The Day I Died

Sorry but my phone won't transfer any of my photos so no photos for this post for now.

Today was the first full day at the Elephant Nature Park, and it was pretty packed with things we had to do. Breakfast started at seven sharp, and we meet at what the supervisors call ‘The Meeting Place’ at eight. Each group was assigned to doing something.

Ele Poo A,B

Ele Food C

Cut Grass D

Ele Walk E

We were group E so we started off by meeting the four main families at the park. Starting off with the new baby’s family. Going on to were the males were, then two of the larger families before we finished off with the two eldest females at the park who are around 70. During this time, I had learned that you can tell the age of the elephant by how concave the temples are on the elephant. The deeper they are the higher in age they are. I had never known that before. I was told by the Tulsa Zoo that the more spots they had the higher in age they were but then Sooky one of the elephants there isn’t as old as Gunda who just reached 65 and Sooky has a decent amount of spots. The concave temples make so much more sense and it actually shows it too. One of the ones who was around seventy had a flower in her ear like an earring and we had learned from Mix our supervisor guide that this was from the hooks that the mahouts had used on her. So the mahout who takes care of her now and covered it up with a makeshift earring that is a flower.

We finished early which gave us thirty minutes before lunch started. Three of use returned to our six-person bed room and I napped like it was night. I woke up just in time to head to the main pavalion to have lunch. I find myself eating the sames things, but everything else I had tried I didn’t quite like. So it’s usually sticky white rice and potato curry, which is actually pretty spicey, but very good. During lunch watermelon and fries are added on, but dinner is usually just the two. Breakfast is quite a strage thing with food that could be eaten at lunch or dinner. But I grabbed sticky rice, the potato curry, and two slices of toast with jam and butter.

After lunch, at one, our group was assigned to make a dam in the river. They make these dams on and off so the elephants can actually swim. It was intence, hard, and I know I burned even when I reapplied three times. I am really grateful for the fact that I brought my cowboy hate though I still end up buring my cheeks and eyebrows. We finished pretty fast at about 2:55 we had decided to take a break before the group got together for the next activity. By this time, I was pretty starving and there were snacks provided today which made me really happy. I hung out at the main pavalion resting and trying not to fall asleep before we met at the meeting place to bath the elephants!

I was wet from the dam, but I was practically dripping after this due to the boys on the other side overthrowing the water, missing the elephant completely and getting the opposite side. When we got most of the sides and the front cleaned, the mahout got the elephant to lay on her side so we could get the top. This is when Mix started splashing behind us and getting us wet which then got a war going on between a few of the students and Mix. It was pretty funny to watch when Mix snuck up behind one of the girls and dumped a bucket of water over her. Her face said something different than what she said which was “That felt good”. He’s funny and everyone agrees that he is adorable.

When we were done with this we learned that Lek, the owner and founder of the Elephant Nature Park and Save the Elephant Foundation was being interviewed and the camera man and director wanted us to be apart of it. In the beginng we just watched Lek interact with the elephants. Its amazing how calm she is as she huddled underneath them and how the swarm all around her. They know her like they should, as their mother. We then shifted and started to feed the elephants one by one. I was the first to go. We sat next to Lek and a little below the elephants. It was amazing to watch them from below. Their trunks making it very obvious to put the food in the small hook they would make. I feed the elephant a cucumber and two halves a watermelon. During the first slice of watermelon, Lek asked me if I had ever sat or been this close to an elephant in which my response was a shaking no.

I don’t think anyone really knows but besides my sister, Lek is another role model of mine. She has a job that saves the best animals in the world and she isn’t afraid of being near them. She mothers them until they are old enough to live on there own. She is incredibly calm and very sweet and she always takes time out of her busy schedule to talk to anyone. I knew she was small, but she even smaller than me. I had this thought in the back of my mind after lunch but never got to ask if she would be willing to take on an apprentice. I could see myself living or working here for the rest of my life, but you never know how my life will end up, I still have one more year of college left and I’m still thinking of getting my masters at Ohio State.

After that we were released to hang out until dinner, which is at six. After that I spent a decent forty-five minutes watching the mahouts play soccer and the elephants lounging behind them. It’s the closest I have had for alone time so far. Hopefully, I'll get a little more once I'm done with this, but if not, music can always calm the mind.

