Recharging

Today was a very relaxed laid back day. We all got up at about eight-ish to have breakfast before we all gathered outside the pool area to head to Wat Chedi Luang also known as the Elephant Temple of Chiang Mai. Sadly it was under construction and we couldn't go inside (though I couldn't go inside at all because I wore shorts and a tank top and you're supposed to cover your knees and shoulders). There was one that was open but only men could enter that one...So there really wasn't anything that you could do...

There was something that peaked my interested (besides me counting how many monks I saw). On the far side of the entrance they had the Chinese Zodiac. I ran the bells for the year of the dog, cause I'm one before continuing on. Out off all the years, the year of the dragon had the most offerings. Like no one else had nearly this much. You can't even really see the dragon itself...well I guess you kind of can. But it had the most offerings.

I continued to wander on before I stumbled upon something that I had seen before but there was no English to explain what it was. It's a huge roll of orange or yellow fabric. Like huge. It's on a triangle form where one side you can see all this writing rolled up and the other side is completely fresh rolled up, but the piece of fabric that is on the triangle may or may not have writing on it already. The whole point is to donate to the temple and then write your name, where you're from and something else, either it be a blessing or just a small prayer to give some peace to your mind. They then will take this fabric once it is done and walk it up to the top of the temple and leave it unraveled for the prayers and blessings to be seen by the Lord Buddha himself. So after a few minutes of contemplating, more like ten minutes I decided to donate and wrote this:

Considering I had just come from the Elephant Nature Park I only thought it be appropriate. And I hope you don't mind Mom, but I added you too cause I know how much you like elephants as well. So when the roll is finished this will be taken to the Lord Buddha on the top of temple and hopefully may this a thing where we do not have to worry about elephants leaving this world forever.

I then headed back with a few people before I hung out in the room for a while, before the same people invited me to food. I was quite happy too due to the fact that I was sick and tired of Thai food, which I thought was kind of funny. So we headed to an Italian restaurant where we ordered two pizzas. Let me just say this: That pizza was AMAZING. Like seriously, I wish this was how pizza was in America sometimes. Like out of them all Donato's will always be my favorite, but this pizza was just incredible. Not too much sauce but not too little. A nice stringiness for the cheese and the meet on top was mmmm. I'm drooling just thinking of it. We also did that because there was going to be a cooking class later on in the day where we would be making our own Pad Thai and then eating it for dinner.

We returned where I got a little alone time before the other girls left for the cooking class. I took this chance to fully recharge from being around humans for a good, what, ten days now? I needed it badly and didn't really feel like Thai food once again. So yeah....this is a short post. I've been by myself now for a good...four hours just reading and watching New Girl. For once, I'm glad that sometimes I need to be a hermit and pull back into my shell. I felt like I was back in a normal position even though I'm on the other side of the world right now.

Tomorrow is the crazy travel day, so that'll probably be a short post too...If you haven't seen the last post the last post is all the images from Elephant Nature Park I thought worthy of posting. Also if you haven't seen it, I posted on my FB a video of the baby elephant attempting to drink water.

-Claire

And I thought the electricity wires were insane in our cities!