An elephant never forgets (and neither will I).

After packing up our lives in New Hampshire, we took off to Southeast Asia with a robust itinerary: city exploring in Bangkok, tomb raindering in Cambodia, gallivanting in the rural/northern Thai province of Chiang Mai, beachtime on an island, then hobnobbing in the bustling metropolitan of Hong Kong. 

Our Southeast Asia portion of the summer looked something like this:

I moved Hudson to AZ before meeting Jamie in CA for our flight out of the country.
Thanks, Lucy & Jerry for taking Hudson for so long!

While the whole trip was much to behold and  I'm SO glad we got over there, I'm first going to post about the portion of our trip that has had the longest lasting (physical) impact. Some of y'all have heard details, but for posterity...

----------

On July 20th, we were picked up from our hotel for a program called "Elephant Trainer for a Day" at the Patara Elephant Farm about 45 minutes outside of the city of Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. I had done a ton of online research on elephant facilities in this part of Thailand; well-known for its conservation efforts, but also notorious for eco-tourism fads, mistreatment of animals, etc. This place was written up in reputable places, continuously highly reviewed, and had stamps of approval from various types of people (travelers and experts in the field). While I was still slightly torn about whether or not this was a humane activity to partake in, we decided to go for it with the contingency plan of bailing if it got weird.

Apprehension!!
also, probably the best photo of myself i've ever taken (sarcasm).

Once we arrived, however, my apprehensions completely dissolved.

Apparently, Jamie took a little a second longer to get used to the concept.

These animals looked healthy (eating, playing, making eye contact with people), the trainers appeared super bonded to them, and after ten minutes with the owner himself, all concerns about the established business were squashed. Pat, the owner, was immediately kind, had great delivery of his perspective on animal conservation efforts and with a Thai/Australian accent took us through the schedule of the day:

• Coo at and admire the three 16month old baby elephants playing with each other. They were all born in the same month, were being raised together by their three moms (exchanging daycare, etc), and were so dang cute together. Don't get me wrong, they were total tanks and it was easy to see how strong even the little "babies" were compared to humans (video here + my maniacal laughter).

That little guy weighs about 1500lbs.

• Get dressed in traditional Thai fishermen outfits that the elephants are accustomed to seeing. I was glad for the covering once we mounted the scratchy elephant backs and were plunging into the sharp branches in the rainforest a few minutes later.

what ridiculous costume?

• Familiarize yourself with the elephant paired to you aka feed it. 

Jamie bonded instantaneously with his super sweet elephant, Mekwon.

These guys were AMAZING.

• Complete their daily skin check (look for any wounds, sores, etc.) and brush dirt off their backs to prepare for bathing.

The trainers initially giggled at how gentle Jamie was being, but he got a hold of it quickly.

I was a little overwhelmed with the task. 

• Point and giggle at elephants with itchy butts (took liberty to add to the agenda).

"i've got an itch i can't scratch!"

• Walk them down to a small brook, hop into the knee deep water, and bathe them (sure, totally normal).

Walking my elephant.

Washing elephant butt...heh heh.

Kinda looks like I'm taking a toothbrush to a statue.

• Back at the starting point, learn simple commands and mount the elephant, bareback style.

Success!

My approach was not as smooth.

• Ride the gigantic animal up to the top of a rainforest-like mountain. Plod through 3ft deep muddy trails on the edge of cliffs, marvel at the dexterity of the animal while simultaneously peeing pants in fear.

our whole group minus one baby elephant.

The steepness is dramatic whilst perched up on an ~8ft tall slip-sliding animal. 

It was unreal.

• Eat the most delicious Thai-style picnic in a serene clearing at the top of the mountain ... complete with fried chicken (huh?). It hadn't felt like a particularly long morning, but by the time food was presented, I was famished. Adrenaline has funny effects, I guess. Also, who knew instant coffee was delicious when brewed in a bamboo pole?

our little group.

"plates" = leaves

Ron Weasley and his blonde girlfriend were teachers from Australia.
Dad + daughter were moving from Miami to Brazil.

Clean-up crew.

• Ride the elephant back down the mountain to a waterfall area and go swimming with them and the three elephant babies.

I'm realizing now that I constantly have my mouth open.

Mouth open + swimming with an elephant.

• Get caught trying to access Facebook in the wilderness...

