Epic Day!

This has definitely been the best day in Asia so far! It was absolutely amazing! I had so much fun. We went to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang. I had my very own elephant to ride on and a mahout to help me out. My elephant's name is Pang Yom and she's 61 years old. The oldest in the group of elephants. She's so nice. She's the leader of the group so I was always first in line and she's so obedient and calm.

We learned basic elephant commands, learned how to get on and off the elephant. There are several ways to get on the elephant. First way is when the elephant is lying flat on the ground and the person can climb up from the back leg up to her back and then to her neck. The second way is from her side. She'll bend one leg up and you climb up by holding onto her ear and skin on her body and jump up to her neck. The third way is my favourite way. She'll bow her head down and I jump onto her neck (kinda like leap frog) and end up sitting backwards on her neck and then I turn around to face forward. My favourite way of getting down was also similar to the last method of getting. She'll bow down her head and I slide down. Just like the picture here.


We trekked through the forests a couple of times, brought her to an area to eat grass, drink water and also to the pond to bathe and I got all wet when she laid down in the water. I had so much fun today. I love my elephant!

Ground shaking Thai massage

We had free time today after finishing work at the build site. I had my first Thai massage. It was so good! Perfect for my sore arms and my sore legs. I didn't even know my legs were that sore until she started massaging them. I'm definitely going for another massage soon. It was only $6.

After the massage, we went out to dinner. Susan and I both didn't really care too much about what we ate for dinner. I just didn't want spicy tonight. So we actually ended up buying some food or I guess more like junk food at 7 eleven. I actually really liked all the selection of stuff in the 7 eleven and it's so cheap for the snacks.

So, Susan and I were just chatting away in our room when suddenly the tv was moving and then Susan noticed the mirror was shaking and next thing I know everything's shaking. It lasted about 5 seconds. During the earthquake I realized how little I knew about what to do in the event of a serious earthquake.....Anyways, that'll be useful information to google about later. Apparently, the epicentre was in Myanmar (about 250km) from where I am right now and it was a magnitude of 6.9. That's the first time I've ever been in an earthquake and for a split second I actually thought it was windy out and that's why the hotel was shaking.

Time to say good night to another exciting day.

Habitat Build Day 3

So hot today. They were saying something about a monsoon coming so that's why it's so hot out. I was sweating even before I started working. Today we started putting up the brick walls for the outside of the house and the inside.


It was definitely another hard day. Though I think a lot of the exhaustion was due to the sun and heat. One of my teammates went back to the hotel after lunch because of heatstroke and another girl was feeling sick by the early afternoon. I've been keeping hydrated. After getting sick last week from heatstroke I don't want that to happen again.

So we get the day off tomorrow and we will be working Saturday instead. We're going to the Elephant conservation centre tomorrow and we get to be a mahout (elephant trainer) for the day! =D

Thai Cooking Class

Just got back from a cooking class. It was a 4 hour course. We started off at the market to buy fresh ingredients. So many different types of ginger and basils. Wow. Bought some junk food at the market for tomorrow while we were there too.

So each person chose 4 dishes to cook for themselves. I chose: pad thai, chicken coconut soup, green thai curry and for dessert I made coconut sticky rice with mangoes. The mangoes were so sweet. There in season right now. All of the dishes were good. Susan was my guinea pig for the green curry. It's too spicy for me. Got a recipe book from them after the class so I'll definitely try some recipes when I get home.

Habitat Build Day 2

Wow, what a day. It was hard work today. We had to mix concrete (everything's by hand here! no machines at all) to pour for the floor of the house. Our team is so awesome. We work really efficiently together and we're the fastest team they've ever seen. We were done by 1:30pm today! So Melanie, the habitat coordinator here, has arranged for us to take a thai cooking class this afternoon. It starts at 4pm and we head to the market to buy the ingredients for the dish we're making. Should be fun!

This was how much we did by morning break at 10:30am.
This was at lunch time at 12:30pm.
And now it's done!
Tomorrow we'll start putting up the walls. Mortar and bricks here I come.

Here fishy, fishy, fishy

Oh my goodness. I couldn't stop laughing for like 5 minutes when I stuck my foot into the tank of fish. Some of the fishes were so big I could really feel them nibbling on my feet. Glad I tried it. My feet feel softer now =) Like a pedicure.

Habitat Build Day 1

What a great hotel. I'm sharing a room with Susan. It's a big room, but most importantly there's air conditioning. Breakfast was delicious at the hotel. I had french toast with bananas and syrup. A nice breakfast for our first day on the construction site.
We started work around 9am this morning. We had to move the dirt piles into the house and to the other side of the house. We have a team of 10 volunteers from Canada and 4 other workers on the site. The mother who we are building this house for cooked us a delicious lunch and snacks and drinks were provided throughout the day. The mother and her oldest son even helped us when we were doing the assembly line of buckets of dirt whenever they had time. It was great. Our team has good laughs together while we work and we're fast. We finished at 2:30pm today so we have time to go check out the city before dinner tonight.