Chiang Mai (including Mae Wang), Chiang Mai Province, Thailand

14th July – 20th July 2018

After getting onto the bus at Pai bus station, we had a three-hour drive along the long and windy roads back to Chiang Mai. Those 762 curves did not get any easier and I felt so ill along the way. Luckily, when we arrived in Chiang Mai at 10am, the sickness feeling soon passed.

When we got off the bus, we knew we were looking for a red bus to take us to somewhere else in the centre of Chiang Mai. As soon as we got there, we were approached by many people trying to sell their mode of transport, as normal. We had to wait a little while, but eventually got a bus to the centre of the city.

After getting off the red bus, we then had to look for a yellow one, to take us out of the city, down south, to Mae Wang. There were a few yellow buses around, so we just had to ask (and show them on the phone where we wanted to go) and we soon found the right one. The yellow bus journey was a long one, which took us over half an hour. It was lucky that we got the early bus from Pai, as we were told to get to Mae Wang for 12 and that time was soon approaching.

We got off the bus and the driver tried to charge us double, but luckily, we knew what the price should have been. For our time in Chiang Mai, we had decided to do another volunteer project, teaching English, and the one in Mae Wang was the best that we could find. The lady who runs the school had sent us some information about how to get there, so it made it easy for us.

From the bus, we had to walk about 200 metres, until we found where we were staying. It was a little difficult to find, as it wasn’t on any of the map apps that we have, so we were just going off what the lady had sent us.

When we arrived, we went to the café area, which was very busy. We spoke to someone behind the counter, who told us to sit down and wait. We then had to wait for about an hour, while they sorted out somewhere for us to stay. It was very strange, as it was like they knew nothing about us, despite the fact that I only spoke to her a couple of days earlier.

As time was approaching 1pm, we started to wonder what was happening, as we were told to arrive at 12, so that we could begin teaching at 1, as they were desperate for teachers. Just before 1, someone came and got us to show us to our bungalow. We were shown the area and where the communal area was, where we met a few other volunteers.

When I asked what was happening with our teaching, I was told that we wouldn’t be teaching until Monday, as they had people for the weekend, so it felt like communication wasn’t a strong point, as we had rushed and cut our Pai trip short to get there for Saturday. It didn’t matter too much to us, but it was just a little inconvenient.

As the other volunteers were teaching as we arrived (the lessons we were meant to do), we had some time to chill out. The grounds were so beautiful, so it was a good place to sit and do nothing and enjoy the peace and quiet. We chilled in our little bungalow, with the doors wide open, playing some cards.

Just after 5, dinner was brought up to our room in some containers by the woman who looks after the volunteers. We didn’t want to eat in our room away from everyone else, so we took it down to the communal area to eat.

It was nice to meet the other volunteers properly, there were five others, all guys, as three had gone away for the weekend. They all seemed really friendly and easy to chat to and get along with. After eating dinner, we cleaned up and sat around talking for ages.

Just before 9, we all walked down to a local pub/ bar. It was England’s final game in the World Cup and people wanted to watch it, but when we got there, it wasn’t on. We asked and they were very accommodating but it was a very poor signal and we missed most of the game. We had some drinks and chatted with the locals who were so happy to see white people!

After the match finished, me and Joe walked back to the homestay, as we were tired after our early start. As we were based by a stream and next to rice fields, there were multiple frog checks on the way, but we made it back in one piece.

When we got back, we got ourselves ready for bed and soon fell asleep on our super thin mattresses, on the floor.

As we had an unplanned ‘day off’ the next day, we decided to get up and make the most of it. We wanted to head into Chiang Mai for the day, as when we found out that we wouldn’t be working, we booked a cooking class, as I had wanted to do one for so long. We got up and ready and got some breakfast, before heading out. We didn’t leave too early, but no one else was up and about, so we didn’t have chance to tell them our plans.

We were desperate to do a final wash, so we took a bag of laundry into Chiang Mai with us, to try and get it done as there wasn’t really anywhere around the homestay. As we walked up the road, we spotted a yellow bus, which luckily stopped for us and took us up into the city, arriving just after 10.

When we got off the bus, we went straight to a laundry place. We found a self-serve one, and loaded the washing machine straight away. We put it on a quick wash but this still took half an hour, so we went and found a café while we waited. We kept our table at the café while taking it in turns to run to the laundrette and check the washing, putting it in the dryer too.

