Happy New Year!

I take back yesterday's post title. Today we saw some interesting creatures, and that's about all that was bloggable. By the way, I will be experiencing the start of 2014 in about two hours, fourteen hours earlier than you guys in Colorado. I win!

Wildlife report:

Three more lizards (we saw one yesterday- it ran over my mom's foot!)

Yes, this is a different lizard than in the first photo.

Not pictured:

Four more hermit crabs

A frog/toad (leapt incredibly far)

 Bonus photo: Proof than I am magic!

The least interesting post in the world

Today we did very little that was particularly interesting. Sorry, fans. There were some interesting tidbits, though. We flew to the south of Thailand today, and we found this cheery little message when we arrived at our new hotel

In case you can't tell, that's "welcome" spelled with flower petals, in satisfyingly chunky letters. It even came with its own towel elephant, with, I think, bits of leaves for eyes.

Now comes the surprising part. We saw a real elephant as well! It was standing right next to the beach that we visited. I put my hand on its skin, and was surprised at what I felt. It was covered in long, prickly hairs, and its skin had a hint of softness to it. You probably wouldn't guess that it was an animal if you didn't know any better. The elephant is apparently always here on Mondays and Fridays, so we won't see him again. Pity.

To add to the wildlife report, we saw a couple of hermit crabs along the beach. I named the one below Hermie and made him the mascot for my sandcastle army.

Don't expect anything more interesting tomorrow. In fact, expect the blog to be less interesting, as I am going to be in hibernation at the beach and pool. Jealous?

Enough with the temples

Today the day was a lot shorter than usual, maybe because I slept until about nine. The main attraction for the day was, once again, a temple. We also shopped some more because the amount of souvenirs that we had before might have actually fit in the suitcases.

The temple was fairly unremarkable in my eyes, as I have already been to five temples with similar decor and building style. Here are some pictures in case you still find it remarkable.

If you look closely, you can see that there is more than one serpent on each side. The serpents are eating each other, starting at the very back, which is not quite visible here.

One thing that was quite remarkable about the site was the especially old structure toward the back. It is a towering structure made of bricks of old-looking, earth tone brown. It seems to twist at the top. It dates back to 1391.

The area in front of it was topped by a grid of white string, with strings hanging down from the corners. Each one had a cluster of string at the end, which I enjoyed headbutting.

Funny Thing of the Day

We entered the temple shown in the second picture, and while we were there, people started praying in unison. They looked like they were concentrating. Meanwhile, my dad found the irritating-looking childlike monk statue in the second-to-last photo below. He decided to make a donation by putting a coin into the pot that the statue held. Little did he know that this would set it off and cause it to chant something in Thai in a loud voice reminiscent of a Teletubby. While the prayer was going on. That was embarrassing.

Bonus photos: Poor grammar signs!

I love Amway?

Aidan's imitations!

Water, Please

Today I learned that Thai food is almost always spicy. I took a Thai cooking class to prove it. It turns out that with Thai food, there should be a balance of every flavor- sweet, spicy, sour, and salty. That means that there was at least a dash of eye-watering pepper in almost every dish. Unfortunately, my mouth catches on fire when a measure of about one atom of spicy has been detected. This was my reaction to my seasoned mushrooms:

My dad loved the cooking. Mom and I were breathing fire.

Even though I ended up eating mostly steamed rice when feasting time came, the cooking class was great fun.

Peeling bananas is not my strong suit. Help!

A finished product.

Far left: 'T' for Thailand written in the soup with chili sauce.

You know, a funny thing happened on the way to the kitchen today; they had a musk ox that I got to touch, right there in the complex. The horn feels like a hard piece of wood, like it's not even part of the animal.

As a sample of our cooking, here is the recipe for my favorite dish that we cooked, the banana cake. Caution: gooey consistency.

1 ripe banana

2 tbsp rice flour

1 tbsp tapioca flour

1 tbsp sugar

pinch of salt

4 tbsp coconut cream

3 tbsp grated coconut meat

1.  Peel banana and add into a bowl along with rice flour, tapioca flour, sugar, salt, coconut cream, and coconut meat.  Mix well until the ingredients combine.

2.  Put the mixture into a steamer at medium heat.  (We used banana leaves but you can use a large muffin cup.)

3.  Steam for 15-20 minutes.

4.  Serve warm or cold.

Bonus photos:

More photobombs!