I hope at some point I will be able to talk to Lek and ask her about the apprentice. Who really knows though, she may say no or have no idea what I'm talking about. I would be nice though to just sit with her and elephants and just watch.

-Claire

The Air Conditioner Started to Sweat

This may end up being written between two days cause it's almost ten at night here and I don't really know how long I'm going to last. So...

May 7th

And I thought the first day in Bangkok was horrible with the heat and humidity! Oh hell no, this was even worse! Again I woke up before the sun even rose and finished writing my last blog. Eventually we were fully up and completely packed and we all crawled into a fourteen person van that turned into a fifteen person van while Shannon road in the luggage vehicle all by herself and took a good hour long drive up to Ayutthaya for the day. We mainly went there for the historical park but to get to and from the historical park and around the city we biked, sounded fun, but ended up just the worst idea ever. Six of us were driven to a small store that rented out bikes, the one closest to the hotel that we were using to shower and keep out luggage in had rented out the seven. So we had to get more bikes for everyone. So the guy from the hotel dropped us off and then the lady who worked at the bike shop got on her scooter and we followed her back to the hotel. Traffic is hell when you're from a country that drives on the other side of the road than the country you are in. But we made it all in one piece and waited until the other group returned before the entire class bike down to the Ayutthaya National Park.

Sound familiar? It should because one of the most famous images of Buddha comes from one of the areas. You all know this image. So now when you think of this you're actually thinking of Thailand, so think of me seeing this in person!

We had about an hour to do a few things at the Ayutthaya. There was a small market where I got a few things for some people before we bought the ticket to get inside the area where this Buddha was located. By the time we were done with this hour and regrouped I was drenched in sweat. I couldn't help but think that this hot and humid day felt exactly what it's like once I get out of dance. So apparently Ed and Byron has been making dance feel like a 102 degree 90% humidity feeling, and yet...I don't mind that as much as biking around in a National Park. Though when at dance I don't wear sunscreen and bugspray so I felt twice as gross.

When we regrouped we could go back to the hotel or do a little more of the National Park. I decided I might as well do more of the park, but god it was so HOT. I hated it. We did a small loop before we all just wanted to go back and take a shower. Once that happened we headed out to dinner, where the whole group once again biked. This time it wasn't as bad as the sun was going down by then. When we all returned to the hotel we all gathered up our things and crowded onto four Tuk-Tuk, those bike like taxi things. It was scary but really cool, and it had a great breeze as we made out way to the train station. I enjoyed it and would like to do it again, but I'm assuming that those are not the safest things to ride in.

Train? Yes, a train! And the best part? We slept on it. We had those nice fancy rooms that had rooms with beds. It was really cool. A lot of people had a hard time sleeping, but I practically knocked out like a dead person, I was really comfortable. But at some point, possibly 3 in the morning, the entire room had woken up freezing. Seriously, it was horrible! I had to get out my pillow/blanket for a second layer and huddled with Doppellump to get just a tad bit warmer and woke up again to the woman who was giving us breakfast. While we were waiting at the station before we got on, I used the restroom and there was a young boy who was so interested in my skin he kept poking it as I washed my hands and pulling at it. The mother kept telling him to stop, but I didn't mind really.

May 8th

When we arrived at Chiang Mai we went directly to the hotel. The rooms were ready so we left them in an area and were given permission to wander the town. We went up and down some of the streets and the surrounding area of the old city of Chiang Mai where I found my favorite present for someone and then ate lunch at a restaurant that had cats who enjoyed my bag. We returned to the hotel where we checked in and went swimming for a while before we had a small class meeting. After that we went to the Sunday Market where the group of girls I was with went up and down the stalls the totally wrong way because Thailand drives on the opposite side of the street. Lols, it was kind of easy in the beginning but once the night fell it was super crowded with people. I attempted bargaining where I succeeded in getting three chopsticks for 200 ฿ (baht) instead of 255฿ cause each were 85฿.
I also splurged a little by getting a henna, though the bugspray, sunscreen and sweat and general is making it fade faster than normal. It is still cute and adorable and people here at the Elephant Nature Park right off the bat saw my love for elephants with this.