Just before 12.30 we had to stop the dryer and get our clothes out, even though they were still a little damp. We folded them and put them in the bag before walking to McDonald’s, where we were told to wait, to be collected for our class. We ran a little late, and when we got there, it was busy, but the lady found us. We got into the car and collected one more person, before we were on our way to the school.

There was a lot of traffic on the way out of town, meaning we ran a little late and didn’t arrive at the cooking school until 1.30. On the way, I had to fill out some paperwork, choosing which dishes I wanted to cook, as I was the one doing the class and Joe was a ‘visitor’ meaning that he could watch and share my food. There were choices for six different courses: an appetiser, a soup, a stir fry dish, a curry paste, a curry and a dessert – I could tell it was going to be a good lesson.

When we arrived, we were shown to a little room with Thai style cushions on the floor and a table for us to lean on. It was nice in there too, as it was air conditioned, so very refreshing.

Once we had settled, it was time to begin cooking, which was exciting. The ingredients were already set out on the table for us, depending on what we had chosen to cook, so we just had to follow the instructions to do the cooking. The first dish I prepared was the soup, and I had chosen coconut milk and chicken soup.

As the ingredients were already there, I just had to chop them and leave them to one side, until it was time to cook it.

After the soup was prepared, it was time to make the appetiser, which for me, was spring rolls. The filling for spring rolls could be anything really, but I had to prepare what was in front of me. One of the other girls was also making spring rolls, so we prepared together, while the third girl made a salad.

Once the ingredients were chopped and smashed, it was time to cook them. We moved to the area with the hobs and woks and fried the filling. Once it was fried, it was time to fill the rice paper and fry the spring rolls. Once they are in the wok, they have to be flipped every ten seconds until they are brown and ready to eat.

After the spring rolls were served, it was time to cook the soup. As it was all prepared, it was very easy to throw everything in the pan in the right order, and let it boil. Once it was ready, we served this up too and took it into the room, with the spring rolls, to enjoy. Joe also got a spring roll made for him, but I shared my soup as well.

The food was so tasty and went down quite well. After we had eaten the first course, we went for a walk around the garden. The cooking teacher told us about the herb and plants and vegetables that are growing in their garden – almost everything that we used to cook.

After taking some photos and enjoying some time in the garden, it was time to cook again. The next dish to prepare was the pad thai. Again, all of the ingredients were laid out for us, we just had to chop and crush.

Once the pad thai was prepared, it was time for the curry – the thing I was most excited about! I had chosen to make massaman curry as it is my favourite and I got to learn how to make the curry paste for it too.

The paste was the most difficult part of the whole cooking process for me. All of the ingredients were already prepared for me, I just had to add them to the mortar and pestle and mash them to create the paste, but this was difficult. The other two girls had no problem but apparently I had done something wrong (I’m not sure how) and mine wasn’t very paste-like. It was fine in the end though.

Once the paste was made, it was time to make the dessert. We seemed to do everything in a really funny order, but it worked out well when eating, as the hot food was still hot. For dessert, I had chosen to make sticky rice with mango. Although, due to eating it non-stop in Fiji, I’m not a massive fan of mango anymore, it is the dessert that is seen everywhere, so I wanted to try it. Strangely, the rice had already been made for me, so I was just make the sauce thing, which included putting in butterfly pea flowers, to create a natural food colouring. It did look cool in the end though, I just didn’t do much to make it. The other two girls made fried banana spring rolls and Joe got one of those to try, so that meant that I did too.

Once dessert was on the table, it was time for the curry. My ingredients were simple, it was just chicken, onion and potato, with the paste. I put them in, as directed and only added a small bit of paste at first, as this is what contains the spice. When it was time to taste, I had to check for the spice level, sweetness, sour level and if it was salty. I ended up adding more palm sugar to it to make it sweeter and some paste to make it spicier, although it still wasn’t overly spicy in the end.

After the curry was made, I made the pad thai. The food was soon piling up and I was glad that Joe hadn’t made anything, as it meant we could share mine, as I would have struggled to eat it all on my own! As it was all already prepared, it was easy enough to make, although it’s also apparently very easy to burn, so I had to pay close attention.

