especially when bouncing along on the highway at obscene speeds. Although we haven't been on one (thank goodness!), I do see them quite frequently weaving all around the streets and whatnot, all the while somehow managing to keep themselves all in one piece. I keep waiting for some of the rickety ones to just fall apart when they go over a bump in the road.

After returning from several days at the elephant camp, Charlotte was covered in so many bugs bites it was as if every mosquito within a several mile radius managed to find her and poke her like a pincushion with their sabre-like pokey things. Lucky for me, the mosquitoes took quite a fancy to my unfortunate sister, and I managed to escape the massive swarms that descended upon her each night. Thankfully, neither of us seemed to even see so much as a single mosquito wing today when we returned to the camp for several hours.
At this point, Charlotte and I decided we will be much more productive working from Chiang Mai, rather than at the elephant camp. Don't get me wrong, we both love learning about the elephants from the mahouts, but there's just so much more we can do in town to help the camp and the mahouts. Right now, the camp is struggling financially (to put it lightly), so we're going to try to write short booklets (in English, French, Chinese, and Spanish) including background info on the historical significance of elephants in Thai culture, as well as mahout and elephant profiles with info about themselves and their experiences working with elephants. We're hoping to sell these to tourists so that the mahouts and the camp will receive immediate profits so that they can have enough money to revamp the place.They certainly need as much help as they can get!

Gwi, Kit, and Mui with baby Doi.

One other area we're looking into is potentially setting up mushroom farming at the elephant camp, using elephant dung as the growing medium. Apparently, mushrooms grow quite well in such environments, and there certainly is a plethora of dung around the camp! This way, the mahouts (or villagers) could sell the mushrooms that they grow to provide themselves with a second source of income. So for now, we'll continue to visit the camp  two days each week to interview all of the mahouts, help out around the camp, and continue to learn about the elephants from the mahouts.

Ooh, and look at this crazy plant we saw while walking through the camp! Charlotte and I were pretty excited over it, although Matthew just shrugged it off, dismissing it as "just a fern." Fern or not, we certainly don't have plants like that in Seattle!

Our English-teaching classes are going well, too, although they're quite challenging. While the children have theoretically been learning English since the first grade, many of them barely know the alphabet, even though the students we're teaching are in 4th-6th grade. It's really quite an eye-opening experience to see just how different their schooling is from our own. In the 6th grade, for example, there's only six students and they learn all of their material from a video, since the school has a shortage of teachers. I can't imagine what sort of uproar that'd cause back home if there was a similar situation! Our lessons are slow, but steady, and always very entertaining with the kids. I'll try to take some pics next time!
Before I completely fall asleep at my laptop, I'll leave you with these parting images of our yummy food:

A mouthful of mangosteen!

Killer soup.

Enjoying our Thai iced tea

Takoyaki from the market

Custards?

Sweet corn in a cup!

By now, you've had a glimpse into our ordinary-type of days that are really  quite extraordinary and exciting! Hope you aren't too hungry after seeing all of these food pics!

Markets, Monks and Mangosteens! Oh My!

Today was a day of adventure and intrigue!  And food.  I'll gloss over the details of Olivia and I's new favorite coffee shop.  Its just down the road, and they make the most amazing Thai iced tea and Smile coffee on the planet.

Tasty "smile coffee"!

The custard cake with flan on top made for delicious breakfast and the chocolate chip cookies weren't too bad either.  We hopped on our trusty bicycles (haha! I just noticed today that mine says DIESEL in big letters on the side.  I think that's funny.) and rode into Old City.  The ride in is a little scary, and Mom and Dad would definitely not approve (so don't read the next few lines guys).  Olivia and I have to ride on the highway to get anywhere! And let me tell you, Thailand might be known for its extraordinary food, but not its extraordinary drivers! There are virtually no rules of the road here.  It's kind of a free for all.  I was thinking, as cars and scooters flew by me, that a bicycle would not stand a chance against a taxi cab.  Anyway, Olivia and I finally made it to Old City and decided to soothe our frazzled nerves with a refreshing fruit juice.  We stopped into this roadside juice bar, and I ordered a coconut juice and Olivia got a mango one.

