Just a short update to accompany my next lot of photos...

Spent Saturday with the family at Chokchai farm - the biggest dairy farm in SE Asia. Love that I've found an attraction with my favourite animal, but plenty more time to check out temples and the like.

On the way to the farm we stopped off at a lovely restaurant and had the most scrumptious lunch and tried some weird Thai dessert which tasted a lot like liquorice. Also had nice fresh pomegranate juice, which was pink, my fave animals and colour all in one day, the excitement was almost too much.

The farm was great, we went a tour round for a couple of hours and Mom-Jeab translated for me. Unfortunately my left contact lens decided to have a hissy fit and split right at the start of the tour, so I spent the whole time with a very sore eye as half of it got lodged somewhere at the back of my eye (sorry if you're squeamish) and refused to budge, hence the drunken-looking bloodshot squinty eye photos. I still managed to half see what was going on though, and avoided treading in any cow pats.

We looked around the artificial imsemination centre (maybe better I couldn't see 100%), the milking centre, the ice cream factory, and then went to a pretty sunflower field, apparently its part of the cows food. Then it's like we landed in Disney as there was an old American West setting with Thai cowboys and horses, and shooting ranch games and all sorts. Went on a nice little horse and carriage ride, albeit in a circle.

After leaving the cowboys we went to the petting zoo where we got to feed rabbits, deer, camels (!), sheep, and cows, which being the one-with-nature person I am, completely loved. Although I did think the camel was about to eat my hand at one point. Then it was the Disney effect again as we watched a little animal show with cows being fed milk by dogs, parrots on bikes, dogs jumping through hoops.

On the way back picked up some 'Umm... milk' (the Chokchai brand, very funny to hear the Thai people say it) ice-cream, and some milk sweets. Think I put on a few pounds just buying them!

And, as if I hadn't eaten enough that day already, on the way back we pulled into a steak house, and inspite of assertions that I wasn't really hungry, I ended up with a huge bbq chicken steak, chips (only 6 mind you), salad with a great dressing, and this really interesting and yummy bread. It's the first time I've used a knife in a month so was pretty strange, got a bit cack-handed which was embarrassing.

So, bar the fact I could barely see (took me about half hour, two cotton buds, and lots of water to finally dislodge my broken contact lens when I got in, incase you were wondering), it was a really great day out. Am hopefully going back there on Friday with P1 for a field trip, so can relive it fully-sighted, although will most prob. be too busy making sure the kids don't disappear to pay much attention to the cows...