Once all of the food was served up, it was time to go back into the room to eat. We had the pad thai, curry and dessert to enjoy and we all tried a bit of each other’s. It was all very tasty food and a successful trip! While we were eating, the owner came in and chatted to us. He gave us a cookbook each with all of the recipes in, which was good as I had no chance of remembering it all.

When we were ready, we got back into the car, to be taken back to the city. It was a long drive back and we all had a little snooze on the way. We got dropped off at about 5.30 and were told about the Sunday night market, which was due to start at 6. Although we wanted to get back to the homestay for the ‘party’ that the owners were hosting, we also wanted to see the market, so decided to hold on.

We were dropped off at Thapae Gate, which was where the market started anyway, so it was easy enough. We walked through the gates and to our surprise, the market had already started, which was great for us. We decided that we would walk down one side and back up the other before walking for the bus.

After walking for a while, and realising that we still couldn’t see the end of this market, we started to wonder if we had made the right decision. It had alley ways coming off the sides and went on for miles, it was huge! There were also lots of people and it soon became difficult to move through, but it was an amazing market. In the end, we had to decide to turn around, as we needed to get back and didn’t know if there was a last bus down to Mae Wang.

Before we knew it, two hours had gone, and I really didn’t want to leave, but we had to drag ourselves away. We walked towards the bus stop but I just had a funny feeling about the buses.

When we arrived at the bus stop, my feelings were confirmed, as there were no buses! We flagged down a red bus and the driver told us that the yellow buses had finished and Mae Wang was far away, which we knew. He didn’t seem to have any options for us to get back, so we didn’t know what to do. We stood for a while and thought, but it didn’t get us anywhere.

After a while, we popped into a pharmacy to ask if they knew how to get to Mae Wang. We were lucky, as they were so friendly. The women went off to ask at a bus station and we were allowed to use their wifi. On the wifi, I messaged the woman from the homestay, who told us to get a Grab. We looked into it but couldn’t find the homestay on the map, which wasn’t surprising as we had struggled before.

The woman came back and told us that we had to wait until morning, but we didn’t really want to do this, so I persevered with Grab and eventually found the homestay by looking on the map, instead of typing the address in. It was much more expensive than the yellow bus would have cost, but it was needed.

On the way back, the driver tried to charge us double, for the return journey but we said no, as she should have checked the route before accepting the call, and we were already paying a lot of money.

We eventually arrived back at the homestay just after 9 and were expecting the World Cup final to be on. Instead, we found a lot of drunk people and some food. That was okay though, as they were having a good time and we just joined in.  There was free whiskey and free BBQ stuff and they were all playing games. We sat and joined in, but didn’t get drunk like everyone else as we weren’t fans of the whiskey, especially after the mixers had run out.

The party went on into the early hours of the morning, and we took ourselves off to bed at around 1.30, leaving most people still up, partying on.

The next day was our first day of teaching, however the lessons didn’t start until the evenings, so we had a whole day to do nothing. We had a bit of a lie in, waking up around 9ish. We didn’t rush to get up as we knew there wasn’t much to do around, but when we did, we walked over to the communal area, where the dorms were, to get some breakfast.

After breakfast, we had a chilled out morning. We sat on our porch and caught up on some bits and bobs. I did some writing and Joe did notes from previous days, as I had got a little far behind. At 11.30, we were told that lunch was ready! It was a very early lunch, but we were just grateful that it was all free and included in the teaching package. We went over to the café, where we ate together.

Once we had eaten and cleaned up, we made our way back to our little bungalow. In the afternoon, I had a little nap and Joe sorted some photos out for me. The heat and lack of things to do made me very sleepy, and the fact that lessons weren’t starting until at least 4.40 made the nap even more necessary if I was to stay awake until 10.10 when the last one finished.

During the afternoon, we also tried to find out about some elephant sanctuaries. The school offers a free trip to the sanctuary as a reward for teaching, if you stay for three weeks. This wasn’t possible for us, but we were willing to pay, as it was something that we wanted to do. We were told two different prices by different people and one of them was very expensive, so it made us reconsider if it was a possibility, so instead I researched some places online.

