Thailand Travels- Chiang Mai

So before our trip to Thailand becomes a year ago, I am determined to blog more of our personal photos. Here are my favorites from our trip to Chiang Mai, which is in the northern part of the country.

Seeing the elephants was one of our "must do" activities. We spent the better part of the day going to an Elephant Camp and riding the elephants. Now, riding the elephants, this sounds really fun. Joe and I were really excited. We talked about it for weeks. Really. Riding Elephants. It will be a blast! Sounds great! That is, until the elephant you are riding totally doesn't care that you are on his back, insists on climbing down a mountain while you are sitting on his hump to devour rain forest, leaving you at a 90 degree downward angle, 12 ft off the ground, and your new-years-eve-hung-over elephant guide cannot control your elephant and at one point jumps off your elephant and leaves you going down the mountain on your elephant with your fancy camera equipment. All the while, drunk elephant driver beats your elephant with a little pointed stick trying to get it to listen...to no avail. The elephant does what it wants. I'm just saying. Joe and I were both mcguivering ways to "loft" off the cameras and jump down, except that we were on the side of a mountain. It was a pretty intense 2 hours ( I think it was suppose to be 45 minutes). And on top of that both of us super super white people got burnt. So, all that to say: Elephants= Amazing. Riding Elephants= Scary.

Enjoy these photos!

Oh- one more thing! I had a lot of people ask about my Italy photos and if they were for sale. They are, and so are these. Email if there is one you are interested in.

Pre-elephant ride. Still super stoked about elephants.

LOVE this eye shot below that Joe took.

The long-necks of Chiang Mai.

Photos of the King and Queen of Thialand. These are everywhere you go in the country. On billboards, on highways, bridges, even in the smallest of towns there are photos of the K and Q.

Elephant painting a painting! This was truly amazing. Some of the elephants painted ACTUAL photos. Seriously, one painted a bunny. That was not by accident!

One of my favorite shots of the day. Taken by Joe. He is pretty great.

And the Thailand travels begin....Bangkok

Thailand was such an amazing visual experience. The country has vastly different landscapes and we were lucky enough to get to see many of them...from the city, to the beaches, to the tropical forests. We rested, we got sunburnt(yes, we were two of the whitest people in the whole country...at the pool, it wu'nt pretty) we walked, we took naps, it was glorious. With our first wedding of wedding season this past weekend I am immensely thankful for that time of rest we got to have together. resting. reading. eating. laughing. I have the best husband and getting to travel together is one of life's greatest gifts. to us.

Some stages of our trip were super short and others were long and relaxing. Some places we took lots of photos and in others we just took lots of naps. We were in Bangkok sight seeing for just a short time so the photos are few- but here is a look at some photos from when we toured the Grand Palace.

These tiles made up the whole entire building. insane.

Joe MAY just kill me, but I had to post this photo. When touring some of the sights, you were not allowed to wear shorts. So, you have to RENT these pants to put over your shorts. Every time I looked over at Joe I would just start laughing. But what else was so funny is that everywhere you looked men are wearing these pants. It was like a MC hammer convention, in Thailand.