Flamingos, Family, & Celestún

Merida, Mexico Take 2!

If you missed out on the previous few days be sure to check them out {here} & {here}

After our whirlwind day checking our the A.M.A.Z.I.N.G pyramids and natural sinkhole at Chichen Itza my grandma decided she wanted in on the fun and just had to see the wild flamingos...we happily obliged! 

My uncle Pablo rented a gigantic van and loaded my cousins, grandma, aunt, mom, brother, & I {{all 8 of us}} into this thing and hit the road. Close to 2 hours later and finally in Celestún we stopped, meeting up with another aunt & uncle, rented a pair of boats and guides and hit the open waters. 

Celestún is a narrow peninsula off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula right inside the golf of Mexico and is a well known destination for wild flamingo sightings and this day was no let-down. We traveled one boat after another for close to 10 minutes enjoying the scenic views, wind in our hair, and smiles on our faces. Next thing we know the horizon slowly began to turn pink and before we knew it, we were surrounded on all sides by bright pink flamingos.

{flying, squawking, eating, sleeping...they were everywhere!}  

5 hours with the flamingos probably still wouldn't have been enough, but just over a half hour after we first met the little guys, we were on our way back to the open waters. Before we knew it there were pelicans flying overhead {{like almost hit my head overhead!}} and we were being introduced to "Bird Island". Holy Moly, I have never seen so many giant birds so up close & personal. These pictures don't even begin to do it justice. We all craned our necks to looks up and out of the boat to ensure that we din't miss a single bird flying overhead! Spectacular!

Driving past Bird Island we had one more, magnificently beautiful, stop of the day before returning to shore. Los Manglares {or the mangroves}. I had become quite familiar with mangroves while living in Taiwan as they were less than 5 minutes driving distance from my house, but the mangroves near my home in Taiwan had nothing on these in Celestún; they were beyond beautiful! Clear waters, twisty tree roots, fish of all sizes, (and apparently alligators that we luckily didn't see that day!) After a quickly dip for the family in the cool & refreshing waters we hopped back in the boats and headed for shore. 

Afterwards we agreed that we were unanimously starving and stopped at a beach-side restaurant for some mouthwateringly fresh seafood {like my teeny shrimp ceviche pictured above}, family time, walks on the beach, and an abundance of seashells. The evening came to a close and Pablo drove as we napped! Returning back to the hotel we headed out with the remainder of the family for drinks and dinner until a typical Mexican 2 am when most of us called it quits for the night!

Saludos Dia 2!

I Speak Elephant

Oh my goodness, these blogs are going to get the best of me if I'm not careful! I'm still trying to finish up the 2nd half of my Thailand trip but life doesn't stop and the list of adventures to blog keeps on growing {hmm maybe this is a sign that I need to lock myself in my room for a week to work on blogs AND then I will have nothing going on in life to need to blog...I'm liking this lazy idea!}

Last time I left off with Thailand I was on the topic of our trek through the mountains of Chiang Mai and the Karen Tribal Village (click the links to catch up on reading if you're behind!) and I promise I've got just ONE more post to finish up our time in Chiang Mai (...and then onto Bangkok haha).

Friday, February 5th 

Today was the big day! We had hiked a mountain, swam in a waterfall, played with the children in the Karen village, & left  half our knee on the side of the mountain, and now, today....WE RIDE ELEPHANTS!

I'm going to be completely transparent here, I have ridden an elephant before. I was maybe only 8 or 9 though and I went to the circus with a friend for my birthday {oh hey Megan!} and we rode an elephant there. But, we were inside, in a fenced in area, the a box on top of the elephant and seat-belted in...and let's be honest...it's just not the same!

