Chinese New Year Travels: Part 3

Part 3 of my Chinese New Year Travels is here! After Bangkok, the three of us headed over to Chiang Mai, Thailand. 

This is at the entrance to our gorgeous hotel in Chiang Mai. Upon arrival, we were greeted with orchids and mango tea! 

This is where we could have breakfast every morning!

We went walking to explore the city of Chiang Mai and found this street market.

Just a normal day in Thailand with people eating at street vendors. 

On accident, we stumbled into Chiang Mai's Chinatown! I was so bummed because I thought I was going to miss celebrating Chinese new year in China while we were traveling in Thailand. But, some people in Thailand also celebrate and this particular day was February 10th, the actual day of Chinese New Year, so there was a lot of excitement and celebrating! 

A Chinese tourist in Chiang Mai. Also, the dragon pole in the background that held about 10 men who were holding up the dragon and making it dance!

The crowds in Chinatown celebrating the new year!

The traditional Chinese dress is called a qi pao (sounds like chee pow). This is the one and only time I have ever seen a jean qi pao, so I thought it deserved a photo!

Some of the street food at the Thai market and Chinatown....

Vegetables.

Grilled sausage and shrimp.

Street sushi....not sure how I feel about that! And I wasn't brave enough to try it!

Another day in Chiang Mai, the three of us went on another full day tour. This tour brought us to an elephant village where we saw an elephant show, rode elephants, went bamboo rafting, took a ride in an oxcart, visited mountain villages as well as a butterfly and orchid farm. It was quite an eventful day!

Part of the elephant show, in which the elephants would show off their painting skills.

The elephants would come to the crowd, so you could feed them bananas or bamboo. They would also pick people up on their trunks to take pictures. 

Unfortunately, that is where my camera died :(

 I have no pictures from the rest of this day in Chiang Mai. Even worse, I didn't bring my camera charger with me on the trip. The rest of the pictures on my blog were either taken on my iphone so they aren't very nice or sent to me by Mr. Bud! Thanks Mr. Bud for saving my blog!

This is one of the bamboo rafts that we rode down the river on. The ride was very smooth and relaxing and you could see the jungle and lots of elephants walking and swimming in the river. Mr. Bud even took over for a while and steered our raft for us! 

This is me and my new Irish friend Emer, photo courtesy of Mr. Bud! Emer is similar to me, as she is currently living in Hong Kong and her family also came to visit her during Spring Festival. We could only ride two at a time on the elephants, so we decided to ride together. I loved listening to her talk, because of her sweet Irish accent.

Mom and Mr. Bud enjoying their elephant ride. The elephants walked through the jungle and through the river for about 40 minutes. 

This is one of the native women in a mountain village in Chiang Mai. They welcome tourists to their village to buy their hand made crafts and souvenirs. Their village was beautiful. It was located next to a waterfall and filled with flowers. All of the people dressed liked this and live in small wooden huts.

We also visited a "long neck" village. This is one of the few places left in the world where women still wear metal rings around their necks and wrists. I learned that originally women wore the rings for two reasons: one was for beauty and the other was for protection from tigers!

I tried on a set of rings, but I couldn't get them to stay up. It was only the front half and they were still incredibly heavy! Apparently a full set of rings can weigh up to 10 pounds! 

And now...Phuket!!!

The view at our hotel at Kata Thani Beach in Phuket. 

Ahhh so beautiful! I am so lucky to spend my holiday here! 

We took one more tour while in Phuket. This tour took us out to many smaller islands on a speedboat. Once we reached these islands, we got off the boat and into kayaks, so that we could get closer to the islands. 

Mom and I excited for our kayak ride.

Mr. Bud's kayak rower! Every kayak had a guide to take them through the caves and around the islands. 

We entered some very small, dark caves. This one is the home of many bats! That small hole you see in the picture is how you get out of the cave. We had to lay down flat in the boat to pass through the hole. On the other side of the hole is the center of the island, which is open and full of trees and monkeys. The monkeys live in their natural habitat but are used to seeing people, so the kayaks could row right up to them and they were not afraid. We got to see so many monkeys and even a few baby monkeys, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures, so you will just have to take my word for it!

The view after coming back out of the cave!

This is Mr. Bud at "James Bond Island", his dream come true! haha

The island is known by this name now, because of the famous scene from the movie, "The Man with the Golden Gun". 

Here is a still from the movie, with the same rock in the background!

Also on the tour, we were taken to a floating village for lunch. The entire village, including a school and hospital, is built on stilts in the water. 

Somehow, this entire village was completely unharmed during the tsunami in 2004. 

This is a line of taxis in Phuket. It took me forever to realize that these were the taxis. The backs are open and many of them have neon lights and speakers for the back.

Our final day in Thailand was spent at the beautiful beach in Phuket.

Beautiful sunsets in Phuket! These are such a rarity for me now, because of all of the smog in China! 

Simply beautiful!

Well, thats the end of the travel stories. We spent about 18 days traveling to Taipei City, Taiwan, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Phuket, Thailand. I had a lot of fun visiting with my mom and Mr. Bud and seeing new places. After this, my mom and Mr. Bud headed back to the good US of A and I returned to China! I got home one afternoon and literally went back to work the very next day! I've been back for about a month and its been a whirlwind ever since! I look forward to updating you soon on the happenings of Huangshi!