Happy Halloween, everybody! I'm in Thailand for Halloween this year and instead of running around in some cool costumes collecting an assortment of wonderful candy of various flavors and colors, we are doing some things of a different nature. The first thing we did was take a wooden boat down a river to an area of small mud houses with leaf-covered roofs. We stopped there to take a look at a tribe where women put coils around their necks. Over time, the coils push their ribs down and make it look like they have really long necks. They also wear ornaments on their head, like long pieces of fabric coming down from another piece of cloth. When we were walking around their village, we were shocked to find that a lot of the smaller girls had the coils too.
After the seeing these women, we went to our next Halloween activity, riding elephants. Since there were only three elephants and four of us, my Mom and I were on one and Stefan and my Dad were on another. At first, we just went tromping along the road, which lucky for us, had no cars around. Pretty soon, we got off the road and went down to the river. With us on top of them, the elephants went into the river. They started swinging around and my Mom and I tried to hang on, trying not to fall in! Once we pulled ourselves up and got a grip on the rope that was tied around him, the elephant sat down in the middle of the water and dunked us into the river. When we got back up on it, we got sprayed by the elephant's trunk. Meanwhile, my Dad was on the side with his camera yelling "Again, again," so this counted as the trick part of trick-or-treat (which I think was much more fun than coming up behind someone and yelling BOO!).
After
the elephants, we went on a raft made of bamboo and we traveled down
the river. We also visited a water fall that had a bat cave. How
perfect on Halloween! For Halloween night, we went to the night market
in Chiang Mia, which has all types of vendors selling different stuff
like Buddhas, jewelry, and wooden toys. Later, we went back to the
hotel in a tuk tuk, which is like a mini car. And that ends our
Halloween ... Happy Halloween! Until next time!
Tyler ... sorry I have missed a few updates .. working crazy long day to get Obama elected here in Ohio.
It is so great to share through the blog updates, how amazing.
Hmm, I must say I find the neck rings a bit disturbing, but it is their culture not mine. I can harldly wait for your next update. Deb~la
Hi guys, this is amazing. Did you have a guide or was it just the four of you? How did you know where to go? Ah your adventures continue ... and I will continue to log on and see your posts. Did you check out the Coronation today (or yesterday) in Bhutan? One of the radio stations did a piece today and many friends sent me the link. Deb~la