Emily and Joey: A Comparative Analysis: Day 5

December 12: Day 5

Emily

Hey.

I got to sleep in a bit this morning. ‘Til 8! Crawled out of bed to a breakfast of white bread and orange marmalade. A man wearing yellow camo shorts and a white polo shirt and emanating so much swag rolled up in a red Honda and became our personal driver for the day.

We drove allllll the way up to the mountains to get to the temple called Doi Suthep. The drive was beautiful, with lots of trees, and Joey noticed how smooth the roads were compared to the other places we’ve been driving in. We expected the hike up to the temple to be long and painful. Instead, it was short and painful. That’s what four months of sitting still gets you – low stamina. Anyway, the temple was so shiny that I had to squint and Joey even put on sunglasses. It was plated in gold and people walked in circles around the gold tower with tulips, praying. It was sort of a weird mix of really serious locals trying to pray and really serious tourists trying to take pictures.

When we were done there, our swaggy red Honda guy took us to go play with some tigers. Funny thing, at really touristy places, people will always greet us in Thai first with their palms pressed together and a huge, welcoming smile, and then switch immediately into English. Just something I’ve noticed. Anyway, so they greeted us and then said, what size tiger do you want to play with: smallest, small, medium, or big. We chose medium. It was a great decision. We got to meet “Fat Boy” and all his lady friends.

The trainers had some pretty funny jokes up their sleeves. Jokes like, “Hungry tiger, tiger hungry! Oh, Fat Boy, don’t eat them!” and “Don’t worry. His teeth are small” *lifts mouth to expose 2 inch long fangs*. The best was, “They like American meat”. Ha. Hahaha. Ha.

We both fell asleep in the Honda ride home. Then chilled in the room until we decided it was time to eat. Joey really wanted Massaman curry, and found a good place online. We attempted to find it, and crossed many streets, but it was to no avail. We ended up eating somewhere we passed along the way… you probably know that I don’t eat very quickly, but there was no stopping me this time. I am really going to miss the food in SE Asia.

We walked around for a while just to check the city out, got tired, returned to the room. Lots of much needed chilling got done. We also raced each other with online geography games. He beat me, 2/3. I won Africa, he won Europe, and won South America (but only by 3 seconds), and we tied for Asia.

Since Joey was determined to get this curry thing, we traversed the scary streets with relentless traffic again. We eventually arrived at the dot on the map, but it was just some outside hut where the people were really confused by us, so we left. It took us 20 minutes to cross all those streets again. Well, we made it to a really touristy spot where we got the Massaman curry and mango juice. So. Worth. It. Good job, Joey.

Now we are in the hostel. Tomorrow we see elephants. Joey will probably call them giraffes. They are not giraffes.

Byeee.

Emily

Day 5, Dec 12

Joey

Highlights include seeing Doi Suthep, a fancy Buddhist Temple on a mountain, petting “medium” sized tigers, lounging hard at the hostel, not finding a restaurant twice, seeing giraffes again, and bringing my curry count to 4.

Emily and I left the hostel at 9 for Doi Suthep. It is an incredible temple on a mountain just outside of Chiang Mai. Not overwhelmingly amazing like Angkor Wat, but really pretty, with lots of gold plated buildings, incense burning, statues of Buddha, and people praying and feeling very spiritual. We took lots of pictures and were generally thinking, “Dang, this is pretty dope.”

Afterwards, we went to a tiger-petting area thing. Apparently in Thailand you can play with tigers whenever you want, instead of in America when the only time is the one day in 6 years of elementary school when the tiger man comes. (Ian Dyckes, if you are reading this, know that I was thinking about you while petting the tiger.) We didn’t really know what to expect, but we got to pet these “medium” sized tigers that seemed massive to me. Huge paws and huge teeth. I was pretty scared while petting them, but the trainers were there with me and I think were enjoying how scared I was. They called one ‘fat boy,’ and were playing with them and telling us its okay to touch them. They also made comments like ‘Oh, he is so hungry. You are from USA? Fat boy loves American meat.” Really comforting. We also saw some baby tigers, a lion, and a parrot. Solid animal experience. Excited to play with elephants tomorrow.

From here, we were exhausted, so we went back to the hostel and VEGGED OUT. Like, we did nothing for about an hour, which is great because we have been running around a lot the last few days, and we’re on vacation. Whenever I thought “Yoo, you’re in Thailand! Go run around,” I replied to myself ,”Yo, you’re on vacation, lay can lay in bed if you want!.” (Weird to think that I’m on winter vacation right now.) So we chilled out, eventually got up, attempted to find a restaurant called Bon Kitchen, failed, and then stumbled on some great Thai food.

On our purposefully detoured, long walk home, we saw two giraffe statues. They were located at the end of a line of statues of all different animals. Emily seemed to think the giraffe statues were in the middle of the row, but they were on the end. Silly Emily, she loves giraffes so much but still doesn’t know what they are.

For dinner, we attempted again to find Bon Kitchen. Our friend from Cambodia told us that the food to eat in Chiang Mai is massaman curry. So I googled massaman curry, and google informed me that Bon Kitchen had the good stuff. So again, we go on a journey to find this place. The first time, we weren’t close. This time, we think we find it, but it’s a patio with 6 Thai men laughing at us. So we left, found another place that served massaman curry, and it was amazing. I don’t know anything about it other than there were cashews, chicken, rice, peanuts, and some veggies in there. Guessing some curry powder and coconut milk. Must learn how to make.

Peace and love homies.