We went back to the hotel pretty early, Janice and Shannon were the last to return to the hotel. I passed out once again with the little cover I could get because the girl I was sharing the bed with slept on top of the covers so it was kind of hard to cocoon myself like I normally do. This was also the first round of laundry a few of us did and laid it out to dry on the balcony.

May 9th

In the morning we got up and packed everything up, but got out our duffle bags, left our main bags in the hotel and hopped onto the buses that picked us up to head to the Elephant Nature Park! We got free T-shirts, a water bottle, and a sling that held the water bottle. We arrived a little before 10 and were given a tour of the place, finishing with the new baby elephant who is only a week old! Tiny and adorable I have never seen a baby elephant that small. So I do have to say congratulations on a successful birth!

Lunch and then a documentary film about the treatments of elephants here in Thailand (where I accidentally fell asleep) and woke up at the beginning of the last scene with a chicken crossing the road and Lek the woman who founded this place singing a lullaby to a baby elephant. We then were shown to our rooms, settled in, had a small orientation meeting before given two hours to hang out before we did a opening ceremony in which we had a shaman come and do a ceremony of getting rid of our bad luck and giving us good luck. We were given a white cotton string that was tied in a specific way by a woman who was chanting as she tied it. Women were given on on the left arm and men on the right. Then dinner and now here I am.

I am finally having some alone time and am really enjoying it, besides the bugs that keep wanting to fly into my eyes. I'm tired but I know that this is possibly one of the only times I will be able to recharge for a while as we will be working all together for the rest of the week. I hope that at some point I will be able to have Doppellump out and have his picture taken with one but I will have to tell a Mahout what I'm up to...

I knew this park had elephants as well as dogs but there are so much more animals than I thought. There are cats, water buffalo, and horses. Who knows what else is roaming these grounds as rescue animals, but both the cats and dogs are up for adoption. Thy love volunteers here but there are some pretty tight rules. The one thing that I predicted when I signed up for this class was a status that said "I've decided the first elephant I see I will break down crying." I did. It wasn't really the first elephant, but it was the first elephants that I was really close too. Shannon and Janice said it was okay to cry, but when they say how much Janice came up and gave me a hug. I was freaking out at how amazing these creatures are. I think the main reason why is because of how these majestic beasts withstood all their torment and now wound up here in paradise. I got teary eyed more than once throughout today and had some good personal moments with a few of the elephants, but sadly that got attention of the other people and they all attempted to get their attention so I slinked away as the crowd grew, hoping that I could get some alone time in the room only to find that there was already people in the room. Frankly I haven't really had any alone time seriously, like I call this alone time, but this isn't the alone time I want, where it's just me and maybe one of the dogs or cats. There are people all around, the volunteers, kids of the woman who are doing the massage. Shannon and Janice just talked to me (seriously right as I finished the last sentence about exactly this) and they are fabulous teachers, they understood exactly what I want and told me that I really should cut out time to myself soon, so I'll probably do that tomorrow. It's not completely a full recharge but it's probably the closest I'll get for awhile.

Another thing that I thought of earlier was how we use mosquito nets more as decoration back in the USA. They have no really purpose there besides the decoration but here they have a real use. The main volunteers who actually work here told us that if we had any holes in the nets to tell them so that we could either get new ones or the cleaning ladies would come in and tie the holes closed. It was interesting to watch them but they were happy to do it, they had a real concern.

Mix, the volunteer leader of the Otterbein group even brought in a fan for me because I was in an alcove by myself and didn't have any fans blowing on me. I was really grateful and it really works due to the fact that it was drying out my contacts.

Also another thing I thought of is how dirty the rivers have been here. You always think of clear crips water but then you get up close and it's dark and there is so much dirty and trash. Trash seems to be a big issue here because on the many drives to places there would be open landed that was just covered in trash bags. You could tell they weren't meant to be landfills and yet they looked like they were. Apparently recycling here is kind of a big issue due to amount of waste there is, but how people try to do it anyway. Though you can't find a recycling bin anyway unless it's a person selling water, they'll take it and put it into a special bag that has just recyclables.

