*Usual sentence about how I haven't posted in a while* I am already more than halfway done with my second semester and I can't believe it. This semester has flown by, but I knew it would. Everything seems go by faster when the end is in sight. My official end date is Friday March 17th, and I will be on a plane home March 18th! That leaves me with around 40 teaching days left, and around 60 days in total. I find that I have a greater appreciation for things that I have enjoyed about my time here, and even for things that I have not. I am going to miss a lot about Thailand when I am back in America, even if I am ready to be home. I have done and seen so much since my last post. I have been frantically trying to cram as much as I can into the little time I have left. Our site director was kind enough to give us a week off for Christmas, which coincided with national days off for the New Year. We took advantage of this gift and traveled. I went from nearly one end of Thailand to the other during the week and a half we had off. Emily and I spent a few well earned beach days in Hua Hin in Southern Thailand, and then spent around 16 hours on a bus to get up to Chiang Mai in time for the New Year. New Years in Chiang Mai was something that I had been looking forward to for a very long time. There is a New Years tradition throughout Thailand of lighting a lantern and sending it floating into the sky with your wishes for the New Year written on the lantern. It is practiced in the North and South, but the biggest gathering can be found in Chiang Mai. The thousands of lanterns being released to create a trail of bright lights and wishes was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever experienced. After releasing our (many - not all of which were successful) lanterns we went to a temple where we rang in the New Year with peace and meditation while being blessed by monks. New Years 2017 will be a hard experience to beat. After New Years we traveled to Pai, which is a little town a few hours North of Chiang Mai. Pai is a cute little hippie town, and has a very relaxed vibe. I really enjoyed the walking street there, with its mixture of Western and Thai street foods and handmade crafts. 2017 has been very good to me so far, and though I am on the last leg of my journey here in Thailand, I have so much to look forward to when I get home!
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It's been a while since my last blog entry, but it is not without reason. I spent the entire month of October traveling. I started my travels in Bangkok, where I spent a week lounging by a friend's pool trying to get that much needed base tan. Then, on October 8th, the real adventure began. We departed BKK for Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We spent about 4 days in Phnom Penh, where we toured the Killing Fields and saw the monuments and palaces that abound in Cambodia's capital. Phnom Penh was interesting and full of good food, but as a traveler you get this gut feeling of being unsafe there (evidenced by my friend's attempted purse snatching while we were walking). We traveled from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap by bus (which I do not recommend. ever.). I absolutely LOVED Siem Reap. It had an completely different overall vibe than Phnom Penh. We stayed at my favorite hostel I've ever been to, The Funky Flashpacker (look it up, go, stay, it's awesome), and made some of the best memories from our trip there. We woke up at 4 am one morning so we could take a tuk tuk out to Angkor Wat in order to watch the sun rise over the temple. It was a dream come true. Angkor Wat had been on my bucket list since I first began reading National Geographic (and it's been a while, thanks for the years on years of subscriptions Mom and Dad). We all went to Angkor Wat together, but I soon separated myself from my friends to walk through the temple by myself. When we first got into the temple there were people everywhere, but I stayed back and took my time looking at everything, just soaking it all in. Everyone was in such a hurry to run through and see the next thing that I was pretty much alone through most of the temple. It was amazing and I am so glad I was able to go and experience that. After Siem Reap we flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I really felt comfortable in that big city because so many things about it reminded me of a big city at home. We spent one day there before traveling to Taman Negara rainforest. It is about 5 or 6 hours from Kuala Lumpur and is the oldest rainforest in the world. We stayed there for 3 days and went on a night time walking tour, hiked up a mountain through the jungle, took canopy walking to a new extreme, learned how to shoot a blow dart gun (I was surprising good, and was told I would make a good wife haha), and went rafting through rapids. Taman Negara was our most adrenaline packed part of the trip to say the least, and I loved every minute of it. After that we went back to Kuala Lumpur. It was surprisingly inexpensive there, and you can find such a wide variety of food that it will blow your mind. I tried Indian food (real Indian food) there for the first time and loved it. We got to go to the Petronas Towers which is the main tourist attraction there, and go to their bird zoo (where I discovered my deep, deep fear of birds after an unfortunate peacock incident). A trip to the Batu caves was also made, but it was under construction, so it was not as awe inspiring as we had been told. After Kuala Lumpur we went to our final destinations of Koh Samui and Koh Tao. We did nothing but lay out by the ocean and float while on Koh Samui and it was exactly what I needed. We took a ferry to Koh Tao, where we "balled out" and got a bungalow right on the beach. The view from our porch was beautiful. Actually, every time you looked out at the ocean there was something new and beautiful to see there. We rented a long tail boat just for ourselves and went snorkeling and exploring all around the island. While there I also learned how to paddle board! Koh Tao easily was my favorite stop. All good things have to come to an end, and I have been back in Chaiyaphum for a couple of weeks now. I came into this semester refreshed and ready to be the best teacher I can be. So far second semester is going much better than the first, and I am glad to see that my students did retain some things from our first semester. It is now "cold" season in Thailand (which means it gets down around 70F) and as I sitting outside at lunch the other day I actually shivered. I checked my phone to see what the temperature was, and it was 74F. So, it is safe to say that my body has officially acclimated to Thailand. Now I am worried when I return in March I will need a full parka just to keep warm! My return flight is officially booked and I am counting down the days, though I am coming to realize that I am really going to miss some things about Thailand. But for now I am focused on this semester, and crossing my fingers that I can leave my students better than before I arrived!
