Swimming and Trunks

I can never guess where a day here will take me. Only about 1 in 5 days goes how I planned, but almost always in a positive day. Today, for instance, I planned to do yoga and stay on the property while I detoxed with my coconuts. Maybe read my books, maybe write, maybe do a little meditation if possible.

Before yoga began, Mama told me and the other girl who planned on doing the detox today that the price of coconuts has almost doubled because today is the Chinese New Year and prices always go up. We both decided to forego the detoxes and were refunded the money back that we gave Mama to buy our coconuts. Yoga had several new people today, three from in town who were just here for yoga, but a new girl who would be staying in the bungalow next to mine. She is American! Minnesotan, but has been living in Northern California for a few months. She is floating through Thailand too, not sure of her departure date. Her name is Caroline, and I have to say- how nice to meet someone who isn't in Thailand to party! We have lots in common and I am happy to meet someone to talk to about my journey in a real and positive way.

 I met her after I was given permission to borrow another girl’s scooter for the day to go on a fruit market run. The girl who loaned me her scooter also suggested I go see the waterfalls in the area, and after Caroline and I decided to go to the market together, we also decided that we must use this opportunity and go see the waterfall. We took the wrong road to the waterfall, going in the direction of a different waterfall we thought, but that ended up being a blessing in disguise (hasn’t everything been??). We zipped through the hilly roads and absolutely had to come to a stop when we saw two elephants. Calm down, they weren’t wild elephants. They were for tours. But they were open to us to take pictures and stroke their big hairy noses and feed them bananas and I almost died of happiness. I was so excited to see elephants when I came here. I have been hesitant to do a tour, because I have heard endless stories of how the elephants in Asia are treated very poorly. They are often stolen from the wild, worked until they are too sick or old to work, and then left to die. I am sure there are happy elephants in Thailand, I just don’t want to pay money to see them and not know how they are being treated. So I was quite happy to see these elephants for free, and feed them some bananas from my backpack.

I can't lie I was a little terrified...

After we realized our happy mistake (and purchased ridiculous amounts of fruit and vegetables), we drove to the waterfall. The drive was one of my most beautiful yet. The waterfall did have tourists (Mostly kids in their 20s drinking beer on the rocks) but not too bad. After we marveled at the beautiful waterfall, we jumped in. What a wonderful day. 

Tonight we are going to use the kitchen here and indulge in our endless bags of fruit and cook dinner. Not sure what we are making, but we have all the essentials for a good meal. I will be leaving Mama’s day after tomorrow, but I will miss it. The joke about Pai that everyone knows someone who planned to be there for two days and end up staying for two weeks. My little bungalow is so comfortable and relaxing, I wish I could stay for weeks.