Bye Bye Chiang Rai!

Hayden, Maleeha and Brenna here! 

Today we woke up and headed down to breakfast around 9. The breakfast at this resort is different than Eastin Tan because it has a lot more western foods (such as breads, cheeses, and other dairy products). After breakfast, we checked out of our rooms and loaded up on vans to travel an hour up to the border. The northern Thailand border meets up to the countries Myanmar and Laos, and this area is called The Golden Triangle. There was a lookout point where you could stand on, and all of us took pictures. After, there were a few shops to see and we were back in the vans headed for Chiang Mai. 

The drive back was also really interesting! Compared to the flat grassy scenery throughout Waco, the drive from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai was filled with huge lush forests and tall mountains that were cut through for our path. As we were going along, we saw a lot of construction on the road, and the startling thing about the highways were that both sides of the highway were just dirt roads for a stretch instead of just one side at a time being worked on. Also, it was fascinating to see how the rainy monsoon season affected the environment because as we drove we saw that there were multiple rivers that looked flooded, and the dirt roads were soggy, so we had to go much slower on them compared to the gravel roads. Overall, the drive back to Chiang Mai was a wholly different experience to traveling in Waco— the actual dirt roads, the surrounding jungle, and the wide houses with huge sloping roofs were all a vastly different experience for most of us here. Maleeha, Brenna, Kayla, Anna and Lia's van spent the majority of the drive back jamming out to the Greatest Showman soundtrack.

For dinner, we went to the same restaurant we ate the very first night (wow, what a full circle); the Riverside restaurant. This time, we were able to go on a boat to eat. We climbed into a long boat tied to the dock and began ordering our meals. Brenna ordered pineapple fried rice and sweet and sour tofu. Maleeha ordered fried rice with shrimp. Hayden ordered a baked potato and a steak (she was feeling risky). Thankfully, the steak tasted good. We got our meals and all pretty much finished them before the boat took off. Dr. M ordered us some mango sticky rice. On the ceiling of the boat, there were a bunch of little lizards. Eight, to be completely exact, according to Dr. M’s son Finn. We even got to witness some lizards pooping! (It was more exciting than it sounds). The boat ride lasted around 45 minutes. It took us a ways down the river, then turned around and took us back to the restaurant. In the restaurant, a band called “The Bug Band” was playing. We saw some of Anna and Lia’s dance moves. We then went back to our hotel to get ready for bed. We're waking up bright and early tomorrow for another crazy cool elephant experience!