One of the best parts about travelling in Southeast Asia is the amazing prices on flights. We flew Air Asia from Surat Thani in the South of Thailand to Bangkok for only about $25 each! This is ‘no frills’ travel – but definitely not much different than what we get on Westjet at home.
We were very fortunate to have a connection in Bangkok (Kari’s friend Julie has an Uncle there named Peter – thanks Julie for making this happen!) who welcomed us to his home and treated us like family. Peter and Sasi were a great help planning our time in Northern Thailand. They had so many pointers and connections to explore – we wished they could have been our travel consultants for our entire time in Thailand. One connection from Peter in particular was to a woman named Soraida Salawa – she is founder of the FAE (Friends of the Asian Elephant). FAE is the first elephant hospital in the world – where they care for and rehabilitate injured or abused elephants (more on this later).
Our two days in Bangkok were filled with some amazing meals and many late night drinks (thank you Sasi and Peter). Kai and Vea loved the wonderful swimming pool at the house and the hundreds of elephant sculptures which were decorated throughout!
While in Bangkok we also happily did a bit of ‘cheap cheap for you’ shopping and bought a few new duds! We were all getting tired looking at each other in the same shirt everyday for the past 6 months. Kari and Vea are becoming quite good at bartering down the price now – often getting things for more than half the price of the original offer.
Bangkok is a huge city of 6.6 million people. We were honestly a bit reluctant to visit here because of the size of the city and also due to the recent military coup which took over the Thai government last month. While we heard that everything was peaceful in the city – it still felt a bit weird travelling into a capital city that was under martial law. However, after talking with many local Thai people we learned that the majority of Thailand citizens are in favour of the military rule because the previous government was so corrupt. We heard stories about infrastructure projects being inflated over 300% by the previous government – along with inflated lottery ticket prices and also overpriced fertilizer costs. Corruption has been ingrained in the the government for so long that many people feel the only way to abolish it is with a complete new start – that is what the current military leader is promising. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years in Thailand.
After Bangkok were able to score more cheap tickets on another Air Asia flight to Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand and full of great food, street markets and extremely friendly people. We settled into a quaint guesthouse called ‘Twenty Lodge’ which was so nice and peaceful that we ended up extending our stay for a full week. Being constantly on the move we sometimes need an extended period of staying in one place to do research and planning for the next legs of our journeys. A lot of our travels recently have been planned ‘on the fly’ only a day before arriving in a new destination. This is a great way to travel being spontaneous and open to to ‘where the wind blows’ – but we now felt the need to make some decisions about where we could go with our remaining time in SE Asia before getting to Africa.
All along we had planned to visit Cambodia and Vietnam as part of our travels in SE Asia – but with further research we realized we had to make tough choices on what we could fit in. Vietnam would require a lot of work to get visa’s and extra days in Bangkok at the consulate to get them – and we definitely didn’t have enough time to spend in Cambodia to do it justice. So instead we decided as a family to spend the last weeks of our time here in Thailand and Indonesia – and then a week in the Mauritius Islands on our way to Africa. Special thanks go to Malini for all the inspiring insights into her home country and for motivating us to make a visit to the Mauritius Islands!!
Another big idea that we had been considering was to try and book Kai into a soccer camp in Europe before the Fall. We had researched this a lot before leaving Canada and we were really hoping that the dates would work. After more research and some calls – we luckily found a camp with the Liverpool soccer club in England during late August that fit perfectly with our travel dates. It’s an elite soccer camp that lasts one week and has many international players. The program sounds very exciting with full days of training, technique and playing. Kai is obviously over the moon with excitement about this – and can’t wait to get back on the pitch!!
It was such a relief to have made some concrete decisions and have our flights booked for the next couple of months of travels. We found that once we started to make a few travel decisions then all the details and dates seemed to just fall into place.
The rest of our time in Chiang Mai were a fantastic few days enrolling in a Thai cooking class, exploring some of the surrounding mountains and countryside, and a special visit to a hill tribe school.
After leaving Chiang Mai we spent two days with friends of Peter and Sasi – Danny and Saku, before meeting Soraida and touring the FAE in Lampang. We spent 2 wonderful days with Danny and Saku in their beautiful homestay called ‘Chez Saku’. They have a beautiful property which is also a certified organic lime farm – the only one of it’s kind in Thailand. We all learned a lot about what goes into organic farming – and Kai and Vea even got to pick 100 limes to deliver to a local restaurant. Once again we were treated like family at Chez Saku – and we enjoyed an incredible French dinner on our last night. Saku previously owned a Thai restaurant in Paris. She became Kai’s best friend when she made her special Crème Brûlée for dessert. Kai was even able to to torch the tops of the Crème Brûlée before serving them. Unni and Geir would have been proud to see Kai pulling his weight in the French kitchen.
On our last day in Thailand we had the special privilege of meeting Soraida Salawa from FAE! Kari started to well up with tears as soon as we arrived at the elephant hospital. We had a great meeting with Soraida and afterwards she took us on a tour through the hospital to meet some of the elephants. It’s hard to put into works the experience of looking into the eye of such a gentle giant up close! An elephant’s eye conveys so much emotion and personality! Many of Soraida’s elephants have had severe injuries from stepping on land mines on the Thai / Burmese border. Soraida and her team have actually developed a prosthetic leg for two of her elephants – which is a world’s first. It was amazing to sit down afterwards and chat with Soraida for a couple of hours to hear about the problems that exist today and the breakthroughs that she has already accomplished with elephant conservation and respect. We are so grateful for Soraida to take time out of her day to meet with us and spend so much time introducing these incredible animals to us. We all left feeling so honoured to have met a woman who conveyed so much passion for her cause. A great life lesson for all of us!!!
The next day after our visit to the FAE, Danny drove us to the airport for our early morning flight to Indonesia. We’re looking forward to spending 10 days in Bali, and we may even meet up again with the Rogers – who are currently travelling throughout Bali themselves.
Thailand has been a great time experiencing the amazing cuisine, enjoying the perpetually friendly Thai smiles, and meeting some truly incredible and inspirational people.
All 4 now!
What a wonderfull story,the pictures are amazing . You have made so many friends around the world .
Big hug from mamor
Limes, limes and more limes! No shortage there, just here in Halifax! I believe I have read an article recently about the elephant hospital and the artificial legs for them. Very cool. The FAE is a very special place. Shopping? What? I see the same head scarf on Kari! Amazing, amazing and amazing! It is hardly like you never left with all the blogs I feel like I am traveling along with you all. Thanks!
xoxo Marcia 🙂
PS: ONLY 5 more months left
Especially touching to read about your visit at FAE. What an experience! The whole of Thailand in general sounds wonderful. So much that you have all absorbed in the last 6 months, eh! I’m excited to hear about what you think of Mauritius 😉
Hugs to you guys xxx
I’m really fhappy for Kai and his luck at attending a week of soccer camp in England in August,. Thailand sounds like a wonderful place to visit and such warm gracious people – of course they’re meeting some pretty wonderful people too!
Hugs from the Webbs.
WOW guys … what an amazing adventure you are having – we are really enjoying following you around the world! Pheebie, Cooper and Gertie’s Uncle Matt is a HUGE Liverpool Football Club supporter and is particularly envious that Kai gets to go to Football Camp – will he be at Anfield? We just spent a few days with Jackie, Stephen and the kids in Port Elgin and they all miss you!
Can’t wait to read more.
The Horndls