This past Friday marked the end of my first semester of teaching, and it came with some mixed feelings.
Pride was one of them. I can not believe that I made it through four months of teaching. To me this is huge, because to be honest with you, I kinda hate teaching. Teaching is a calling, and boy is it NOT calling my name. Some days it seemed like October would never get here. I feel accomplished to have made it through four months when some could not do it. I feel accomplished to have had what I consider to be minimal breakdowns, and to have only lost my temper with a class a couple of times (if you actually know me you know that that was a feat all on its own). There is also some pride in knowing that even if I don't necessarily enjoy teaching, I do my best. Knowing English is a HUGE plus for anyone joining the Thai workforce these days, and in a growing number of job fields it is a requirement. That makes it so much more important for me to do a good job, because these kids do not have access to another English teacher. I am stationed in a very rural area of Thailand, and most of my kid's parents are farmers or miners. They don't have a lot of money, and neither do the schools. My schools are so poor and have such a small student body that the Thai government will not give them funds for an English teacher. That's where TTC and I come in. The mine (where I live) pays mine and the other TTC teachers stationed here a stipend and provides us with a place to live so that the surrounding schools can have English teachers. So, I am proud that I could come here and provide my students with a skill that may help them go further in their futures. Worry was another feeling that has hit me. What if I haven't done a good enough job? What if, even though I know I tried my best, I have still failed my students? The feeling of not being good at my job has been a tough one to deal with. I have always tried my absolute best at what ever job I have. I have been a sales associate, a waitress, and a barista (along with odd jobs here and there) and I have never been bad at my job. Sure, I've definitely had my mess ups, but nothing compares to having a lesson plan be an absolute flop. In my lesson plans I try to incorporate aspects for all the different kinds of learners, but it doesn't always work out well. I tend to focus more on the reading aspect of learning English, because I feel that that is something that most of my students struggle with. I try to pick lessons to teach them the English that they might need to know when on the job, or dealing with native English speakers, but I never (and don't know if I ever will) know what is getting through to them. Sometimes my lessons are too easy, and we finish them in 30 minutes. Sometimes my lessons are too hard, and students get discouraged or time runs out. Finding a balance and learning how to make a good lesson plan has been its own struggle. I also worry that I am not doing enough to get through to those kids who seem not to care. I try to make sure everyone is doing their work, and not copying (which is a HUGE problem here) but I have seen some pretty creative ways of getting around it. I recently had one student jump out of my second story window because I was standing at the door taking up papers. Students like that make teaching harder for me, because I feel like there is something else I should be doing since they would never act that way with their Thai teachers (it also doesn't help that Thai students can not fail. At all. Ever. Its a government rule). I don't know, maybe it is because I don't hit them with the bamboo sticks, but it is still discouraging for me. I feel as though I am failing them. The students who I can see doing their work, paying attention in class, and trying to speak English and have conversations with me make it all worth it though. When I have a student come up to me while I have a free period and ask me, in English, "Teacher what are you reading? Do you like it?", I can see a tiny glimmer of hope that I am getting through to at least some of them. Excitement has been the main feeling of the weekend. I am SOOOOO excited for this October break. Myself and five other TTC teachers are traveling to Cambodia, Malaysia and the Thai islands. I have been planning this break pretty much since I arrived in Thailand, and I am beyond excited that it has finally arrived. I've spent this weekend doing laundry and packing, since I will be leaving for Bangkok this Monday to stay until the 8th when we will be flying to