Some of my favorites out of the 600+ pictures I took over 3 days (the 12th-14th).

Shopping for a weapon

I love the tuk-tuk drivers grin as his passengers get blasted

He's ready for a swim in the moat...or for canal road to flood!

The common reaction after getting hit with ice water

Assault Tuk-Tuk!

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So I am home and have un-surprisingly come down with a cold...if this post gets rammbly or stops making sense it's because my head feels like it's filled with helium and floating 3 feet above my body. Ok now onto a recap of last weeks festival.

Last week was Thai New Year...or the best festival ever. Officially the festival started on Wednesday the 13th but since Chiang Mai is special it really started on the 11th. I wound up missing out on the water fight on Monday because I didn't wind up going up to Thapae Gate, the main gate. However, on Tuesday I wound up getting soaked on my way back to my hotel after lunch. I was not planning on getting wet right after lunch, I was still wearing jeans and they take forever to dry:(, but c'est la vie. After I got drenched I decided to grab a water gun and join the battle! The fighting was still mostly around Thapae Gate but was slowly moving down the moat.

On Wednesday, it decided to rain which didn't stop the water fighting but it did decrease the number of people who were out. All in all this day was pretty much miserable. People still decided to douse each other with ice water even though there was no sun to warm you up afterward. I spent most of the day in my friends Burmese restaurant watching the water fights as I tried to dry off and warm up. Everyone in the restaurant wound up drinking lots of the hot Burmese tea spiked with some whiskey to get warm.

Thursday was by far the best day. It was hot and sunny and the water fights were in full force. I had a blast assaulting people with our ice water and taking pictures of the madness.

This year I did not take a dive into the moat (thank god) but i still wound up getting sick (I blame Wednesday and all the moat water). I still love this festival and can't wait till next year! I'll post pictures once I go through the 500 or so that I took :P

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Flooding in Surat/

On the way to the Airport

Karen/Long neck Village

Orchid Farm

TIGER KINGDOM!!!!!!!

Elephant Camp

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So on Tuesday I escaped from the rain storms and flooding in Surat to get a jump start on my Songkran holiday. To get up to the airport in Surat I had to get a ride on a military truck with about 30 Thai people. On the trip there we saw houses underwater, people swimming in front of their flooded homes, camping on bridges, and beating down the medians to get the water to drain from the higher street. The trip took about an hour and a half and by the time my flight left a grand total of 20 people had made it for our flight. After I got to Chiang Mai I went to the night bazaar to do some shopping

On Wednesday I decided to just relax in my hotel and walk about the city for a little bit.

Thursday was the beginning of my adventure in stupid tourist things. I started the adventure by letting a Tuk-Tuk driver talk me into going out to a long neck village and orchid farm for the afternoon. The long neck village was a little sad because the villagers were basically treated as props to take pictures with (they were also selling things). I wound up buying a bracelet because after the girl clamped it onto my wrist I couldn't get it back off (luckily it is a pretty bracelet and I was able to work it open enough to slide it on and off my wrist). After the village we went to the orchid farm where I took a bunch of pictures of the different types of orchids and bought jewelry made out of orchids and butterfly.

That night I went to the night safari with 2 of the other teachers from Surat. We decided to all pile onto a motorbike 'Thai style' and see if we could find the safari. We got there with now problems...except for a few speed bumps. On the safari we got to see a bunch of different animals. I almost got to pet a zebra and we all got to feed giraffes...those guys have freakishly long tongues!

Friday was another adventure in being a tourist. I started the day by meeting up with my Tuk-Tuk driver again and going out to Tiger Kingdom. Tiger Kingdom was awesome! I got to play with 3-4 month old tigers and pet some of the bigger (almost 2 yrs old) ones. The tigers were beautiful...sadly the big ones were pretty much all sleeping...but they do tend to be slightly nocturnal. After playing with the tigers and then watching some of the others ones I went to an elephant camp/show. The show was a little weird, dancing and playing kazoos, but watching the elephants paint was interesting. Then I went to a snake show which was basically 3 crazy Thai guys playing with cobras and non-poisonous biting snakes. The best part of the show was when they threw the amazing jumping snake...or piece rope at the group of tourists next to me which caused them all to jump and shriek.

This week is the Songkran festival/water war :)

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The "Superhero" temple

The temple at the top of the hill by
Doi Tung Royal Villa

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MALAYSIA

Roof tiles at the Chinese temple

The stairway to the Hindu cave temple

SINGAPORE

Lunch time :D

The Harbor

The baby Merlion statue

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This post is long over due...I've been highly unmotivated because of the torrential downpours we've been having in Surat. So...the Malaysia trip...I don't really have much good to say about this trip. It was the epitome of poor planning and obnoxiousness. For 90% of the trip the teachers were required to travel separately from the students (I was able to travel with the students in Singapore because of an accident).

On Monday the 21st we made our way to Penang, Malaysia. For some unexplainable reason we stayed in a student dormitory, which included a bed and a shared shower. The campus was far from town so the only way to get to town was by our private teacher bus. The highlight of the day was that I did get to eat some very tasty Indian food for dinner (especially the naan bread :D ).

The next day the teachers 'toured' the city. We started at Kek Lok Si Temple which is a Chinese temple. It was interesting but I've reached a point where all Buddhist temples start to blur to blur together. Then we went to Dharmikarma Burmese temple which is also a Buddhist temple :( After going to TWO temples we spent 4 hours in an overpriced shopping mall (no explanation was really given for this insane amount of time).

We spent the night in the mini-bus traveling to Kuala Lumpur. We woke up at Batu Cave which is a Hindu temple. The temple was obviously in a cave about halfway up a hill/mountain. To get to the temple we had to climb 272 steps...I believe that the other American teacher and I were the only 2 to actually go up to the cave. The temple was interesting mostly because it was in a cave and it was non-Buddhist. After the temple we went to twin towers to meet the students (who had been waiting for hours). After collecting the students and eating lunch (YAY SUBWAY!) we went to our hotel, which was pretty nice. For some reason my room only had 1 window which opened to the hotel hallway, this was actually nice since it made the room really dark. That evening we went to the Chinese market with the students to shop for stuff.

On the 24th we went to Jahor Baru where we stayed at yet another sparse dormitory. The next day we went to Singapore. At Malaysian immigration a small group of students and the teachers were confused by the bus system and once we got it figured out the Thai teachers didn't want to get on the same bus as the students, because they were supposed to be traveling alone. However, we found out the next bus wasn't for another hour so I was told to go with the students :D. I told the students that now they are my tour guides and had to tell me how to get everywhere. We started by getting their tickets back to Hat Yai and then ate some Thai food for lunch. After eating we went to the Merlion Statue where we were supposed to meet the Thai teachers for a checkpoint, but they weren't there. We figured this was because we were really late for the checkpoint. We spent a bunch of time taking pictures of the harbor and the mini-merlion statue (the big one was in a box/hotel room thing :( ). Then we went to Sentosa island (checkpoint 2) where we had some ice cream and looked at the rides. The students started to get worried because the other teachers were late for the checkpoint and they didn't have much time before they had to go catch their bus. Fortunately, the other teachers showed up before the students had to leave...but just barely.

Overall, I didn't have a lot of fun on this trip...Singapore was fun but Malaysia wasn't. I highly doubt I will go on this trip again...unless it's drastically overhauled.

Pictures coming soon.

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