Vacation - Part 1

The end of Term One came at a frightening speed, and we scrambled through finals and then (literally) ran out the door to head to the airport to pick up two of our family members: Heather and Kyle T.  Here's a picture of Dani and Heather on the scooter Dani was driving on the way home from the airport.

Photo Courtesy of Heather Tatro

We spent 5 whirlwind days here in Chiang Mai with our visitors, during which time we:

1. Ate some delicious food and drank tasty smoothies (coconut lime was as popular with them as it is with us!).

Photo Courtesy of Heather Tatro

2. Introduced H&K to our students.

Photo Courtesy of Heather Tatro

3. Shared the glory of Traditional Thai Massages with H&K.

Photo Courtesy of Heather Tatro

4. Drove a long way to get to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center and saw some countryside along the highway.

Photo Courtesy of Heather Tatro

Photo Courtesy of Heather Tatro

5. Attended a cooking class and learned to make some delicious Thai food.

Photo Courtesy of Heather Tatro

6. Oh, and we got stung by a centipede IN OUR BED the first night H&K were here (thankful, however, that we had let them have our room and we'd taken the guest bedroom without AC where apparently the centipedes hang out...).  This is Heather's hand with the (dead) centipede after she woke up to all the commotion we made trying to find and destroy the beast.

Photo Courtesy of Heather Tatro

After our 5 days in Chiang Mai, we hopped on a flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia, and encountered a whole new country while checking out Angkor Wat.  Angkor Wat, in case you didn't know, is a UNESCO World Heritage site containing religious structures from the Khmer kingdom - a kingdom that experienced its height in power during the 11th/12th-ish centuries.  The temples are ruins from that period of time.  

We kind of felt like we set free in a big-kid/Indiana Jones-ish amusement part as we wandered around the vast complex, hopped on a tuk-tuk to get from monument to monument, scoped out temples ON OUR OWN (we managed to avoid the tourist crowds for several HOURS thanks to our 5AM start time), and tried to drink enough water to replace our excessive sweat levels!

After a few days in Cambodia, we headed back to Thailand to the southern region on the Andaman Sea.  It was tropical beaches like we'd never seen!  More photos and highlights in "Vacation - Part 2"... Coming soon!