Cambodia. I have so many exciting plans, a few of which are checking off a bucket list item by visiting Angkor Wat, a 3 day trip in one of the oldest rainforests in the world, and learning how to scuba dive. This next month is going to be packed with adventure, friends, and new places, and I don't know if I've ever been more excited for anything in my life. So to cap this whole essay off: do I like teaching? No. Do I feel like I'm good at it? No. But will I continue to try and do my best? Yes. Do I feel like I am doing something good and worthwhile? Absolutely. All I can do is hope and pray that what I am doing is getting through to them, and to try and do better in my last semester. I have a calendar on my wall (which I made out of printer paper) on which I have a countdown. The countdown started May 21st, when I arrived in Thailand, and it ends March 19th, which is the last day I am willing to stay in Thailand. Many people have asked me why I have these 10 pages taped to my wall, with various reasons for asking. My friends at home ask because to them 300, 200, 100 days sounds like a lifetime, and they can't fathom why I would want to look at that every day. My fellow TTC teachers ask because they can't fathom why I would want to think about leaving.
I can see both sides. There are some days when the little red number in the corner of each day is this soul crushing monster that might as well have little horns and a tail. Then there are other days where it doesn't seem like there will be enough days within these 10 months for me to experience everything I want to see and do. But there has never been a day in which I don't appreciate being able to look at that little number. On the soul crushing days I can look past the day's number and look to the next week, or the end of the month and see that that number isn't so bad. On the good days I can look back at all the days that have past and remember everything I've already done, and then look forward to think about all the things I plan to do. And no matter what kind of day it is, I can look at March see that little, red number 1, and the day next to it (which I have very liberally decorated with oranges and yellows if the huge, red HOME didn't catch enough attention) and remember that this is all temporary. I will not be in Thailand forever. I do not have to be a teacher for the rest of my life. There will be an end to this. I only have a limited amount of time here, so I need to soak in every experience I can and try to find something to enjoy even on the bad days. Not everyone gets the opportunity to have an experience like this, and appreciation for even the little things that make Thailand special is key. I have been here 100 days. They have been full of new experiences (too many to count), laughter, and tears (a lot of these too). Let's see what I can do with my next 200. It has been a busy past few weeks in Thailand. Since my last post I've been to a temple that is shaped like an elephant, hiked up a mountain, ran a 5K, and been almost deported to Laos. In between those events I have been teaching (when I'm actually in Chaiyaphum) and watching a lot of Netflix. Life here isn't always excitement and drama, but that's really all that is worth writing about, right? The first exciting event was the Elephant Temple. It has a proper Thai name, but I can't remember it, let alone spell it. So it's the Elephant Temple. One of the other TTC teachers here had already been, and he had said it was absolutely mind blowing. So when Kiwi (my Thai co-teacher) said she would take me and a couple of the other teachers I jumped at the opportunity. We left school early that day (never a disappointing thing) and went to the "temple". I put the quotations around it because it is not truly a temple, but more a museum of art dedicated to Buddhism. This is the front of the temple. You enter underneath the trunk. Almost all of the outside was mosaic. One thing that was particularly interesting to me was the mash up of mythologies and religions that were part of this "temple". For example, this is Cerberus, who according to Greek mythology guarded the gates of Hades. There were also paintings that depicted Poseidon, as well as sculptures of the astrological signs. This was their representation of my astrology sign, Libra. The artists also added in some modern touches, like this biker dude, who for some reason has a small, swimmer child on the back. About a week or so after I went to the Elephant Temple, I got to go to one of Chaiyaphum's most famous