I’m still very much enjoying my time in Thailand and rather sad to be leaving in two days’ time – though I’m sure my time in South Korea will be great too, just different! I have a fair few recent trips and experiences to update you on today.

A couple of mornings ago, I visited a farm about 20 minutes outside Chiang Mai to make sausages the traditional way and enjoy a traditional ‘Lanna style’ lunch from Northern Thailand. The sausage-making itself consisted of crushing herbs and spices in a large pestle and mortar, mixing in pork mince, using a machine to squeeze the mixture into pig intestines, and then cooking the sausages on a BBQ. For larger quantities, the on-site factory uses modern machinery and had in fact produced 300kg of sausages the previous day!

While the sausages were cooking, we made a traditional papaya salad, also using a pestle and mortar. The sausages came out a little dry but were otherwise delicious and went well with the additional curries, dips and snack that were also provided by the friendly and helpful staff. We enjoyed a delicious and filling lunch, which is by no means guaranteed on cooking experiences! This sausage-making tour is relatively new and I would recommend it to visitors to Chiang Mai. On the tour with me were two English ladies from Kent who are also using Trusted Housesitters while they’re away; we had a good chat about how great a service it is. [@TrustedHousesitters, please contact me for sponsorship opportunities! :D]

Yesterday, we went on a half-day trip to a local elephant sanctuary. There are many elephant sanctuaries near Chiang Mai, all claiming to be the original and only authentic one, so it’s hard to know whom to believe – but I was happy with The Elephant Rescue Park, which I chose based on its TripAdvisor rating. None of the centres allow you to ride the elephants any more, so they focus on conservation – or at least, they claim to. The elephants at this particular rescue centre, of which there are about 10 at present, were rescued mostly from circuses and the logging industry. I didn’t realise until yesterday that elephants can live to 80-100 years old, that their gestation period is 20-24 months, and that they need walking, mental stimulation and a huge amount of food every single day!

The first thing we did when we arrived at the rescue centre was to change clothes into the standard ‘mahout’ clothing of a red shirt and extremely baggy trousers. This was both to protect our clothing and to help us look like friends rather than foe in the eyes of the elephants (though admittedly, their eyesight is pretty terrible and they can’t see directly head of them at all). After a brief talk, we were then taken to meet some of the elephants and hear their stories. There were five older females and one younger male, who’s apparently been sowing his wild oats among the herd recently. We fed the elephants bananas, corn and sugar cane as snacks, then walked with them for a couple of kilometres to their bathing areas. When we got there, all very hot from walking in the heat, we were able to get into the lake and help bathe the elephants. They seemed to love it, rolling on their backs to submerge themselves as much as possible. We then had a simple lunch before heading home. It was a really interesting morning!

Today, I had a lovely late start and lunch at the local restaurant, Don Chai, before getting a Grab (Uber equivalent) to the nearby Royal Park Rajapruet. It’s an enormous collection of gardens, some of which are gifts from foreign countries, dedicated as a whole to the late King of Thailand. The gardens are so vast that they’re served by electric buses and bikes… yet there was hardly anybody there! It was a little uncanny walking through a long series of beautiful gardens and greenhouses, past multiple obvious ‘Instragrammable’ spots, all of which were empty. There was too much there to see everything in detail but my personal highlights were the orchid greenhouse, temperate house (which felt just like an English summer’s day!) and central pagoda structure rising up from the gardens around it. It was very hot today, so I made use of the electric bus as well as walking, and had a lovely afternoon.

My dad and I went back to a restaurant last night that’s quickly become one of our favourites here: Paak Dang. It was set up by two Singaporean siblings as a social enterprise to provide training and employment for underprivileged local youth. We’ve had two delightful Thai dinners next to the river there, served by one young woman in particular who spoke reasonable English and was very keen to make sure we had everything we needed. The restaurant also has one of the best views we’ve yet found, of this beautiful illuminated stupa on the other side of the river:

I’m much happier with my second ‘watercolour postcard’, based on a fisherman just below the balcony here:

Now I just need to enjoy my last couple of days in Thailand and prepare to fly to South Korea on Saturday evening… Goodbye for now!

Cross-stitch progress update