The time soon reached 4.30, so we went over to the communal area to find out about teaching. Lessons start at 4.40 each weekday and last forty minutes. The lessons are one to one and are done over skype which I found a very strange concept. When we got there, we found out that neither of us had a lesson until after the dinner break, meaning that we weren’t starting until 6.50, which was a bonus. We got some folders and a daily schedule but there wasn’t much information in there, besides their skype name to call them.

As lessons were later than expected, we had more time to chill out and eat dinner. It was difficult as we couldn’t prepare anything for our first lesson as we had no idea what level the students English was and what they could or couldn’t do.

When 6.50 finally came around, it was time to get started. We got a laptop each and went up to our bungalow where it was a little quieter. I sat inside and Joe sat outside so that we didn’t distract each other. Although the wifi connection wasn’t the best, which made it difficult at times, it was a little better on skype than anticipated. Most of the lessons were just conversation based to see what the students could or couldn’t do and it was easy to see the difference in levels.

Five lessons later, it was ten past ten and the ‘school day’ was over. We had to fill in some paperwork to say what we had covered, before returning the laptop and folders to Cake, who organises the volunteers.

After lessons, we all sat on the porch, in the communal area for a while and chatted and all sorts of things. We played some cards and before we knew it, it was 12.30, so we all went off to bed.

Our Tuesday was very similar to the Monday. We got up just after 9, had breakfast and chilled out for the morning. It was a  very hot day and even in the bungalow with the fan on us, it was hot and sticky. We showered to freshen up, but this didn’t last long, so we just flaked out and relaxed, waiting for lunch.

As lots of people had gone out to various places in the morning, lunch was just served to the communal area in a big dish, for us to help ourselves. We went over to eat it and sat and chatted with a couple of people for a while, before heading back to our bungalow.

In the afternoon, I napped again, while Joe sorted some things out. I couldn’t help napping, my eyes just wouldn’t stay open and it was so hot. Luckily, we then got some rain later on, which cooled the air a lot.

When 4.30 came around, we went over to check the schedule and found that I wasn’t teaching until 6.50 again and Joe wasn’t teaching until 7.30! We chilled out and had dinner, which was very spicy and had lots of tough meat in it, so it wasn’t the best.

At 6.40 I went over to the bungalow to prepare for my lessons. I asked Joe to come up with me because it was raining and there might have been frogs, so he had to sit and entertain himself for forty minutes during my first lesson.

After all of our lessons, we handed back the laptops and folders and had another nice night together. We played a different game and made some plans for the next day to try and stop us sitting in, doing nothing, before going to bed at around 12.30 again.

We woke up earlier on Wednesday, as we said that we would get up at 8am to the to the Grand Canyon waterpark which was just nearby. We got up and ready and had breakfast but people started to back out because it was a bit gloomy. Me and Joe thought that we might still go, as we would be wet in the water anyway, so it wouldn’t matter if it rained, but in the end we thought it would be more fun with everyone else.

As it was starting to look like another day of nothing, we chilled out for an hour or so, before going for a walk. We walked into Mae Wang which wasn’t too far, but there also wasn’t much to do there. We walked for about half an hour, before finding a café and stopping for a drink.

We both ordered something to drink and sat and played some cards. We didn’t stay too long, however, as there was no toilet in the café, which was strange, so we decided to start walking back.

On the way back, we stopped in at 7/11 for a couple of bits, before going back for lunch.

When we got back, we thought lunch would be served, as it was almost 12.30, but it wasn’t ready yet. We sat in our bungalow and cooled off a little, waiting for it to be ready.

Lunch was eventually served at 1.30, although no one actually came and told us, so it could have been ready much earlier, who knows! We ate in the café area again, before heading back to our little bungalow. To say we just have a couple of thin mattresses on the floor, we spend a lot of time in the bungalow.

After playing some more cards, we went to the communal area and sat with others for a while. It was a napless afternoon, although we didn’t stay at the communal area for very long as we could see a storm brewing and we didn’t want to get caught in it.

We went back to the bungalow but I don’t know if that was the best decision as when the storm hit, it was a big one and it was scary! The lightning struck the grounds somewhere and it was so loud! It was like being back in the campervan in Australia all over again. When we met up later, everyone said that they felt like the lightning hit near them, so we’re not entirely sure where it hit, but it was somewhere close.