destinations. There is a mountain in Chaiyaphum were a special kind of tulip called the Dok Krachiao, or Siam Tulip, blooms once a year. The mountain is covered in fields of them, and the hike up the mountain is well worth it. They have a festival to celebrate, called the Blooming Krachiao Flower Festival, and it is a popular tourist spot for Thais. It was nice to see that farong are not the only ones who can be amazed by the beauty in the Thailand. The flowers grow so high up in the mountain that we were surrounded by clouds. This past week was definitely one of the busiest I have experienced since coming to Thailand. Emily, Jessica, and I left Chaiyaphum Friday night to head to Lampang. We had signed up for the Mae Moh Marathon, which was Sunday morning, and we were supposed to be leaving Lampang Monday to renew our visas in Chiang Mai. The 5K was a success, and by success I mean I made it to the finish line without passing out and with a decent time (I am definitely not a runner). Can you tell in my face I had to get up at 4:30 A.M. for that? Lol When we got back to our hotel we learned that we were not actually going to Chiang Mai, but instead taking a quick little trip into Laos. Apparently the immigration laws had changed in the two months we had been here, and they would no longer renew our Immigrant B visas, meaning we were about to be in Thailand illegally. So one overnight van trip later we arrived in Laos. I wasn't too upset about this free trip to a new country, and a new stamp (and Laos visa!) on my passport though. We stayed in the capital of Laos, Vientiane so that we could go to the embassy and make a quick turn around back to Thailand. After we filed our requests for new Thai visas (this time Immigrant O visas), we had a good amount of time to spend doing whatever we wanted. My roommate and I decided we didn't want to waste this time in Laos, so we spent the day sight seeing. One of the views from the top of the structure in the first picture. Walking along the Mekong River. Laos tip: do not try to get into the Presidential Palace...the guards really don't like it. It has been an amazing past few weeks, and I came out the other side with some beautiful pictures, memories, and some pretty cool new additions to my passport!
Wow. I can't believe it's been almost a month since I updated this thing. First I would like to apologize to those of you who were actively reading my posts (OK so I'm mostly talking to you Mom lol), I didn't intend to leave you hanging. Though, my lack of posts is mostly a good thing. I have been keeping busy, making trips on my long weekends, and just being a typical tourist. A couple of weekends ago I went to Bangkok with the other teachers I am stationed with and had an absolutely amazing time. We stayed on Khaosan Road (which, if you are a traveler in your 20s, I definitely recommend) and I didn't come back with a face tattoo or a tiger (regrettably). We went to the famous Siam Palace mall, which was the #1 most instagrammed place in 2015 for a reason. This is their famous Hanging Garden which is made up of live plants embedded in the wall itself. Bangkok definitely treated me well. This past weekend we had a midterm TTC meeting that we had to attend, which required us to take an overnight bus trip that lasted about 11 hours. That was not fun, let me tell you. The weekend coincided with a 3 day holiday for which schools were out! We decided since we were up in North Thailand we would visit Chiang Mai, which is one of the most visited and beautiful cities in Thailand. Chiang Mai did not let me down. I fell in love with the city. There is so much to do and see there, which was a much needed change from Chaiyaphum. I got to pet tigers! And I even got to go swimming. I've always loved to swim, but you learn to truly appreciate being immersed in water once you have experienced the Thailand heat. Then there was the food. The trip to Chiang Mai would have been worth it even if I had not got to pet tigers or visit the "Grand Canyon". One of the things that I miss most about home is the food. My stomach has not adjusted well to Thai food, so I wind up not eating a lot during meals. So when I can get my hands on food my stomach is used to, and that if I'm being honest I really crave, it's a big deal. There is a restaurant called Salsa Kitchen there that has decent Mexican food, and it is definitely worth the Baht. My chicken enchiladas were delicious. Needless to say, I will definitely be returning to Chiang Mai. I just wish I lived closer.
