My generous husband

Daniel is starting something for Christmas this year that I hope all of you will participate in. I also hope that it will become a yearly tradition.

The program is called Heifer International.

It is a program to which you can donate money to help provide a farm animal to a rural family in need. The animals given are the kind that will help sustain the family for years. Daniel has elected to donate towards a water buffalo, his new favorite animal.

Water buffalo are used for plowing fields and other heavy transportation needs. Should you feel inclined to donate, as little or as much as you feel comfortable with, please do. The water buffalo will go to a family in South East Asia. All that is needed is $250.

Here is Daniel's webpage.  Help him, help you, help him.Get it?

Playing at the beach and a trip in a tuk tuk

On Tuesday, October 4, we were planning on going snorkeling but we got rained out. So we took an adventure into town instead. We walked down the street and got a ride in a Tuktuk into Patong to a mall complex where we did some shopping for Christmas and souvenirs.

 My in-laws in the tuktuk.

 On our rice back he totally had it set up for party tuktuk.

Our driver into town.

Part of the mall. In the basement of the section behind me there was a market called "That's Siam" full of locally created goods. We got some fun, inexpensive things and gifts for a few people for Christmas.

After we got back to the hotel the rain had stopped and the weather was pleasant so we headed down to the beach to play some pickle ball/badminton thing my father-in-law got in Shenzhen. It was fun.

It was a good relaxing day of the things that vacations are made of.

Then on day five we flew from Phuket to Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Charlie paints a picture

And then we have Charlie, the painting elephant. And I bought one of his paintings. For 10$ it was totally worth the experience.

The painting:

 And the experience:

Hugs...

And then... what the heck.

Elephant kisses.

The Phuket Zoo - Elephants

I think the elephants was my favorite part of the zoo. We got our picture taken with the star of the show. I forgot her name. But she was fun and had a very hairy head.

They are such large, strong animals.

 They are also very smart.

The we went to watch the show.

The captive crowd. There were a few groups of students there who were fun to watch as the shows happened.

One of the little shows was racing elephants. They put out 3 bowling pins in a line and they had to retrieve them all back to the beginning and put them in the basket. The one farther away pulls a tricky move though. Watch for it.

The Phuket Zoo - Crocodiles

This is the part where we watched stupid men do stupid things with dangerous grumpy animals.

There were dozens of them. In the wild they would be killed if found by people.

He did actually pause there for a few seconds. But as we watched them there were certain patterns that would cause the crocodiles to snap their mouths shut, versus to leave them open.

 

The only mouth I would stick my head in.

The show:

Stupid guys.

The elephants were much better.

The Phuket Zoo - Monkeys

Before you all get to the pictures, I need to state a disclaimer.
It's hard to watch animals exploited and I don't support animal mistreatment. At the Phuket Zoo the animals are well taken care of, but they are used to bring in money. They are not hurt or mistreated. I was a bit uncomfortable watching the monkey show, but as I saw that the monkeys were healthy and trusted their handlers, specific handlers for only a few monkeys, I realized that these animals are better off with the care they are receiving than in their endangered state in the wild. With modern development in south east Asia, the wild is growing smaller. So beyond my opinions, which I don't want discussed further on this blog or it's comments, here is our day at the zoo.

Our first thing was to see the monkey show.

 It is a Welcome sign in Thai.

 Getting a refreshing drink.

One of the babies.

 If I look nervous it's because the monkey is hissing.

 Soft little babies. Now I really am baby hungry. Daniel says I am not allowed to kidnap monkeys or Chinese children and that I have to wait until we get back to the states and get an open an adoption profile again. But aren't they cute?

Posing with the fruit he picked. 

Then we went to the croc show. I'll post that one tomorrow.

Wat Chalong

Wat Chalong is a Buddhist temple. It is quite large and has many buildings. There's not much to say about it. So this is mostly a picture dump.

I did not catch this cat in the middle of something. It was sitting there like that. I think it was too hot for him and he didn't want to be there.

 

This is from one of the smaller buildings.

A beautiful ceiling. 

 Some of the detail.

 The largest of the buildings, the main temple.

 Apparently this is a problem there. Lovely.

 The view from the top of the largest one of the whole complex. They were amazing buildings.

 At the time we were there they were celebrating the Vegetarian Festival, or the Nine Gods Festival. Part of celebrating the festival is starting off by wearing all white. It was kind of pretty. These people were all preparing to worship and pray to Buddha. Those gold statues you see around at of Buddha. Sshh. Don't tell teh Thai authorities.

The last building.

One thing that they were doing, that we didn't understand at first, was lighting fireworks off at night all the time, and sometimes during the day. When we were at Wat Chalong they were lighting firecrackers off inside a large ceramic vase like thing. When I say large, I mean like 12 feet tall. It was very loud. Daniel didn't like it, but I thought it was kind of cool. I had hoped to record it, but we were in a hurry by the end.

After the temple we went to dinner and then drove around downtown.

This was our view as we ate dinner. The dinner wasn't great, but the view was pretty good. Then we drove around downtown Phuket. There were plenty of late 19th Century style buildings, but I didn't get any really good pictures. But day 2 was definitely a good day.

Day 3 was the, a few of the pictures have already been posted, but I'll add some video and some stories.

Day 2

Armed with our own clean clothes and bunch of cameras, we set out on day 2, a tour of the island and the city. It was nice, but it was more like a few of the nice viewpoints, a couple of tourist traps, an amazing temple, and an interesting dinner.

 Warning: Elephant crossing. Don't see that in the states! To clarify - there are no wild elephants in Phuket. There were trekking companies, though, whose paths crossed the road.

 This eagle was available for holding and pictures, if you paid. To give you a clue - 100 Thai Baht is worth $3.21.

 Three beaches along the west side of the island.

 

The travelers at a lookout point.

 This is the lighthouse we saw. 

 

 We were requested to take our shoes off to enter. We went in and climbed to the top.

This was the view from the top.

This is the small pagoda that was surrounded by elephants.

I love the little ones.

 There were like little sets and families of elephants. I did not take a picture of the center because we have been told not to take pictures of Buddha. Although in Thailand and Cambodia it seems we could have. But we didn't just be respectful and the sign at the airport kind of scared us too.

After that we headed to Wat Chalong. A Buddhist temple in Phuket. It was beautiful.

 I'll post more on that tomorrow.