When 4.40 came around again, it was lesson time. Again, me and Joe had nothing until after dinner, so we had a few spare hours. For the third day, I had four of the same students, with just one changing, which made it easier for me as I knew them a little better.

The rain went on all night and for my new student, I struggled to find them on Skype, meaning that I had to go out in the rain, on my own, to find Cake for help. It was pitch black and the frogs were extremely vocal, but I managed it, just about!

Once the lessons were over, we filled in our paperwork and all ended up in the communal area, as usual. We sat there for a few hours and played some new games, before me and Joe went up to bed at about midnight again.

As Thursday was our final day at Ban Bon Doi, we knew that we were definitely going to the waterpark, even if no one else was. We got up at 8 and got ready, going over for breakfast. Jimmy and Austin were up and Jimmy seemed up for coming, so that was good.

When we finished getting ready, we went back over to check if anyone else was up, and book a taxi. We were ready to go whenever, we were just waiting for others. When we were almost ready, the others got up and said that they wanted to come too. This was good, as it meant that there would be more of us, making it better.

Once everyone was ready, me and Megan both ordered a taxi. Mine didn’t seem to move for ages and didn’t get any closer, and when Megan’s arrived, he said that he could fit us all in, making it even cheaper for us.

When we got to the waterpark, we all paid our entrance, which included access to the inflatables, a go on the zip line, and free shower gel! We were all so excited to get in the water at that point. We put all valuables in the locker, got our lifejackets on, and were good to go!

Although it was difficult, I tried to just run across the inflatables at first, and not bother about falling in. This soon changed after falling in a few times and finding it so difficult to get back out again! There were things to climb up, things to jump over, things to jump off and things to slide down. As we had got there soon after it opened, we were the only ones there for a while, making it so much better!

Joe was like a pro on the equipment, showing off that he could do most of the jumps and bridges. He did fall in a few times but everyone was impressed, he was like the guinea pig of the group testing out the different parts before everyone else, mostly succeeding.

One thing that I did manage to do the best, was the water bike things. I couldn’t do it properly, but neither could anyone else, and I got the furthest.

At one point, me and Megan had become separated from the rest of the group. We were wanting to climb up one part but the lifeguards just told us to wait while they inflated it properly. While we were sat waiting, we noticed two lifeguards high up, about to jump off onto a ‘blob’ which is a giant inflatable pillow. We knew someone would be on the other end, but didn’t know it was Joe until we saw him catapult through the air, going much higher than where the lifeguards jumped from! I was gutted I missed it, but we did have a pretty good view from where we were.

We spent the day going around trying the different things. I got my usual fear when I got to the top of things, but I was fine once I took the leap. I wanted to have a go at the blob before we left and they wanted someone to catapult at one point, so I volunteered. It took a while, but I climbed onto the pillow and sat and waited. This was a good position for me, as I couldn’t control when I would go. What I didn’t realise though, was that Ana was jumping on her own, and when she did, she landed in the wrong spot, meaning that I didn’t go very high but I landed smack back on the pillow, which was pretty painful.

After others had had a turn, I wanted one with the lifeguards, so I got myself back on. When I was in position, they told me that some random guy was jumping on me, even though I asked for two lifeguards. This jump was even worse than Ana’s as I just slid off the end of the pillow, so that was disappointing.

It was third time lucky when the lifeguards dragged me back onto the pillow and decided that they would jump this time. I was a little nervous, as I only planned on having one go and I was scared I would land funny, but I wanted a proper go. I lay and waited and when they landed, I went flying. I was lucky though, as I stayed in a seated position, meaning I could land feet first, unlike Joe and Jimmy who face-planted. It was so much fun and so worth it! It was my favourite part of the whole day!

After my turn, I made Joe go again, so that I could see him. The lifeguards were exhausted from climbing up so many times, so I felt a little bad, but they did it for us. He went flying again and landed in a better position but I don’t think he enjoyed it as much as I did.

Once we were all fed up of swimming and climbing, we decided to get out. This was after taking some photos of us around the park. When we were getting out, I noticed that I had lost an earring and my wristband throughout the day, so that just proves how much I was knocked about.

When we got out, we dried off and got changed, ready for our turn on the zip line. We signed our lives away, before getting the equipment and heading up to the top. There were two zip lines and they were pretty cool but the harness really dug into my legs underneath so I wasn’t too comfortable.