The whole time I've been writing this I have had two dog friend lounging next to me and it's made me relax a little. Animals are amazing, cause I swear when it was just me and the elephants the wanted to know what was up. Dogs I think also really know as well. They have wonderful souls and I could live with them for the rest of my life. I can really see myself working here. I haven't done anything besides the few things we did today but somehow, I feel like I have found a second home in a way.

I love this place and I hope that I'll love it even more the farther I get in. I hope that I can come back here again, and some day maybe even retire to work here. Who knows, but for now. Goodnight/Good Morning

-Claire

More images as you scroll.

Ayutthaya

A temple we found on our wandering of Chiang Mai

Outside a restaurant in Chiang Mai

Across the river from where we ate in Ayutthaya

The top of a temple in Chiang Mai

A bird on the peak of a Buddha head at Ayutthaya. That had to mean something.

The cats playing with my shopping bag during lunch.

A small statue to give offers to covered with clothe from offerings.

A different Buddha statue at Ayutthaya

Damaged Buddhas at Ayutthaya

The Endless Walk of Heat and Sweat

When we first stepped out into the sauna...er...Thailand, the sticky feeling just sucked itself right onto you. There is literally no way how to explain horrible the heat is here. Yeah Oklahoma can get hot and humid, but this? This is like living in a volcano right now. Short shorts are wonderful, and I wore a T-shirt today, not going to do that again! Tank tops....tank tops all the way. But there was a reason I wore a T-shirt that I will get to in a few...

I woke up at about 6:45-ish. 6! I can't even do that back home without throwing a fit or not even remembering things (like when my dad said good-bye to me in Chicago last weekend...I don't remember that at all) and the weird part of it all is that I actually felt fully rested after that wave of the unknown amount of sleep gained on the three flights from yesterday and ereyesterday. I laid around for a decent while when the sound of call to pray rang throughout the buildings followed closely by chanting/singing and music. I had no idea we were so close to a monastery, or at least I knew we were near one, but the one that is around is pretty epic.

(The moment I fell asleep for the night)

This massive buddha stood above everything around it. The surrounding area was pretty cool. But frankly the only thing I thought of was the houses around us looked exactly what I had imagined for Thailand homes. I decided to get up at about seven to get food. And in the spirit of being in a different country I got a Thai breakfast that consisted of a friend bread thing with thick chunks of something else that tasted kind of like a curry and Thai tea. Which tasted odd, but good. So I have obviously found another flavor a tea that I really liked.

After that I explored a little bit (putting my eyeballs in first a.k.a contacts) and went to the roof. Which is when I discovered the massive buddha and the surrounding area. Before heading down to get my Canon camera and returning. They also have a garden up there which made me happy to know that they grow some of their own food.

We eventually all gathered at about ten to here the different options of what we could do, picked and then set sail, literally. We walked to the river, passing a lot of plant markets along the way. And then eventually fish markets where one of the boys and I watched a catfish commit suicide by jumping out of the tub it was in. The woman who was running it didn't even care which kind of made me a little disgusted at the fact that she just shrugged. Eventually we made it to the lake where there were a massive amount of pigeons on the docks, and a huge mass of cat fist swimming against the current waiting for food to come there way. There was even a vendor that sold food to feed the animals. None of us did it but a few people around us did so we watched masses of birds and fish fight over food.

The orange flagged water taxi eventually arrived and we all crowded onto the boat. I don't know how many people know this, but I hate small boats. I really do, especially when we're on a massive piece of water. I can do larger boats, but I get paranoid when I'm on a small boat. This one moved fast and jerky, and there was a crowd, ehh.

We all got off at the Grand Palace stop and made our way to a market area. Where we sat down and had lunch before being released to explore the market area. We were originally there for the amulet market, but it was small and sad unlike what they had probably seen. Only one from my group bought anything.