But today was going to be different and the anticipation was real guys...I'm telling you I'm shocked Tina is still friends with me after all the giddy school-girl excitement she had to put up with from me during our trip! We woke up in our lovely bamboo huts and Tina and I went for a walk around and checked out a neighboring tribal village down the road from where we stayed. By the time we got back to our camp breakfast was ready and our clothes were being laid out for the day. After a hearty breakfast we donned our new attractive get-ups (the elephant trainers, also known as mahout, at this particular location all wear the same clothing to help the elephants identify with who is training them and to help them feel comfortable with "new" people around them). Our mahout outfits consisted of a pair of baggy denim pants, a button down denim shirt, and the suggestion of a swimsuit and flipflops to finish off the attractive ensemble!

Once we were suited up we headed to the elephant training center behind our hut and we were introduced to our elephant that we would train with for the morning. After helping her gorge her heart out on bananas and watermelon rinds, it was time to get down and dirty...ok not before playing with the 4 year old baby elephant they brought out {omg so stinkin' adorable and with the ornery streak of any 4 year old human child!} We were each handed a list of typical commands you would want to say to your elephant like walk,  turn left, stop, and make me some popcorn (ok maybe not the last, but a girl can dream!) with the phrases translation into "elephant" next to it. For example, when we wanted to get on the elephant we would say "yok kha" and he would lift his leg for us to climb on and similarly we would say "bhai" and "toy" to go forward and backwards respectively. 

After practicing with each of these words, it was time to put us to the test! To get on the elephant {remember we are riding this guys bareback} we tell them "yok kha" and they lift their leg. We then step onto their leg while trying to get a hold of an ear and some back skin and tell them "sung" and they lift their leg higher until we are able to swing our other leg up and around their neck. Once we were on their neck we scooted forward until we were just about on top of their head and then reward them for letting us on and not trampling us with some bananas! After the circus of mounting the poor guy it's then time to actually DO SOMETHING while you're up there! We had a trainer standing next to us and we had to show them how we could back the elephant up, stop him, walk forward, & turn both left and right...easier said and done when you've had all of 5 minutes to learn elephant!

Once we had each proven ourselves worthy (twice!) we also had to show them (and ourselves lol) that we know how to get off  the elephant as well! Luckily it was a piece of cake!  Just kidding! We had to fling both of our legs in front of us so that they were sticking off the front of the elephants head, tell him "jaa long" to put his head down, and the slide feet first down the front of the elephants head, off of his trunk, and pray you landed on both your feet in front of him...TA DA! Seriously I felt like we were in a circus act haha.

After we knew our way (ish) around the elephant it was time for our ride! By this time several other couples had joined the original 6 of us and we were up to 10 or 12 total people. With 2 people per elephant we needed some extra...bring in the reinforcements! We had a total of a half a dozen elephants before us and they assigned us in pairs to each one. After Tina and I were given our elephant (Sah Wah Dee), Tina made a comment that "of course we have to ride the biggest one!" and a trainer reassured us...no, he's the 2nd biggest...oh much better buddy, much better! Tina got on first and sat behind his shoulder blades & I got on next on top of his head and it was show time!

We rode the elephants around the property for about 30 minutes through several paths, down a stream {easier said than done when your "naughty elephant" decides he needs to scratch his back on EVERY tree we pass!} and through a field before we got to the elephant pond. The plan here was to walk your elephant straight into the pond and then bathe him, but after being told we had a "naughty elephant" they had us park him on the side of the pond and bathe someone a little more under control. Although some people were a little hesitant to jump in a start scrubbing down their elephants, I couldn't have been any more excited. I mean seriously, how many times in  your life do you have the opportunity to bathe an elephant?!?! {Fun Fact! To wash the elephant we took a specific plant that looked like a big bamboo and cut it into manageable sized pieces and then used this mixed with water to create a later for the elephants. And, of course, when you finished scrubbing them...they got to eat the leftovers!}

After bath time comes mud bath time!!! If you thought I was excited for regular bath time, I was 100X more excited for mud bath time {again poor, poor Tina!} 6 of us and our little elephant friend were led to a mud pit at the back of the village and my little elephant buddy jumped right in and I was right there behind him! Only 2 others joined us in the mud while the other 3 decided that a mud bath wasn't in the books for them for the day, but honestly, I'm not sure if I've ever laughed so much! We were instructed to pick up globs of mud and throw them at the elephant. Ok, great, what they didn't say was that elephant was going to try and do the same thing, and miss himself, time and time again, and instead hit us with mud globs. How this 2 ton animal manages to  miss his giant back and instead land repeatedly on my head is beyond me, but he did! After our romp in the mud we clearly needed one more bath for the day (sans elephant) to help clean the mud out from EVERYWHERE before settling down for a late and well deserved lunch!

