Tao Garden Wellness Retreat Chiang Mai

... and we were grand.<br><br><br><br>Another highlight was lunch on top of mountain eaten from a leaf, a<br>sort of noodle salad and just when i thought to myself "how am i<br>supposed to eat this thing" i was given a set of bamboo chopsticks and<br>it was devoured.<br><br>The whole experience was amazing and definitely one of the best experiences I've ever had.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

... streams and rivers, by the end of the trek our body's were shaking with just pure shock from what we had just encountered. After the trek we had some lunch and then straight into white water rafting which was so much fun, halfway down we swapped onto a raft made out of bamboo which was ok but no as adrenalin pumping as the white water.<br><br>We then got back showered, changed and headed strait for the bus ...

... to go, it's just so hard to know if they are well treated and more importantly how they were trained. In the afternoon we sat down with an iced lemon tea and watched a documentary on Lek's work. She runs a mobile vet service called 'Jumbo Express' that helps educate people on elephant care. At the end they showed how elephants are trained and subdued. Ever wondered why elephants are such good painters ? They are kept in a cage for a week ...

SO we arrived at 'Tip guesthouse', our allotted accomodation from the package we booked for Chiang Mai in Bangkok. We dubbed it 'It's a tip guesthouse' as it quickly and honourably took the prize for worst accomodation so far. After no sleep for almost 2 nights we opened the door to a fan room (after we had been promised A/C, which for the price we're paying, we expected) and beds made of concrete or the like. This did not ...

... HA) We then rode on an oxen drawn cart for about 30 minutes. This led us through their village. We then rode on a bamboo made raft river for about an hour. We left from that area and went to visit the orchid farm and then headed back to the hotel.<br><br>Don and Randy went to see the rice cultivating machines (made by Kuboto) for him to take pictures. This was our last day at Chiang Mai.<br><br> <br>

... the only foreigners of the probably 200-300 people there (it was huge)! You cook your own meat at your table on a raised metal grill that has a boling water in the base for you to cook veg or fish balls etc, as well as that there were cooked foods of all kinds, dim sum, sushi, fruit, cakes, ice cream. We were sat with an American lad called Andy who I challenged to eat as much weird stuff as he could find and the boy done good, it's not everynight you hear a sentence like ...

... Nu as our guide.<br><br><br><br>On our trek were three others, all American. John was about late thirties and was a biologist from Minnesota (possibly). He had discovered one species of plant, which I thought was pretty cool. He'd decided to do some travelling as he'd been made redundant, and had done a few other countries before arriving in Thailand. The other two were two friends from [I'll say Minnesota again as I cannot remember and its not that important ...

... on several items Jessie made her choice and the barter game was on. The lady started at 1200 baht and Jessie countered with 700 this went back and forth for a while until another customer walked into the store and distracted the woman wanting a shirt. Jessie had her where she wanted and was about to offer her 850 but we couldn't get her attention. We stood around for a few minutes and finally walked out of the store unnoticed by the shop keeper. We were standing on the corner ...

The problem with learning how to make a specific type of food, i.e. Chinese, Italian or in this case Thai, is that by the end of the class you have pretty much had your fill of the food you spent the day learning how to make. Adding to the problem is that if you take the class in the country where the curriculum is the daily staple, it makes for a dinner dilemma when the class lets out. I use the terms problem and dilemma lightly since an excuse ...

... sober caught. resting lazily on the bar, a waitress took my order for another bottle of rum and a steady onslaught of soda. from the kitchen came a pretty thai girl, apron splashed with the scent of hard work and noodles. hard work and noodles caught my eye and smiled, inviting me to join her and her friends at spicy thai nightclub. i went back to the table and spread the word that spicy thai was the big event and we polished our throats with that second bottle of sugar cane ...