We all regrouped at one and went our separate ways, Janice took nine of us to go see the Emerald Buddha, while the rest went with Shannon to Chinatown. By then we had all already been sweating a decent amount, but it got a little worse. When you first enter the Grand Palace area, if you plan on going into the central court people will tell you you have to cover up. In this case, shoulders and knees. I don't own knee lengthen shorts, but I wore a T-shirt for this case to cover my shoulders. So all of us were given skirts, and everyone else was given a shirt to cover their shoulders before we could go in. (I'm the third one up on the left). It kind of sucked because the skirts/wraps were super hot, but they were really nice too.

We went through a museum first that showed us a few royal objects (all practically made of gold) that were used throughout the years for the royal family here in Thailand. There was a few clothing pieces, and geez you should have seen the rings!

We then excited and made our way to the central temple where the Emerald Buddha was. I don't know how many people saw it but to be in the presence of him made me feel very emotional. I prayed a little too. After this long march we decided we should head back (all of incredibly sweaty, sticky, and really hot). I lucked out by only getting burned on the checks and a little on the eyebrows, cause dude that cowboy hat was a good idea to bring!

The travel back was a little weird because we were told one dock, and it was the other but the guy who ran the other dock didn't want anyone to be on it unless they were unloading. We saw a decent amount of tour boats that kept on unloading Chinese tourist groups all wearing the same flower necklace. It was a good thirty minutes before the second orange boat arrived and we all boarded and headed back to the hotel.

I quickly claimed the shower and laid down for a little bit before Janice came to see if we wanted to get a message because Shannon's group hadn't returned. Freaking out we all said yes and headed to the salon. Four of the five of use got the first hour and let me tell you, the woman who did mine is about the same size as me but she really could put pressure on areas. She worked a really long time on my legs while the others had moved on and then when she got to my back she literally crawled on me. Sometimes it felt like Olivia on my back but then other times it felt like a second me on top of me. It felt amazing though and I could tell that she could tell that I did a lot that used my legs and back. The only part that hurt was the inside area of my lower left leg that has been hurting for a while, so she avoided putting too much pressure on it, but still messaged out the area. I have to retape my ankle cause I had to remove the wrap but I took a photo to remember what it looked like.

After that a few of us went with Janice to get dinner. Now lunch and dinner I have shied away from trying exotic food so I got white rice with egg and chicken. Finishing that, the total for that entire meal was 300 baht, which is $8.54 in America....soo yeah. We were supposed to be given 300 baht but obviously we didn't use it all. We swung by 7/11 after that to get some ice cream before we returned to the hotel where I got ready for bed and started to write my blog.

One thing that stood out to me the most yesterday though was a lot of people own buildings that can be store fronts too so they can sell things, which most did, but if you looked further back you could see their kitchen and living room area. And the entrance were they sold the items was actually like those massive store fronts you can enter at the mall. I wouldn't feel very safe having those as my front door, but they did all have like a garage door and a gate that they could close up with. Odd, but it's a normal here...

-Claire

P.S. more images if you scroll down.

Room 307, our room.

The small temple where they could give offerings every morning.

The Grand Palace

The Grand Palace

The Grand Palace

The Grand Palace

Twenty-Three Hours in the Sky

So here we are, after three different flights, lounging nicely in a pretty cool looking room. I cannot begin to explain how happy I am to have a bed, although it's a little too firm for me, it's still nice to have something to lay down on after three different on each flight.

I'm actually not quite sure how much sleep I got the night before. It was one of those, conscious sleeps and yet you know you slept. I had an alarm go off at 3 but I hung out in bed until Shannon called me at like 3:30-ish. Ironically enough, the bus and Shannon was running late so there was only a few of us when we should have gathered. But eventually everyone who was taking the bus showed up....and let me say that was one weird bus...

Yes....it was a party bus blaring a whole heck of a lot of rap and hip hop music and at four thirty in the morning? Oh dear, there was in fact a whole where the pole would've been and apparently there was a trap door somewhere for people who needed to throw up.

We got to the airport with about an hour and a half left, check our bags and set forth! Oddly enough, I was the only person in our group of sixteen to get TSA pre-check, which I've never gotten before, like EVER. So I thought that was a little weird and kind of nice not having to worry about holding people up or throwing things back into your bag.

