So we went to Jungle Flight on Tuesday. It's the longest and highest zipline tour in Thailand.
I decided not to participate. I was feeling a little tired and with my fear of heights there were a few parts of the course that I felt might be a little much. The real adventure, though, was the drive up to Jungle Flight. It was the most windy, narrow road I think I've ever been on. That didn't stop our driver from taking the turns at a fast speed and hugging the edge of a cliff for most of the way up (and down!). It took the students about 3 hours to complete the whole course. During that time Jane and I rested and did some planning and hung out. It was a lovely day in the shade. The students all came back alive and seemed to have a really good time. That night we decided to make dinner in and Jane and I prepared an Italian feast of pasta, salad, and garlic bread. It didn't quite taste like home but it was a hit! I went to bed pretty early that night because we had an early wake-up time for Wednesday.
Wednesday morning we were off to explore nature. Jane's father, Brian, led us on a nature hike through a local park. We saw a lot of different kinds of birds and am now able to pick out Myna birds fairly easily. This park had a shrine on one side with a gazebo. We sat there for awhile and let the students feed the fish. We then made our way to the other side of the lake and everyone had the chance to hang out and enjoy the rest of the morning. There was swimming and napping and frisbee - good times! All the relaxing made everyone quite hungry so we headed off to get a Northern Thai specialty - Khao Soi. It egg noodles in a coconut curry broth with the option of getting some meat in it. I had khao soi with meatballs and then another bowl with pork. Note to self: Next time go light on the chili paste when adding it in (mai ped - no spicy!). The second bowl with less spice was better and it's probably one of my favorite things I've had in Thailand. Eventually we made our way back to the hostel and did a reading and discussion on Buddhism and becoming a monk. This was all in preparation for our "Monk Chat" that night. We went to Wat Suan Dok temple in the city and three times a week they allow you to sit and chat with a monk and ask questions. So we listened to an introduction about Buddhism and then had time to have a question and answer session with a monk. It was a very cool experience. My favorite thing that he said was stop trying to fix the affect -- just go to the cause. Simple - but always a good reminder in life. Below are a few pictures of the temple (not ones that the students took but ones from online).
After the monk chat we did a little dinner and then made our way to iBerry for ice cream. iBerry has a bunch of sculptures and interesting art pieces in their lawn and shop. We went there during the day on our first day in Chiang Mai. It was cool to see iBerry at night because all the sculptures are lit up and it's very festive. Below is a picture of the big sculpture right when you enter.
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