Everything seemed pretty normal.  Olivia and I were happily sipping our beverages and taking pictures of all the food we wanted to get from the market.  Then, outta the blue, this giant man emerges from behind a fruit basket brimming with mangoes.  Quite honestly I don't know how he failed to catch my attention before because the juice shop was small and cute.  Thai-sized I'd say....and this guy was definitely NOT Thai sized! He sat down next to Olivia and I and began chatting away.  But not in a cute, friendly way.  He was sketchy.  That's for sure.  His name was Jack.  He plays "football" for the Chiang Mai team and he's from South Africa.  His phone number is....hahah! Yeah! I know! You're probably just beginning to realize the extent of his creepiness.  But even now I don't think you understand.  So Olivia and I told him we didn't have a phone number to give to him.  No. We would not go clubbin' with him (even though I coulda shown off my expert booty clappin' skills).  And no.  We would not like to go back to his house with him! When Olivia and I finally managed to get up and start heading out, Jack decided that the best way to win us over was to explain that if we didn't call him tonight, and he ran into us the next morning, he'd hit us with his car! "That way," he explained, "I can either take you to the hospital, or to my house." As you can imagine, Olivia and I's trust in the opposite sex was more than a little shaken at this point.  But then we met Mik (pronounced meek).  He is the CUTEST person on the entire planet!!!!  He's a monk. 

Our new bff!

Olivia and I were taking refuge from the torturous rays of the Thai sun at the most beautiful wat we have yet to see.  It's called Wat Chedi Luang.  It was built in 1479...and it's HUGE!

Cool creature from Wat Chang Taem.

Check out how detailed these doors are!

Sage advice.

The massive and majestic Wat Chedi Luang (the new part).

The original Wat Chedi Luang. First constructed in 1391, it is the tallest pagoda in Thailand.

Look at the cool elephants!

A wax rendition of one of the temple's famous monks. So realistic!

The two remaining original naga (mythical serpents) guardians. The others were restored.

Anyway, we were wandering around, when we saw a sign that said "Monk Chat".  I was being grumpy and sullen because I was so hot....but my rather enthusiastic twin made us go check it out.  I'm so glad she did, because it was here we met Mik!  He was sitting at a table reading a book.  Probably some holy text or other.  When we asked if we could talk to him he got SO excited.  He said he sits there quite often waiting to talk to westerners so that he can inform them about Buddhism, and work on his English, but that everyone says they are too busy to talk.  Naturally, Olivia and I decided that this was a Buddhist miracle! We could hide from the sun, and chat up this friendly, bald, robed monk! How nice! Get this!  The monks have to wake up at 4 AM to say their prayers! And they can't eat after noon! GASP! The horror!  And that's just 2 of the 227 rules the monks have to follow!  Well, Olivia and I were sad to leave Mik...but in the end we headed off the the Saturday Street Market, where I, unlike my holy friend Mik, stuffed my face on delicious Thai street food.  I'l start at the beginning. 
We got fried banana blossoms and fried pumpkin strips. 

Then I dunno what it's called...but if you look at the picture I posted it's the green triangle things on a stick.  It's a beetle leaf, and inside is peanuts, shrimp, lime juice, and other herbs.  One of my new favorite foods.  SOOO good!

Then I got grilled squid-on-a-stick.  Most of you are thinking...ohhh, that sounds tasty.  Normally I would agree.  But this particular squid-on-a-stick was really gross. It tasted like vomit.  I tried to pawn it off on Olivia.  It didn't work.  It was SUPER squishy and slimy on the inside.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was covered flies before I ordered it.

I look so happy here since I haven't tried the squid yet....

Okay, then I got a grilled banana leaf, with a banana wrapped in sticky rice on the inside.  Next Olivia got a fried sticky-rice-ball-on-a-stick.  It was good, but nothing fantastic. 

What a feast!

Crazy rambutan!

Next on the menu was Satay and sticky-rice-not-on-a-stick (it was in a bag).  As we were leaving, we got these Thai meatballs that are stuffed with rice.  Once Olivia and I completed the treacherous highway-bicycle ride home I showered.  Let me tell you.  Even if I didn't have one of those nice rain showerheads and fancy lotions to put on afterwards...it was the nicest shower I've ever had. It was SO hot today...I was disgusting!  Then I sat on the coolish floor of our apartment, and ate so much fruit (see photos for details) that I'm probably going to be sick tomorrow.  But it was worth it!