Remember in the beginning of this post when I said my lack of posts was MOSTLY a good thing? If truth be told, there was a little part of me that hasn't written anything because I wasn't sure what to say. In the beginning I was completely unhappy. I didn't get the placement I wanted. I hated the location, the isolation, the lack of autonomy here. I was bored. Then I started making friends, and traveling, and getting the hang of the whole teacher thing. I was trying to look at everything in a positive light instead of a negative one. But, speaking for myself, that is really hard. It's a daily struggle for me here. Now that I have been here 2 months, and I have gone through all these phases, I'm not sure how I feel. I'm happy some days, but those are the days when I've found a way to keep myself busy. I'm sad and so homesick I could cry some days. The "summer camp" feel has gone now, and it's starting to hit me that I have 8 more months to go. This officially marks the longest I have ever been away from home, and I think it's driving me a little crazy. I feel like this a lot, and it really would drive me crazy if I wasn't able to see the impact that I'm making. When I walk through the village and the kids run up to me, yelling English phrases that I have taught them (especially when they stick their little fists out and say "pound it" to bump knuckles) it makes me feel so accomplished and proud. I just hope I can finally adjust to being here, so that these little moments add up to a year's worth of accomplishments. This Friday, June 24, marked my first official month of teaching. This month has not been easy by a long shot. In fact, I would say this has been the most difficult thing I have ever done. The language barrier is huge, I have a hard time disciplining my students because I won't hit them, and being in the middle of no where is frustrating to say the least - and those are just a few of the problems we have encountered. But we are slowly learning how to deal with these issues as they arise. The other TTC teachers stationed here and I have been keeping ourselves busy on the weekends. After the weekend we went to the Tat Ton waterfalls, we took a bus to a city named Korat. It is the third biggest city in Thailand, and has a pretty big mall. The mall has a Pizza Hut (thats right, the real deal) and we each got our own personal pizzas to celebrate finally finding real pizza. There is also a bookstore there with English books, so of course I bought myself a new book. The next weekend we decided to stick close by and explore where we are going to be living for the next 9 or so months. So we borrowed bikes from the mine we are staying at, and started the trek into the town that is down the highway a bit. We had been into the town multiple times before to go to the Big C (the nearest "grocery" store) and the distance didn't seem too far. I died. It was WAY farther than we thought it was. By the time we reached the edge of town my legs were shaking, and I'm fairly certain I had sweated out all of the water I have ever drank. (You would think we had learned our lesson but we've biked in multiple times after that during the week.) Last weekend I was chosen to be a judge for the district's English Camp competition in Chaiyaphum City. I was honestly kind of dreading it. I thought it was going to be just like another day at school, but I was wrong. I found myself enjoying it as I listened to students from around the district act stories they had memorized for the camp. I heard at least 10 different versions of Little Red Riding Hood I swear. One student at a time came on stage and acted out all of the parts of their story, and I gotta give them props because some of them really got into it. After English Camp was over my co-teacher took me to visit the temple dedicated to "The Hero of Chaiyaphum". I participated in a ritual supposed to honor the past hero, while a man played a song on a Thai instrument (don't ask me the name, even if I knew I would never be able to spell it correctly). Next to the temple was a shrine dedicated to turtles because the Thai believe turtles represent longevity. Me and the students from my high school that participated in the English competition. Today we decided to go into town to find a restaurant we were told had hamburgers (the cravings for American food get too real), so we hitched a ride into town. When we made it to the restaurant I legit almost cried. The man who owns the restaurant is from New Orleans and has been in Thailand about 10 years now. His restaurant, named Mama's, has ribs, hamburgers, spaghetti with meatballs, and more. We all ordered hamburgers, but when it came time to bring mine out they said they had run out of buns (since they make their own buns from scratch every day, and its worth it). It was awful. They offered to make me something else, but all I really wanted was that burger, so instead I had the best mashed potatoes with gravy ever. I said I would come back in an hour when the buns were done and get it to go, and that was when the game changed.
THEY DELIVER. Angels sang. So we left after getting the owners number, with the promise that he would be hearing from us a lot from here on after. After that we continued to explore the town. I got a real cup of coffee. Bought some storage containers. Found a Thai massage and learned the meaning of "hurts so good" (seriously. I'm bruised but my body has never felt better). So yea. That was my first month. There are highs, and there are lows, but hey, thats life right? Now all I have to do is survive my next 9 months.... So, its the start of week 3 of teaching, and I think I'm finally settling in. The first two weeks of teaching were rough, like... really rough. It had me questioning every major decision I have made thus far (I mean who lets me make my own decisions), but now I have a routine and I'm starting to enjoy the little things. I think all it really took was an attitude adjustment on my part. I was looking for the negatives because I wanted to go home, instead of looking for the positives because this place is now my home for the next 9 months. Instead of being annoyed by the kids who follow us as we run, I find it endearing when they ask where I am when I don't go running. Instead of focusing on the students who obviously could not care less about learning English, I focus on those who are truly trying. Instead of looking at my placement and saying, "Holy crap I am in the middle of bum(whoops) no where" I see it as an opportunity to leave my comfort zone and learn how to explore on my own.
