Elephants

Just some pictures from Chiang mai at patera elephant farm. They had 5 baby's born recently. A 2 month old can out push me which is crazy, they're very strong. It takes them 19-24 months to be born.

Catching up

Ok so I think Jill posted some elephant pictures if not I'll get some up because the tablet is being a jerk for her. We're just getting ready right now at our final stop. What a beautiful resort! One of the pictures is a view of our pool side lay out spot with the huge cliffs in the background. Honestly my brain is having trouble comprehending the size, I get dizzy looking at it. As far as pictures go it's a little frustrating because they don't do the job capturing the depth and awe of real life. Just pretend, I took all these with a phone anyway.
   We also did a cooking class last night. They brought us to one of the Thai markets and then we cooked a four course meal. I think I got a picture of our lady in there somewhere with some food. There's a picture of one of our Thai lunches at our favorite spots the blue diamond. We took scooters everywhere yesterday which was a great way to see Chiang mai.
  Jumping around, the beach we're at is Railay beach. There's giant cliffs and caves not just on the land everywhere you walk, but out in the water. We're going to swim out to one tomorrow because it's really close. Try viewing the pictures on their own and then clicking f11 I think that might make it better. Anyways that's my rambling no spell checking, on to dinner. Stay classy.

Lots of travel

  So we left Bagan Wednesday night for another bus ride. Got to Mandalay at 3 in the morning and ate at the crapiest cafe in the world. Thought we were ten minutes from the airport but really it turned out we were an hour away. Had almost no money left in kyat that taxi drivers would take, but after much searching and pleading we found one. Got to the airport and slept on hard metal chairs from 6-11 am. Blah blah blah we finally left and got to Bangkok and had to argue with our taxi driver for half an hour as he drove us to our hotel about using the meter, he wanted to rip us off and he was a jerk.
  Went to Bethel the next day, didn't know Holly would be there. Got 2hr massages after and then caught an over night train that we thought would get to Chiang Mai at 9 am. Got here at 1pm. So we were in semi bad moods, but Chiang mai has been really nice. Had to search for a hostel to stay at and the first 20 we checked were all booked (lots of tourists) ended up getting a really nice one I'm sure Jill will have pictures later. Anyway this morning it's pretty cold, but not as cold as Ct! Time to figure out what we're doing today...

Bagan Myanmar

    So Tuesday night we left Yangon. We spent almost a week in Yangon, and it was a great week because we all got to experience the unity of being with our brothers and sisters. They were so friendly in Myanmar! That aside I was looking forward to leaving the hectic city and it's open sewers haha. So we left late afternoon on an hour taxi ride to the bus station. The bus station setup is insane. There are tons of buses with each grouping down its own narrow road with no signs to tell you which one to go to. On top of that picture these 8ft wide roads with cars going in and out somehow, more people than you can count with nothing to do standing around trying to help, kind of. It reminded me of ants maddeningly crawling over a piece of candy. And, oh no we have to make it in 15 minutes...and we're not moving in traffic! I'm glad I didn't have to figure out where to go on my own. We made the over night bus with a few minutes to spare.
Maybe we slept in fits half the night. I started it off great tho, listening to some Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Vedder sprawled out in an empty seat. Made a pit stop to get food and when we got back on some girl took my spot! Anyway I crunched in next to Jill for my fits of sleep (back and neck still hurt) Got to Bagan around 3 am. Ok gotta get a taxi. Yes 10000 kyat sounds good. Hey that's a horse... 3am riding in a horse drawn buggy by ancient ruins in a well kept city. Pretty cool.
  So it's around 330 and Justin decides before we find a room lets watch the sun come up from one of the ruins. I realized shortly after that that would mean spending 3 hours in the just over 40 degree night air in shorts and a tshirt...I ended up changing and the buggy driver gave Jill a horse smelling blanket. Made it through the night and even though the sun rise wasn't great, hidden behind clouds, it revealed the beautiful countryside. And then air balloons started taking off in the distance. It was a pretty cool start to Bagan, which was awesome!
  We found a place to shower and drop our stuff and it was only $40 for the day (another night bus). We had an awesome breakfast on the roof after hot showers, except Annie and Justin who couldn't figure out that heat was to the left hahaha. Then we rented scooters and followed the endless maze of narrow dirt roads to pagoda after pagoda each with a Buddha in it, until Justin blew his tire which is why the girls are walking in the picture. There were thousands of Buddha's. The only negative is that as I write this in my upper bed on a train to chang mai in Thailand, I'm still coughing from breathing in so much dust, I actually coughed up sand. So that's Bagan I'll try to catch up to the present later today. Train ride thru the night is almost over. Slept like a baby, unlike Jill because she is not a baby...or a hippo. Bye

Oops

Forgot to include this one in the last post

Kiddos

So i guess third world countries don't have good WiFi.... go figure.  Here are some of the little ones we got to meet at the convention.  Do you recognize the older man from the yearbook? We met a few ppl whose stories were in there.. last one is me in a hat a sister put on my head the minute i walked in the door. Justin said I looked like the Burger Queen