the saturday adventure

today was the start of a long weekend. there's no work on monday or tuesday pretty much anywhere. its some sort of buddhist holiday, i haven't heard an actual name for it that i could even guess at spelling. but on monday most people will to go temples and make offerings. but most thais are travelling, i hear either to the beach or to their hometown to see family.

my friend kook's family is from the very southern part of thailand, near malayasia. they come up here to visit her and her younger brother, who's at a university in bangkok. today they invited me to come with them for some touristy things. first we went to the don wai floating market, which is not far from here. i didn't really notice anything floating other than the boats in the river. but the market was right next to the river, so maybe it used to be actually people selling stuff from their boats. there was a lot of tasty-looking fruit, but i didn't actually buy any. we had a great lunch there. they ordered a few spicy dishes and i could eat them!

then we went to the samphram elephant ground and zoo. doesn't meet the american standards for zoos, but they seem to treat the elephants well. we got to pet them and such, and take lots of pictures with them. we also saw a show were the elephants danced and played soccer and they re-enacted how elephants were used in wars (like horses were, they rode them around and attacked) and that sort of thing. there was also a race where the elephants had to run along and pick thing up and put them in a basket the mahout was holding. it was pretty fun. there were also about a million crocodiles there and a performer guy who put his head in their mouth. crazy man.

pictures here.

on monday and tuesday i'm going to the khorat area, which is northeast of bangkok 250 km or so. the head biology teacher's in-laws live there and they invited me to go along. its mountainous and there is a large national park (with wild elephants and sun bears and other fun things!) in the area. i hope we have time to walk around in the forest some. supposed to be pretty nice area, very lush, lots of birds and butterflies. and it will be interesting to travel with people i only know a little, and stay at a stranger's house in the country. it will certainly be nice to get away from the city....