After lunch, we loaded into the pickup trucks and went on a short ride to a nearby river. Here we were treated to the most relaxing bamboo raft river ride that I have ever had {ok, so maybe it's the only bamboo raft ride I've ever had, but it was still crazy relaxing!} Seeing locals fishing, bathing elephants, and walking to the markets near the river were spectacular views and a terrific way to relax and unwind from the days excitement. Upon finishing our river ride, the trucks were waiting for us once again, but this time to take us each back to our respective hotels. After about an hour and a half trip we arrived to our hotel a little before six and collapsed on our beds and took a much needed nap!

We ventured out after nap time :) in search of food and not only found an amazing pad Thai place, but also a great show that was going on at the local flower festival {more to come on that I promise!} All in all, I'd count the last 2 days as a pretty successful & memorable 48 hours for the books!

Treking Through Thailand

Thursday, February 4^th

Oh guys, I couldn’t contain my excitement! Obviously I was beyond pumped to visit all of Thailand (you know how we all have that ONE place we’ve always dreamed of going…yeah, mine was Thailand!!! Maybe this note will help excuse all my school-girl excitement that you’ve had to deal with me having about my trip!...ANYWAYS!) I was beyond pumped to visit Thailand, but this 2 days were one of Tina and I’s most anticipated events! ELEPHANT DAYS!!!

When researching Thailand, one of the first things I looked up was elephant riding. I didn’t have much of an idea exactly of what I wanted (although I knew I needed a camp that treated their animals appropriately) but, when I stumbled upon Panda Tours I instantly stopped looking, they had me hooked that fast {sidenote: they have nothing to do with Pandas…I have no idea where their name came from!} I sent the link to Tina pretty much saying that I was doing this and she was more than welcome to join…but there was no convincing me otherwise haha.

Sooo, back to the present! Thursday morning we woke up at our hotel in Chiang Mai, remember that classy one 2 steps from the boxing ring?!, put our luggage in storage, grabbed our book bags, and waited for…ok we weren’t exactly sure what we were waiting for a car? bus? pickup? airplane? elephant? and to be honest, I’m still not sure what did pick us up lol. In Chiang Mai there are taxis, but then there are also taxi trucks? Essentially it’s a small pickup truck with a bench installed along both sides of the bed and a large cover put over the bed for people to sit underneath….so that’s what picked us up! Six people and tons of waiver forms later, we were on our way…again not exactly sure to where, but we were on our way there!

We drove about 30 minutes before stopping at a small local market where we were encouraged to buy water for the days trek and any other snacks that we might need, ok now 6 people, 2 drivers, and a boat load of water later, we were on our way! About another hours drive later we parked the truck in a small dirt parking lot and were encouraged to use the bathroom before heading up the mountain by foot.

0 plumbing, no electricity, toilet paper no where to be seen...but it didn't smell!

After our *special* experience with the lovely bathroom we headed out. Oh my word guys, the views were SPECTACULAR!!! We were walking up a dirt path along the side of a mountain near-ish the Mynar border for a little over an hour. I’d stop, soak in the view, take some pictures, exclaim that it was even more beautiful than the last time I had stopped, and then repeat it again about 15 minutes later! But really, there is something so amazing about finding yourself in an area that hasn’t been destroyed by a civilization, the farmers, the families, the homes that we saw along the way, they were part of the landscape. They made use of the land that they were given instead of manipulating the land and the jungle to fit the needs that they wanted, and it showed in its beauty. {ok being showed live tarantulas and lectured about the dangers of the deadly green snake & its friend the cobra took away a teensy bit of the beauty, but you get the point!}