After ziplining, we left the park. We had to get back, as time was getting on and Joe and Bjorn had lessons at 4.40. Our Grab driver was a local businessman who was happy to help us out. On the way home, we drove into another storm. We wanted to go to the shop for some food, as none was saved for us at the homestay but we were all starving. The taxi driver took us to the shop and waited for us, so that we didn’t get wet – it was very good of him and we gave him some extra money for it.

When we got back, it was a mad dash back to the bungalow for some shelter and to eat our very late lunch. Once we had eaten, I decided to have a quick shower before the thunder and lightning arrived and luckily squeezed one in, just in time.

After my shower, it was time for Joe’s lesson, so I left him to it, and went and sat on the communal porch. We reminisced about our day and started to look through photos, but were waiting for Joe to finish with my laptop to look at them properly.

During the dinner break, we weren’t too hungry and both me and Joe had a break from 7.30 until 8.10, so decided to eat then instead. It was my first day with only four students and a break, so it worked out well.

For my lessons, I had one new student who was eight years old and found it very hard to concentrate over skype, which isn’t surprising. My other three students were students I had taught all week and I was sad to say bye to some of them. I got on with one of them that well, that we added each other on Facebook, to keep in touch.

Once lessons were over, we took our paperwork back and sat and chatted for a little bit. We didn’t stay out too late though, as we still had to pack our bags and there was a lot to sort out! We went to our bungalow just after 11, saying bye to everyone in case they weren’t up in the morning when we left.

Packing was a struggle, as the water from the waterpark had completely blocked my nose, stopping me from breathing, unless I opened my mouth. I was also aching from knees up from smacking into various inflatable parts, including the blobby pillow. It took us an awfully long time, but we eventually got there and were asleep just after 1.

We were being collected between 9 and 9.45 the next morning, to round off our Chiang Mai experience by playing with elephants. The alarm went off at 8 and although it was a struggle to get up, it had to be done. We got ready and had breakfast, before finishing off our bags and waiting over at the communal porch. Jimmy and Austin were up which was nice and David popped his head out to say bye.

Our lift arrived just before 9.30 and we had to sort a few bits out before we could set off. We felt sad leaving the homestay, much sadder than when we left AKD, as the volunteers here were all so lovely and we got on with everyone individually, as well as in a group which made a huge difference. It’s crazy how much people can affect you in such a short space of time.

Once everything was sorted with the tour, we set off. We firstly stopped at the market to buy some bits. I’m not sure what we bought as our guide didn’t tell us, but we just followed him around.

From the market, we went to the elephant sanctuary. It was a much longer drive than we expected, through narrow windy roads. When we arrived, we were met by a family who were on the tour with us. We parked up in one place and then had to do a little walk through the jungle to reach the elephants.

When we arrived, we could see the elephants with another group of people. There were only four of them, and the guide told me that when tourists aren’t around, they go up to the mountain and have free range and are only brought down on certain days. Our first job was to prepare the fruit for feeding. I had to break bananas off the stalk at first, which was easy, before we then had to chop the sugar canes.

Chopping the sugar canes was much more difficult and took a lot longer than I thought it would, but we worked on it together and soon had four full buckets for feeding. Apparently it’s important to chop them, as they are too thick for the younger ones to chew through otherwise.

While we were preparing, we got some unexpected visitors, as they came over to see what we were doing. Apparently, they also got scared by the dog.

Once all of the fruit was prepared, it was time for feeding! We went over to a different area and were met by one elephant, Dow. She was a pregnant elephant, which was so cool to see, as we could see her baby bump. She was also very hungry, despite the fact that she had just eaten with the other group. She was stood behind a wooden barrier which was for safety I think, especially as there were little children with us.

To feed her was strange, we had to either hand it to her, in the end of her trunk, which felt weird if she grabbed your hand too, or we could say ‘bon bon’ and they would lift their trunk and we could put it directly in their mouths, which was also strange. To put it in their mouths, you had to have a good shot and throw it, if you wanted to keep your fingers. I wasn’t a fan of this method and mostly just handed it to her, in her trunk, getting more comfortable with her, as time went on.