Just kidding, I was just using the camera on my phone. 

• Walk the elephants back to the main entrance and tearfully say goodbye.

Oh, it was so amazing. The whole day we kept looking at each other and grinning at our luck. Well, I guess there was this one weird moment while we were swimming when a baby elephant swam quickly to purposefully pin Jamie against Mekwon (his mother) - like being pinned between a Volkswagen beetle and a huge truck. It was the first rapid movement any of the animals had displayed and, therefore, a little shocking/scary, but the trainers were right there and Jamie came out unscathed. 

So, all in all, everything went according to plan.......right up until.......

Exploring Sydney (Australia Part 3)

I'm sure you've seen plenty of photos of the Sydney landmarks so I thought I'd do something a little different and take photos of people taking photos in front of Sydney landmarks.

An asian tourist taking a photo of a serious asian tourist in front of the Sydney Opera House:

As seen in Finding Nemo.

Asian girl (me) taking picture of an asian guy taking picture of an asian guy:

Wait...he doesn't seem v.asian.

Much better:

syndey harbour bridge in background.

Do you like to travel alone? (Australia Part 2)

Lest you think I have completely abandoned my posts on our December Australia trip...

----overdue post as we've been back for 3.5 months---

Jamie had a couple more days of his project left so he continued his commute to the client site while I had free reign on all of Sydney by my lonesome. It. Was. Fantastic. I easily managed the public transit system there, figured out the challenge of simple things like looking the opposite direction while crossing the street (gasp! honk! eek!), and even mastered the international method of buying a SIM card for mobile phones (honestly, the most economical way to handle mobiles ever). 

• Jamie et al. immediately tied into Vodafone when they landed and most companies have free company-to-company calling or texting so I only did a superficial price comparison before identifying the best plan for me at the same company.
• They all got pay-as-you-go mobiles as soon as they landed. Dinky flip phone things that didn't handle data, limited the number of minutes they could make phone calls, and now they own these dinky phones. Silly tuckies.
• I came in with my global-enabled iPhone, having called Verizon before leaving the country to unlock the device (important to do for Verizon customers!), picked up a SIM card for $1, and bought a $14 data plan.
• This $14 included: free calls & texts to Vodafone customers (uh...everyone I knew in the country), 450 mobile minutes which included international calling (if only I could figure out the time difference), 150MB of data (don't really know what that means, but didn't come close to using it all), and free access to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Myspace (huh?).
• What more could I have possibly needed? SO CHEAP.

ok, enough about the phone. 

I started off each morning with a flat white or a long black:

Might I add that we have limited coffee options in Hanover?
These were über-luxury moments.

And set out on full day-long excursions on my own:

Old. 
(notice which side of the street the cars are on)

New.

Um...oldish/new? 

Don't know how to qualify artificial floral walls.

With my map-ready mobile device, complete with foursquare capability, I hardly did any research before hitting the streets. I chose to do more of a go-as-I-please couple of days, popping in and out of shops, taking in some local magazines at delicious coffee joints, soaking up some sunshine in the local parks, and enjoying the fact that I was in a fun metropolitan area.

Had to try a mini pie from Pie Face.

It's like the Starbucks of hand pies; they're EVERYWHERE and conceptually v.cool.

Taste = meh...probably really good hangover food.

Rechargeable batteries in glittery colours.

"Regular" batteries were hard to find. Other countries are fun.

I had done the most efficient job of almost immediately adjusting my clock by forcing myself awake while hopping on and off of planes until Sydney bedtime and crashing on the longer flight over. Unfortunately I only had a window seat for my to-canada and cross-canada flights and a MIDDLE SEAT for the 15 hour journey. It took a whole lotta "getting zen" and maybe some light pharmaceuticals to get there, but the effort was well worth its weight in gold once I got across the ocean.

Racks of false eyeballs (designer contacts).

"Naturally", they were next to the thousands of false eyelashes.

Waking up slightly early each morning, I was able to cram in so much exploring before meeting up with friends for post-work dinner, drinks, and going out. And while I did my fair share of window shopping, the multiple flights remaining on my agenda prohibited me from doing much purchasing. That and the insane exchange rate that made everyday items 150% more expensive than in the US. Oh, and our grad school family budget. All these things, limiting my natural tendencies.

This drugstore-brand-in-the-usa nail bar was in a high-end department store makeup section.

