As for the cuisine, Jason has vowed to gain 10 pounds on this trip. Each time we sit down to eat he orders three entrees because he can not get enough of the Thai food. Luckily, the menu is half Western as well so I am able to ease myself in to the Thai cuisine. The food is amazing though. We have met the chef, had a private dinner at the elephant camp, had breakfast on top of the mountain and wine and cheese at sunset. The service here is beyond phenomenal. No matter what they are doing when you walk by, each and every person from the gardener to the mahouts, stops, presents a wai and says "sa-was-dee," which means hello or goodbye. The wai is a hands-together, prayer-like gesture that the Thai use as a greeting, an expression of thanks or a sign of respect. They will not let you carry a thing, they escort us everywhere we go, every single person here knows our names and there is probably a five to one ratio of employee to guest. We are going to have a rude awakening when we return home.
We spent two days with Somkid our elephant guide. In addition to mahout training, he took us to the local market and to an ancient Buddhist temple. He is quite funny and thinks of himself as the local comedian. Tuk the manager of the bar spent 30 minutes talking to us over drinks about the history of the camp, his family in Thailand and suggestions for the remainder of our trip. Ali the hotel manager could not have been any nicer and our very own personal greeter, Warm, definitely lives up to her name. However, if I could take Poy home with me I would move her to Thibodaux in a heartbeat. Jason and I went to the spa two days in a row and I got to spend my time with Poy. She speaks very little English but has to be one of the sweetest human beings on earth. After each treatment, she would sit me up, stand above me on the bed and braid my hair like I was a kid all over again. Each time we would leave she would smile the biggest smile at me and just keep saying "beautiful, beautiful!"
The market was very interesting. The Thai people visit the market twice a day so everything is very fresh and some of it is still alive. We saw creatures that we have never seen before that are delicacies in this part of the world. The Buddhist temple was very entertaining. We made an offering to Buddha for a long, healthy and blessed life and then sat down to speak with a monk. There's a first time for everything, right? He said a blessing over us and asked if we had any questions for him. He explained that he has been a monk for 31 years and was spending a week at this particular temple. I asked the monk if he had any advice for us and, as translated by Somkid, the answer was a resounding "No!" Ummm.... I am pretty sure we somehow insulted the monk. Really! No advice, huh? Oh well, it gave us a good laugh, which we probably were not supposed to be doing in the temple either!
Everywhere we went we took little Thai boats up and down the Mekong River. They look like Asian mud boats. We arrived at the camp on the boat, we went to the market and temple on the boat, we went to the opium museum on the boat and we sat in the middle of the Mekong River where the three countries meet to make the Golden Triangle and took a picture in the boat. Every detail at this place is thoroughly planned to give the guest the best experience possible. If it wasn't halfway across the world we would definitely be back soon to visit all of our new friends, humans and animals alike.
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