The first flight was from Columbus to LAX and it was five hours. I don't remember for the life of me if I tried to sleep, which I think I did. I got a window seat so that was nice to be able to lean on it. We had only about two hours in LAX before we boarded our plan to Tokyo-Narita. This one was the longest at 10 hours and 54 minutes, and yes, the first movie I watched was Deadpool. It was along these lines of one movie, then we got "lunch", then I started Frankenstein (with Daniel Radcliffe) before stopping to take a nap, that somehow worked out, a little. Luckily this time I had an isle row so I sprawled a lot. Before waking up finishing Frankenstein, watching an episode of Adventure Time before napping again. There was mid-flight ice cream sandwich before I napped and then watched a little of Shaun the Sheep the movie before everything just kind of blurs together. So I'm just assuming that this order was probably wrong. 

We then landed in the wonderful land of Tokyo, where I saw many things that I will be buying on the way back and am very happy that my father got Yen for the flight back cause I definitely saw a few things for some people. Oddly enough though Tokyo was much more heavy on what you wore and brought for scanning. They heavily inspected many of the liquids and if you had thick soled shoes on, like I did with my boots or Professor Glowski with her thick heels. So we had to wear slippers. The security though was really cute for they all kept saying thank you, which you would respond and it went round and round.

We then had that small layover in Tokyo before we had our last flight to Bangkok that was seven hours. Which after having that 11 hour flight, seven was nothing. I again got an aisle set but this time I couldn't for the life of me sleep. My schedule is completely screwed up I couldn't even remember what day it was cause we left on a Wednesday but arrived really late on that Thursday.....

Anyhoo, the drive to the hotel was about forty-five minutes where I counted nine 7/11's on the way. Three are practically right next to us. There is also an elementary school across from us. The room I'm in is facing the other side so hopefully there voices won't carry, but who knows. There really 'traditional'/modern in a way and I could see myself with a room like this. Ehh kind of bohemian in a way.

So yeah...that's the trip so far. More images if you scroll down.

-Claire

My triple check to see if he was still with me before the flight to LAX.

I got excited about this, to see real monks for the first time besides when I
got to see the Dali Lama.

Rice fields? when flying out of Tokyo-Narita

Just outside our hotel, there are a lot of stray cats and they love the hood of cars,
I'm assuming cause they're probably cool.

Doppellump knows how to make friends faster than me!

Tomorrow

First off, I type super fast and sometimes don't see my misspellings, the usage of wrong versions on specific words, or punctuations/ grammatical errors. So yeah...ignore those, I know they're everywhere within my writings.
Thanks.

Anyhow...

Tomorrow we leave even before the sun decides to get up and somehow I'm more nervous than anything else. I'm more nervous that competing at a dance competition, I'm more nervous than meeting new people (like when I was figure out which dance school I wanted to go to), I'm more nervous than when I traveled to England, Ireland, France, and Germany. After a decent amount of time of thinking why I am more nervous than any of these others is because of two things.

1. Having to get up so early on my own, and I am NOT a morning person
2. My parents are not anywhere near me to a. travel with me or b. see me off

The other three trips I had taken were always with or had to do something with my parents, even if it was both of them to see me off for the France and Germany trip. I have a super close relationship with both of them and not having either of them to see me off tomorrow I think is what is making my stomach fill to the brim with butterflies.

I'm pretty much packed besides the few essentials that I will be using throughout today and early tomorrow more like my toothbrush and hairbrush and the what nots. Most of the electronics are fully charged and ready to go so yeah....

Good news for those who are concerned about my falling apart body (lols which I always feel like) because of my dancing, Dr. Ulm wrapped my ankle area to stop the horrible pain on the inside of my lower left leg from bothering me and not complain. He also said it wasn't shin splints, *insert angels singing that one high note*.  So hopefully doing the massive amount of walking won't bother it as much. Now when it comes to the left knee, and my right hip...that I have no idea how they will act.

One of our first assignments besides the blog, if that is even an assignment anymore (?) is to take a photo of myself before the trip. I think it's to see like how much of a change from the experience we show or something? She never really explained it to us, or if she did I totally blanked on it. So here's the image of me being a nerd...

Ahhhh!!!!!

-Claire

P.S. I have no idea when the next post will be if not May 5th cause we flying all day tomorrow...