The row of nailpolish moved about on a track like toy train.

There were juicing bars everywhere with piles of fresh veggies/fruits!

Cucumber? Apple? Kale? Lime?

I love these things!

So exciting!

BLEAGH.

It was horrible.

I bet even this prehistoric bird would even toss out my kale, apple, celery juice:

BLEAGH. CACAW!

Someone's on the other side of the country...

Jamie was in Seattle for a few days and I thought he was getting all emo on me when I got this photo in an email:

Artsy.

But then he sent this one:

Not as artsy.

26 Hours.

Ok, now onto the Australia trip!

----overdue post as we've been back for 1.5 months---

The day before my flight out to Sydney, I left Hudson at home for friends to pick up that evening, threw everything into the car, kept my fingers crossed that I had turned off everything sufficiently (the lights? the stove? the tv?), and zoomed the 2.25 hours south to Brook and Marissa's for the night.

Marissa had kindly offered to take me and my oversized suitcase over to Logan Airport and store our car for the duration of the trip. There's really something to be said about someone who will take you to the airport (or pick you up in their pajamas as the case turned out to be - thanks max & brook) let alone store your vehicle in their driveway. it's not like, "hey, can you carry my id in your back pocket for the night?" it's a CAR. Driving to the airport is like the bane of peoples' existence, there are plenty of other ways to get there, but it's expensive and time consuming. How comforting is it to have someone you know take you to departure and greet you upon retrieving your bags? I heart the Rosenbaums.

Max's mobile lulled me to sleep that night.

The next morning, I watched as Brook risked his life for some holiday cheer:

(made my knees wobbly)

Got to the airport at 3pm EST.

Grabbed a hot coffee to keep me up as long as possible: 

I'm not even that big of a fan of their coffee.

 It's just a bit of a novelty at this point what with the living-far-away-from-one thing.

Grabbed some snacks to nosh on:

So. Good. 

Flight took off at 4:45pm EST.

Did I mention I was flying Air Canada (english/french = awesome)?

Landed in Toronto at 6:45pm EST.

Oh man. Ran into some major issues in Canada.

Fun fact: you need a visa to go to Australia. 

Was. Not. Aware. 

More fun facts: 

• If you book a flight, but the Aussie government doesn't send your verified visa information to the airline (because you never applied for one in the first place), they put you on a Do-Not-Board list. Eep...that sounds bad.
• If you show up in Toronto and try to get through customs/immigration during your layover, only to find out you're on a Do-Not-Board list, you start to sweat bullets. Be cool.
• If you get the Canadian airline people to try to apply for a last-minute visa to get you into Australia, you get put on a Do-Not-Fly list. Start to freak out.
• Do-Not-Fly lists are bad. Like...shoe bomber bad. 

Luckily, they were able to "call Australia" (huh? like the country number?), it was 11am there, and they were able to get a hold of the right person to get me through and on my original flight. PHEW.

Fast forward through:

-5.5 hour flight from Toronto to Vancouver, landing at 1:20am EST.

-2 hour layover in Vancouver (did some yoga in the empty terminal, tried not to sleep).

-and a 15.5 hour flight to Sydney, landing at 8:30pm EST or just after noon in Sydney.

-4 movies, trying to sleep in a middle/coach seat (on the aussie clock), 1 book.

Airplane wing + Sydney Harbour Bridge + Opera House

Just after we landed, immigration officers boarded the plane, opened all of the overhead compartments, and started spraying. 

That's right. SPRAYING. Ack! Cough Cough!  

It's a common occurrence for Australia-bound flights, to spray the cabins with an insecticide or disinfectant, but definitely not something I recalled from my last trip there, 8 years prior. I was feeling righteously indignant about it, but defeated by the long hours of travel and it smelled like Lysol so I gave up. Definitely kept my scarf at my face the whole time.

Got through another round of customs/immigration, retrieved my bag, and found the right train to get me into Downtown Sydney. Someone overpacked and it was a little bit of a pain to navigate all of these places with my heavy bags.

Oh man, was I glad to see the hotel:

One piece! 

I had enough time to shower, change, and take a one hour nap before Jamie and the other Tuckies returned home from their day of work. He had filled the room with all sorts of Aussie goodies so my nap dropped to 1/2 an hour while I got distracted by opening packages. Fun. Fun. Fun.