Cabbage fields as far as the eye could see, breath taking views, and humble abodes

A little over an hour into our walk we were supposed to stop at a waterfall for lunch, but “it was full” (there were like 3 people in it, but our guide was insistent there was a better one ahead!) so we kept walking… for another hour! So almost 2 ½ hours into our walk, we spot the waterfall (well actually we head it first, but still!) holy surreal! We were in the middle of the jungle of Thailand with a gorgeous waterfall in front of us surrounded by a stream, vines, and all the jungle plants you would never see back home in Ohio! ;) We quickly headed to the bathroom, changed into our swimsuits, and dove right in…hahaha, if only it were that easy! We played a fun game of I’ll hide behind this leaf and rock while you look the other direction as I change {channeling our inner Adam & Eve!} and as far as diving right in…I’m not sure how the air temperature can be 90 and the water temperate closer to -20, but that’s what it felt like! Soaking our toes felt great, anything above the ankle was more like torture! But, we were only there once, so jaiyou {Chinese for stick your feet in the freezing water…or you can do it!}.

As Chai, our guide, whipped up a culinary masterpiece for lunch, the 6 of us took turns trying to get into the water, until Tina and I just went for it! Jump in, freeze your body, swim to the falls, swim back, & now you’re a human ice cube! It was about this time that Chai says lunch is ready…please remember we are a total of about 3-3.5 hour up a mountain at this point with nothing but book bags…he hands us our lunch and our jaws drop! He had not only started a bamboo fire, but also made each of us chicken legs, fried rice, cut up local fruits & apples, and hot tea & coffee in a hand carved bamboo mug…seriously! After our picturesque, waterfall-view lunch, we dried off, changed our clothes, and began heading down the mountain towards camp.

We made it about an hour or so down the mountain though when I decided that we needed some more excitement in our walk {insert Tracy’s graceful fall down the mountain!} yeah, so maybe not so graceful, but at  least I can say a part of me (or my knee) will always be with Chiang Mai! We poured some water on it and I swore I’d be fine…jaiyou…so we continued on towards the 1^st waterfall we’d seen to get a closer look. About 5 minutes later I told Chai, I’m trying to not complain about me knee…but umm, it’s bleeding on my sock now…maybe another Kleenex for the next hour ½ walk would be helpful!? Next thing I know Chai is shoving a handful of leaves (he says they are lemon leaves) onto my knee to stop the bleeding, using a tissue as gauze to keep it in place, and tying a fanny pack around the whole shebang to keep it all in place {fast forward to later that night when even a shower didn’t remove most of the dried leaves from my knee, we then turned to a pocket knife disinfected with alcohol to scrape the foliage out…and still no band aids…thank goodness for tissues & fanny packs!}

Thanks Tina for capturing pictures of me at my best!

ANYWAYS! We finally made it down the mountain with no more injuries & made it to our camp for the night {there’s a whole post coming on this soon!} and while dinner was being prepared we showered, had our first meet and greet with the elephants, & I played with the local village kids (who am I to be denied playing with kids!) before hanging out around the campfire and calling it a night around 10, long after the sun had finally set. We settled into our bamboo huts for the night with the sounds of bugs chirping, the fire crackling, and elephants trumpeting outside our huts; and my heart was happy!

First night "meet & greet" and a view of our camp for the night

Josh, meet monkey...monkey, meet Josh!

You know that fuzzy warm feeling you get inside when you introduce friends from 2 different instances in your life and the 3 of you have a great time together and all in life seems well...yeah, that's kind of what it felt like to introduce Josh to my monkey friends in Kaohsiung!

I was supposed to work Christmas day {perks of teaching in Asia right!} but rearranged my schedule so I taught all my classes in the morning and asked for the afternoon off (you've got to take what you can get!) But the afternoon off meant that Josh and I could partake in the ever classy & traditional 7-11 Christmas luncheon as well as get an early head start on the almost 2 hour trip to Kaohsiung (sidenote here: kudos to me, this was the first time I drove my scooter to the High Speed Rail station...yay me!)