After a while, the other elephants came and joined us too, after they had had a wash in the stream. This made things even more interesting, as they were all fighting for food and having lots of trunks pointing in your face was quite daunting at first. When they got impatient because they weren’t being fed, they would just wander round the barrier and help themselves to the buckets which was funny.

Once all the fruit had gone, it was time for our lunch. We were given chicken and rice and so much fruit. I didn’t eat much rice but I was impressed with the fruit spread and filled up on that.

After lunch, it was time to make medicine balls to help the elephants with digestion. These included green bananas, with peel; yellow bananas, without peel; sticky rice and tamarind. Joe was in charge of grinding the green bananas down in the mortal and pestle, while I did most other things. The family joined in too but they had two young children with them, so it was more difficult for them.

Once all of the ingredients were prepared, it was time to mash it all together. I got this job because it was messy. While we were preparing all of this, the elephants wandered round and tried to climb the barrier a few times. They were obviously trying to reach the food on the table, but they had to be patient.

After mushing the ingredients, I made them into ball shapes and fed them to the elephants who were still hungry! I couldn’t believe how much they ate. They went through the medicine balls at an impressive speed, before clearing up our fruit leftovers. The men who worked at the sanctuary were lovely, as they would take the camera and try really hard to get good photos of us so that we could both feed. This was definitely a benefit of being in a small group. I was having a great time and hugged so many elephant trunks, although they didn’t really appreciate that when I didn’t have food in my hand.

After all of the fruit had been hoovered up, it was spa time. The elephants didn’t wait for us while we got changed, they were straight in there. There was a giant mud bath which was probably so unhygienic in many ways but I couldn’t resist. We got in with the elephants and gave them a spa, while they rolled around. It was amazing to rub the pregnant belly, as her bump was so much warmer than the rest of her body. Some of the elephants enjoyed this more than others, and our pregnant friend was getting fed up, although I didn’t blame her.

While we scrubbed the elephants, the guides scrubbed us. They rubbed the mud all over our backs which actually felt quite nice.

From the mud bath, we wandered down to the stream to wash off. We were in front of the elephants, but all of a sudden, Dow came thundering down, nearly knocking me out of the way. We got into the water and washed them down, getting the mud off. We cleaned each other too, trying to avoid getting trampled on. The guides had my camera again which was ideal for us.

We stayed in the water for a while, although Dow didn’t last very long. The other two were having a great time, maybe getting a little too excited, which we had to stop by throwing water over them.

After the bath, it was time to get out and get dressed again. To dry off, the elephants threw dry mud over themselves, but I didn’t fancy this technique, I just drip dried instead.

Once we were dressed, it was time to wave the elephants goodbye, as they went back into the jungle. We were leaving too, as we had a waterfall to see, before heading back to Chiang Mai. We walked back through the jungle, to the car, where we got in, to head to Mae Sa Pok waterfall.

When we got to the waterfall, it had just stared spitting, but luckily, it wasn’t too bad. We had a 200m walk until we got there, but when we did, it was beautiful. There were lots of layers to it and the noise was so soothing. We stood for a while and enjoyed the sights and sounds. It was possible to climb behind it, but it was very slippery, and we didn’t want to fall, so didn’t try it.

Back at the car, we had to be taken to the van, to take us back to Chiang Mai. The journey back to Chiang Mai was a long one, made even longer by the screaming baby that wouldn’t settle. We were originally being taken to the office, but we didn’t know where that was, so in the end, we asked to be dropped off where we knew we could get a bus to the station.

When we got out, we went for a little walk, as we had some time. We didn’t go too far though, as we had all of our things with us. We found a street food stall and stopped for some dinner, before getting a red bus back to the station.

At the station, we had a little wait for the bus, as we had arrived early. We sat by the platform number where our bus was coming to and waited. At 7.45, the bus arrived and we got on, we found our seats and got settled for the evening.

Although we really didn’t see much of Chiang Mai itself, we had such an amazing time in the area. The hosts at the homestay were nothing compared to Kamnat at AKD but the other volunteers made our experience enjoyable. Learning to cook Thai food, going to the waterpark, and playing with elephants were just three more memorable activities to add to the list and we couldn’t have had a better time. As our journey is rapidly coming to an end, we head to Bangkok for our final few days.

To travel is to live, Katie x