Wat's Up?

OK, Brian here as a guest writer for today.  Aidan has asked me to not write anything offensive or stupid because he "has a lot of loyal followers".  I nodded solemnly and then decided I will write whatever I want to.

They say that you haven't really been to Chang Mai if you haven't been to Wat Phra Doi Suthep.   This wat was quite literally "up" as Doi Suthrep is a mountaintop Buddist temple that is a sacred site to many Thai people.

According to legend, a monk named Sumanathera from Sukhothai had a vision and was told to go to Pang Cha and look for a relic. Sumanathera found a bone, which many claim was Buddha's shoulder bone. Eventually a piece of this relic was placed by the King on the back of a white elephant which was released in the jungle. The elephant climbed up Doi Suthep, trumpeted three times and died.  It was interpreted as a sign and King Nu Naone ordered the construction of a temple at the site.

It should have been interpreted as a sign that elephants really shouldn't climb 3,500 feet because that kills the elephant.  Sunday I am going to try to rent a bike and climb it myself, hopefully with better results.  I will be carrying no relic, although the irony of the shoulder relic and me doing this 8 weeks out from shoulder surgery is not lost on me.  I'll also be carrying my post-ironman expanding belly as well, so the Buddha and I will have much in common on that day.

The wat itself was fairly spectacular, with 306 elephant-killing steps leading up to it, the handrails for which were two long, continuous dragon serpents.

At the top we found another 3,456 Buddha statues, 27 stray dogs and what were surely very nice views of Chiang Mai if there wasn't a thick mist in the air.

Most Wats are tastefully decorated.  If you're Elvis.  Or Liberace.

The gongs keep getting bigger!

The vendors at the bottom of the steps had many fine delicacies on offer, I partook in some corn on a stick while Lisa covered the family in Purel from head to toe.  She is convinced I will die a slow death from eating all the local food I can find, and has gleefully taken out more insurance while urging me on.

Fried Crickets anyone?

After an afternoon at the spa for Lisa and Brian (Aidan had to stay in the room.  That's what you get for being 11), we headed out for dinner at a local restaurant, followed by a visit to the night market to peruse the finest goods that 50 cents can buy.

Dead skin eating fish - 100 baht for 20 minutes.

Aidan thinks he looks like a local now.  Don't tell him.  This entire ensamble cost 7 cents. 

Jingle Bikes

Today we went on a biking tour. For five hours. I almost died out there.

Exhaustion aside, there were some interesting things about today.

We started out the day with a long car ride over to our biking start point. We got to explore a temple while the bikes were being set up and tested.

The Thai on the gong probably says "please do not touch hammer".

After that brief adventure, we started our tour. Along the way, we saw a giant bee, its length slightly more than that of a quarter. We also encountered a couple of cows (with a baby), two chickens (each with FIVE REALLY CUTE BABIES), a couple of cats, and seventy dogs. Apparently, dogs are very popular in Thailand.

Chicken with babies. Do not melt.

Biking Botany:

While we biked, we ran into rice paddies, which apparently turn yellow when they can no longer be harvested. Rice grows shortish stalks that look similar to wheat. We also saw tobacco plants, which have slightly sticky l eaves.

We also saw a banana flower tree, which produces one flower in its lifetime that gives off one cluster of bananas. It can be chopped down to let a new one grow from the stump.

Interestingly, when we stopped for a break, one of the drinks offered was... a coconut. The clear juice inside had an unnaturally sweet, almost intoxicating taste.

Dogs are also apparently quite friendly in Thailand. On one of our stops along the tour, this little fellow warmed up to me quickly:

At first, the biking seemed leisurely, but it definitely seemed to intensify at the end. One word: uphill. After the agonizing, gut-wrenching torture was over, we had lunch at a hot spring location. We dipped our feet into the small stream generated by the spring afterwards.

We then visited another hot spring in the same area, this one severely warmer- enough to boil an egg in ten minutes! We tried our luck at hard-boiling by hanging two small baskets with three eggs each. They didn't quite boil, unfortunately, and had an off-putting, gooey, sticky texture.

This innocent-looking pool radiates heat.

Bonus photos: Aidan's photobombs