7-11 Christmas lunch! Seaweed chips, coffee, pork sticky bun, Japanese rice cake, sweet potato, tea eggs, & yogurt drink...HELLO Taiwan!

Rice Fields & Mangroves!

So it's not exageration to say that for the last 2 {almost 3...eeek!} months that I have lived here I have said more times than I can count that I want to go check out the rice fields. Weird sounding...maybe...but let me tell you, they are soo beautiful you would understand if you could see them yourself!

Now if you know me well, you may think I am sick in the head for writing this (if not a gentle disclaimer, I hate car rides, I don't like driving, I don't like having to be the passenger, planes, and trains, and everything else were made for a good reason!). Last weekend, I, Tracy, went for a joy-ride...JUST FOR THE HECK OF IT {clearly this whole scooter deal has affected me more than what I would have thought haha} and of course I had to stop and take some pictures once I felt that I was sufficiently "in the middle of nowhere!"

Ummmm, so pretty gorgeous, these pictures don't even begin to do it justice!

A little panoramic action so you can get a feel of where I was at!

Close up of the rice growing {if anyone would like to explain harvesting this to me, I'm all ears!}

Tuesday's Taiwan-ism {dog OBSESSION}

So when I first moved to Taiwan {it still feels weird to say I live here lol} I was told that their birth rate is on a steady decline as many couples are opting for only 1 or even no children (citing factors such as expense of raising, mandatory military service, and careers as some of their many reasons why). I was also told that it is becoming more and more frequent as well for couples to "replace" having a child with...yup you guessed it...a dog.

Now it's probably about here that you're saying "Tracy! Tons of people in America (or where ever you live!) have dogs, it can't be any different!"

Please let me introduce you to exhibit A: the doggie stroller. (note these also come in a convenient double stroller style and a wide variety of colors!)

And please don't forget about the not quite as common, but apparently gaining popularity exhibit B: the doggie carrier (conveniently sold for both front and rear dogs to fit their preference!)

Disclaimer: YES, this is a real dog I saw in the market, and if you look close enough he's also wearing jeans and a t-shirt!

Monkeys! Monkey, monkey, monkey...I've NEVER been happier!

Ok...so maybe I've been happier before than seeing dozens upon dozens of monkeys in the wild...but if you were to ask any of the locals on that mountain that morning, they would have surly assumed I was out on my first day trip from the insane asylum {and I can't say I have any shame with that!}

Sorry I'll back it up a bit, but seriously, I felt like the little kids in this old Disney video! Day 3 in Kaohsiung was by far the best! I woke up bright and early (and surprisingly due to my excitement, quite bushy tailed as well!) at 7am, and was up, dressed, out of the hostel and ready for some climbing before 8am. Sadly this early bird didn't get the worm though when I realized I was too early to catch the bus to the mountain. Sure I could have waited, or taken a taxi, or many other things, but I already told you I was a ball of excitement and energy, so  I decided at 7:45am that the best thing  to do would be to walk the mile to the base of the mountain (can't lie here, Friday to Sunday I logged  over 25 miles in walking haha). I arrived to the base and after asking a few people to point me in the right direction, I was off!!!

Although I began my hike early in the morning, I do live in Taiwan, and I don't care if they claim it's "fall" right now...it's still HOT! {Also side note, I only had my phone...no water, no snacks...just my phone...you are advised againt bringing  anything as the monkeys enjoy trying to take food from unsuspecting hikers...next time I'll bring water and a hiking stick!} As I began my adventure up a trailhead that  began next to a large temple, I began to get discouraged after the first 30 minutes or so as there were no monkeys, I couldn't see the view past the trees, there were no monkeys, there were more people than I was expecting, and there were no monkeys! As the discouragement began to set in though, next thing I know I came  to a built in clearing and was welcomed by this view...

Oh my goodness, BEAUTIFUL!!!

My Life May Now Be Complete!

I PROMISE I will catch up to this past weekend in the next day or 2, but in the meantime I can't wait to show you my favorite picture from the trip!

So here's a little {{sneak preview}}