Up early in the morning, breakfast at 7:30, we ready ourselves for the Elephant Rescue Park. Long anticipated, we are like little kids on Christmas Eve! We both love animals, and an opportunity to walk and play with elephants is a true gift. Some quick facts, to get those out of the way. At a high level, there are two different kinds of elephants: Asian and African (and within, there are African Forest and Southern African elephants, and there you have your thre...

Today is a long anticipated day, years in the making. Our friend Kory put us on to Yui who runs a cooking class out of Chiang Mai. It fills up months in advance, especially since Gordon Ramsey took this class to improve his Pad Thai. "A Lot of Thai" is a must do in Chiang Mai. Yui picks us up, two cars come together into a larger pickup truck taxi that holds 8 people in the covered truck bed, and once at her home 2 others join us. We are complete. We are British,...

Today we rise, not shine, at 4:25am, which is actually my usual time, so not a problem (for me). Our guide picks us up for watching the sunrise reflect Angkor Wat in the pond on the west side. Much anticipated, we rush in the dark, our path only illuminated by cell phones, over nearly hidden tree stumps and old rocks (tripping disasters waiting to happen) to secure our spot at the front of the pond. We see a pond. That's it. It is dark. It is 5am. Our guide takes...

As we leave the hotel somewhat reluctantly behind, we receive a final offering: a Cambodian silk scarf. What a wonderful for them to continue to give us warmth in the years to come. The day centers around transit. Getting through Siem Reap airport for our flight to Bangkok is a piece of cake. No lines. Getting from our arrival to departure gate in Bangkok, not a problem. Picking up the luggage from Chiang Mai, easy. Getting a taxi, rip off. We immediately know w...

Today we decided to go for the Grand Palace at the start of the day. It opens at 8:30, we were there at 8:45 (declined the nice brief walk the taxi guy offered - what's with these guys?) and in search of a guide we didn't find. We bought our tickets and someone actually called a guide for us who certainly did know her stuff. However, she was irritated with something and ran us through the entrance really fast and up to the first structure in no time. Army personn...