I don't know if I will ever truly adjust to being in Thailand, but now I am hopeful that I can begin to enjoy my time here, doing something I believe in, with people that have already begun to seem like family. I have been in my assigned placement for full week now, and it has been full of ups and downs. Mostly downs. It started with an 8 and 1/2 hour bus ride from Lampang to Chaiyaphum. I was car sick most of the ride because Thai people are freaking crazy. They don't obey speed limits, they pass cars with other cars coming in the other lane, and driving within the lines doesn't seem to be a thing. Now to be fair, I think I would fit in driving here, but still. It's rough. Once we got to where we are to be staying for the next 10 months, I'm not going to lie, my stomach dropped. I for some reason was under the impression that we would be living in a little dorm style house, which was fine with me since the group I'm here with is awesome. We're not. We do live in a dorm, it's just in a mining camp, and we have to share the dorm with the miners. I live across the hall from one. It was a shock to say the least. This is coming from someone who has been able to live extremely comfortably in brand new lofts for the past year, so I have to constantly remind myself where I am and why i'm here. I think that everything with this job has it's trade-offs. We have to live in a mining camp, but we don't pay rent or utilities (including the all important AC). We are in the middle of nowhere but we've been told the relationships built here last a lifetime. We have no consistent access to dinner but...well I guess I'll come back skinny. The rooms are decent, with everything we need, and some things we don't (geckos, roaches, the ever present mosquitoes). Home away from home...right? Teaching has also been hard for me. I've never been very good with kids. I just don't have the patience, or enough hand sanitizer in the world to hold their hand after I watched them wipe their nose with it. I told myself that this job would be good for me. I could learn patience, how to deal with children, and I truly think that English is a skill that will carry these kids a long way (western globalization is real). I tell myself those things, but it has been a constant struggle all week not to cry in the middle class. Thai children do not have the discipline that American children do because their classrooms are not structured in the same way. If they want to get up and leave class, they do. If they want to show up late, they do. If they want to talk and ignore the teacher, they most certainly do. And we're not allowed to fail them. At all. Ever. I think that finding ways to get through to them will be harder than finding a way to get dinner. Transportation has also been a huge issue for me. I am so used to having my car and being able to go where I want, when I want, that getting here and having no means of transportation is frustrating. We live miles from the nearest restaurant, and even farther from the nearest "grocery store". It got to the point where I was completely out of Baht and needed to exchange money, and we were so done with being stuck in the camp that we rode a couple bikes into town. After biking 5 miles just to get there, we found out the bank is closed on the weekends. So we had to bike back, and I still had no money. Hell Week was ended well, however. We finally caught a bus, after it had zoomed by us the first time. We took this bus into the a neighboring city, where we caught another bus into Chaiyaphum city. There we ran into a little trouble when we thought we would be able to walk to the National Park, which was our intended destination, but found out it was definitely not within walking distance. Luckily we ran into another American and his Thai wife, who helped us catch a song tow. The song tow took us to the entrance of the national park, where we finally made it to the place we had been looking for: The Tad Ton waterfall. It was beautiful, and it felt so good to be able to swim and be outside and lounge. This trip to the waterfalls was the first time I had been able to relax and be happy since I arrived in Chaiyaphum. Even if we did have to get a park ranger to drive us back to the bus station when we couldn't catch another song tow.
Honestly, this week had me looking up the price of plane tickets back home. I am beyond homesick. And I hate to sound ungrateful for everything that TTC and the people of Chaiyaphum have done for me, but this initial period of adjustment has been hard and I want to document every moment, not just the good ones. I can only hope that the adjustment period will be short, and that I will learn to love teaching in Thailand. Riding an elephant definitely deserves its own post. I was beyond excited when I found out that we were going to be going to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center outside of Lampang, but nothing compares to the feeling of actually being there. I almost cried. Okay, I might have cried a little. I honestly did not stop smiling the entire ride. I love elephants, and getting to ride one was a dream come true. Now my goal is to go to a mahout training lesson so I can learn to ride one by myself! Getting up close and friendly Getting to go to the nursery was definitely another highlight of the day. Elephant babies are still bigger than a small pony, but compared to their mommas they are itty bitty. Like human babies, they are extremely curious about everything happening around them (they are especially curious about you if you have food). This little guy sniffed at everyone and everything, but if someone got to close he would go running to his momma's side for protection. She, on the other hand, seemed uninterested in us unless we had an ear of corn for her.
Overall this was an amazing day in Thailand :) |
AuthorGeorgia girl teaching English in Thailand Archives
January 2017
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