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!