Blog posts about our experiences as a lesbian couple.
Ligeia was invited as part of the full-time English department staff to attend a work retreat at Waree Rawee Resort (trying saying that 10 times fast!). Since the seminar was all in Thai, except the part where Ligeia got up to introduce herself along with another new teacher, we were told we could “just relax […]
Read More…We have befriended several of our fellow volunteers at the Elephant Nature Park and have been fortunate enough to spend more time with them while they are still in Chiang Mai. The group started out with quite a large number but day by day, friends leave Chiang Mai and continue on their way and to […]
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At the Elephant Nature Park, about one hour north of Chiang Mai, longer-term volunteers begin each Monday. We were picked up at 8:15am by a van from our condo and after a brief stop at the office to pay our balance and pick up our volunteer T-shirts and water bottles, we were on our way […]
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Tuesday, our first full day at the park began at around 4am with a chorus of barking dogs. We tried our best to get back to sleep, but inevitably, something would rile the dogs each hour. We were both awake long before our alarm was scheduled to go off. We enjoyed a small buffet breakfast […]
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Wednesday morning began in the usual way – dogs barking, breakfast with elephants walking mere meters from where we were sitting and getting our chore assignments for the day. Today was corn harvesting day which meant that we wore long-sleeved clothing (to avoid itching) and long pants or boots for the same reason. Mindy also […]
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We began our day knowing it would end at Elephant Haven, a place where elephants can roam free, even during the night. Team Poop went to work as several elephants enjoyed the corn we had just cut the day before: After showering (something we got into a routine of doing approximately 3 times a day), […]
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Friday morning began early with breakfast at Elephant Haven before heading down the mountain again. One of the projects Lek has spearheaded is tying blessed monk cloth around trees to help prevent deforestation. In Thai culture if someone cuts down a tree that has an orange cloth tied around it, they will receive bad luck […]
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Despite the lack of photographical evidence (due to a corrupt memory card) our Saturday morning was spent washing and sorting elephant food including squash and watermelons. Having finished early we reunited Team Poop to get the shit done! (tee hee hee) Before lunch Mindy witnessed what we now refer to as The Elephant Kerfuffle: Relaxing […]
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Our last day began with one last Team Poop adventure! Here we are working together to get an entire pile of elephant poo onto the tractor: Again, we had members of the peanut gallery supervising our work: Mindy and Ligeia decided to spend their last hours with their favorite elephants. We fed Dani, pet her […]
Read More…This is Lek Chaliert, and she is the founder of the Save Elephant Foundation’s Elephant Nature Park. With the help of countless volunteers (Ligeia and Mindy are now two of them!), she helps care for and rescue elephants from labor camps, circuses and other abusive situations. Lek has won numerous awards, including Time Magazine’s 2005 […]
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Dear Moms, we couldn’t help but think of you when we passed by these two dragon statues outside the Doi Suthep temple. We haven’t yet figured out why they are labeled “MOM” but who are we to question anything that brings us thoughts of you. 🙂 Below is a digital bouquet, and we hope […]
Read More…First of all, not to worry, both Mindy and Ligeia are fine. Ligeia had to go to the hospital to get a Certificate of Good Health as part of her paperwork for her new job as a full-time instructor at Chiang Mai University. Having never been in a Thai hospital before, we had no idea […]
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Mindy and Ligeia began their day trip by walking to the main entrance of Chiang Mai University where you can catch a red bus up the mountain. When we arrived a Thai couple on vacation from Bangkok was already there. We only needed one more couple to make it worth the driver’s trip. After only […]
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We knew something was up when Ligeia turned on the TV and on 6 of the 15 channels, this is what she saw: Mindy went online to investigate and there was already a big clue on the Google homepage: Here’s what we learned: It is called Phraraj Pithi Jarod Phranangkal Raek Na Kwan or Royal […]
Read More…When you wake up and this is what your front yard looks like,… (Here is a closer view in case you couldn’t see the water in the picture above) …you may ask yourself where all that water is coming from. You may spend some time contemplating it. You may even have the courage to walk […]
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A friend tipped us off that there was a magnificent temple with a stupa that had elephants carved in stone somewhere in Chiang Mai. So we set out walking to find it. It turns out that in 1297 AD Wat Chiang Man was built on the spot which had been used by King Mengrai (also […]
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The Watts of Los Angeles (for those of you who don’t about Watts, L.A. click here) are very different than the Wats of Chiang Mai. A “Wat” in Thai means “temple” and in Thailand this means a Buddhist temple. There seem to be countless Wats in Chiang Mai and almost every time we turn a […]
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When traveling you must always ask if the local water is safe to drink. In Thailand this decision was an easy one as we learned very early on that even the Thais don’t drink the water. Yet buying large amounts of water in plastic bottles only produces a large amount of plastic that as we […]
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