Thailand Part 2: Elephant Hills Camp

On Day 3 in Krabi (Ao Nang Beach), Alyssa signed us up for a 2-day package at one of Thailand's national parks, Khao sok. See here for details. The package included travel from our location to the park, a "luxury tent camp experience" (complete with hot showers, full-size beds in the tent), amazing Thai food buffets for every meal, rafting through the jungle, showering/feeding elephants, jungle trekking adventures. Also, it rained the whole 2 days but the jungle was even more beautiful so I wasn't complaining ;)

Our "luxury tent"

The view from inside our "luxury tent"

The view from the lodge. Seriously the most beautiful jungle.

A view of our "tent" (it was nicer than the bunker I live in in SLC, I'm not gonna lie ha ha)

A picture of one of our buffet meals. This was round 1 ;) Also, new favorite food: massaman curry. Seriously amazing.

Here is the food we prepared for the elephants: bamboo shoots, banana leaves, tamarin mixed with medicine, pineapple.

The view from the elephant camp. Could it be more beautiful? NOPE

This picture cracks me up. Maybe you can tell my hesitance as I am "scrubbing" ( aka touching from a distance) the elephant ha ha

The elephant's dinner. Mmmm, right?

We had to cut up the pineapple and bamboo shoots.

The elephants would use their trunks to capture the food we gave them. :) Some elephants disliked certain foods so you had to figure out what they wanted.

This pretty much captures the experience of feeding elephants - they are super eager and when that trunk comes at you full-speed, dannnngggg. You can sense my hesitance I'm sure ;)

Lots and lots of cool vegetation there.

We also rafted down the Koh river. And by "rafted" I mean, the raft guides rafted us and we sat there. Ha ha. And then they handed us a snack mid-river trip...#americanslovetoeat

We rafted through lots of jungle. This was one of my favorite parts!

We also trekked through the forest in rain ponchos :)

And saw really huge trees

And learned how to make coconut milk from real coconuts. #delicious

 Then I took planes back to Beijing (my fulbright scholarship only funded flights to and from Beijing from America, so I had to fly back to Beijing and catch another flight back to the U.S. of A.) I had 40 hours straight in airports or on flights, and let's just say it messed me up for a while. Worth it? Still worth it.

After 24 hrs of travel. Zombie mode. Only 16 more!

It was such a liberating summer. I loved every moment of it. Literally. It was challenging academically in Beijing, but in a very motivating way. It was fun, and a very real escape from the pressures and struggles of every day life (dating, work, etc). Summer of a lifetime! ;)