Oh my Lanta

Long tail boat ride.

First I have to vent a little bit because it was the the start of the 2015 Crossfit Open today and this is quite dear to my heart. For one I haven't missed it in three year and have competed every one of those years and two it's making me miss Crossfit even more than I already do. 

How I wish I could do this wod!

This morning after getting some fruit shakes for breakie and before leaving for our 4 island tour, we watched the live announcement of the 15.1 Open WOD. It ended up being a 9 minute AMRAP of 15 toe-to-bar, 10 deadlifts and 5 snatches, 115lbs for the men and 75lbs for the women, immediately followed by accomplishing a 1 rep max Clean & jerk in 6 minutes. Unfortunately my back still isn't 100% and I don't have a gym to WOD at. I'm still going to be cheering on my box (KCF) and all my friends who are doing the Open, from the other side of the world! Good luck err'body!

Koh Ngai

Alright so after watching the open announcement we got picked up to head out to the dock where we would hop on a long tail boat and start our adventure of the day. Once on the boat we rode on clear blue water for an hour to get to our first destination of Koh Chuek where we did 30 minutes of snorkling. It was definitely a first for all us to swim and snorkel in such amazing waters and with such beautiful sea life. While snorkling I wore my Go Pro the whole time and caught some really wicked footage of the fish surrounding us and gorgeous corrals (maybe a few shots of Vee's bum...who knows!)

Long tail.

The second stop was at Koh Maa where we did some more snorkling and got to see and swim with a different variety of fish. After snorkling we went to the third island called Koh Mook, this particular one was really cool. We all put on life jackets and jumped into the water, our guide instructed us to follow him and his light through the pitch black Emerald cave for approx 80 m. At the other end of the tunnel/cave was a mesmerizing hide away beach in the middle of the island surrounded by massive cliffs, absolutely stunning.

Sometimes I can't believe I'm actually here. (No that's not underwear, yes it's my bikini bottom ha!)

Following our third stop it was time for lunch and the last stop of the tour on Koh Ngai, we stayed here for over an hour, eating food overlooking the beauty that is Thailand. Times up and it's time to ride another hour back to Koh Lanta, once back we did a mini workout in our dorm then had a tasty dinner.

Fire show!

Tonight, instead of staying in we decided to go to the beach to watch the fire show which was definitely a good idea because it was an epic show. 

All for today folks.

A bientot,

Janelle Brine

We Will Meet Again!

Koh Lanta is kind of beautiful EH!!

Feb 25th, 2015

Some way, some how we are heading back to the islands today! I will admit that I do miss the beach to some extent, but then again Chiang Mai has become along the lines of a second home to us. It will be quite hard to leave this beautiful city and all this amazing vegan food we've been spoiled with the last few weeks. 

Left this one in Chiang Mai.

On the brighter side of things we get to spend some quality time with Jay, we get to lay on unreal beaches and to settle the anxiety we only have to remember that we will be back in CM in and around 4 weeks from now. 

This morning we had to catch a flight at 6:25 am so we woke up at 4:30 am, got ready and grabbed a taxi over to the airport which thankfully was only 15 minutes away. Once at the Chiang Mai International Airport we check our bags which was quite the struggle and a bit frustrating because Air Asia charges you for anything over 15 kg so we had to pay 1800 Baht on top of an already expensive flight. 

Beach dayz!

After we were all done having our childish fits we checked ourselves in and pretty much went onto the plane right away. The flight went by super quick probably because I slept the whole time. After 2 hours of flying we were finally in Krabi and to add to the expenses now we had to catch a minivan and a ferry to get to Koh Lanta (Koh = Island). 

We got to the hostel around noon which meant we had 2 hours to spare before being able to check into our room so we went to eat. I'd say one of the downfalls of getting to a new and unfamiliar place is how annoying it is to try to get situated when no one is able to help you because of the language barrier. After lunch we checked in and then went straight to the beach. 

I believe Jay had been waiting for this moment for what seemed like a very long time, everyone sees those pictures of the turquoise Thailand waters and usually only dream of ever experiencing it in person. 

Best sunset yet.

We laid on the beach in the scorching sun and swam in the warmest ocean water ever, for hours until we got hungry again. Before getting food we got washed up then we watched the nicest sunset imaginable, it was something out of a movie or a fantasy, simply perfect. 

After dinner we went to the islands night market, the princess needs her retail therapy once in a while Ha! Once Jay and I had had enough we social pressured Vee into thinking she didn't have look any further for anything... (I think it worked! Or she just got tired of hearing us sighing obnoxiously loud). 

Time for bed! 

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Feb 26th, 2015

Woke up from one of the best nights of sleep yet this morning, we were quite tired from getting up early and traveling yesterday. We didnt notice until this morning but for some unknown reason the whole island won't have any electricity from 9 am - 4 pm today. 

Hallelujah for getting my tan back!

To get the day started we decided to do a run on the beach at 8am because everything is better on the beach :). We ran for about 40 mins total which seemed like a much longer time in the scorching sun. Man, it gets hot fast in the mornings here. With the power being out we stuck to a delicious variety of fruit; Jay & I had pineapple, watermelon & bananas while Vee tried to replicate her fave fruit bowl from CM. Mango, watermelon, dragon fruit, pineapple & banana. 

Nom nom!

Since nothing is open all day, this made our decision to go to the beach quite simple. We refreshed our tans & drank fruit juice while Jay went for an hour massage on the beach, living like a king, I tell ya. Life is good over here in the land of smiles.

Yummy rice with veggies and tofu @ Papaya.

Since dinner last night at Papaya Restaurant was so delicious, Vee and I held off from eating until they opened. First we watched the beautiful sunset again tonight then we went to Papaya. The food is awesome & I opted for 2 sides of rice tonight and I might've gone a bit overboard but it was well worth it. With our tummies full we are almost ready for bed. Off to the 4 island Tour tomorrow.

A bientot,

Janelle Brine

Sanctuary

Bad hair day but elephant hugs make everything better!

Feb 23th, 2015

I cannot even begin to tell you how life changing this day has been. After breakie, around 9am the minibus picked us up at our hostel to drive us one hour north of Chiang Mai to the elephant retirement park. We were all a bit car sick from all the windy roads leading up to the park, but we all got out of the van and went up to the camp so our guide Pansa could tell us about the day and the 6 elephants they care for here. 

Youngins.

First there's the big mama called Bipho, she's the biggest, the leader of the pack and is 45 years old, then there's the smaller mama, she 22 months pregnant (elephants carry for 22 months so she's ready to pop anytime now), then there's Phet he's the smart one, he has so much character and he even danced for us, he's 10 years old, next is the two youngins they're 2.5 years old and they love to give hugs and kisses and finally there's Nuang Chang, she's the little 11 months old baby, she absolutely loves to play and run around, I don't have any other baby elephants to compare her to but she's the cutest one I've ever seen!

Hugsiessss!

These elephants are such amazing creatures and because of this park they get to run free and live their lives without pain and suffering like so many do. The elephant retirement park rescues young and older elephants to bring them to this sanctuary where they will never see another day of riding or abuse, they get to just be happy and healthy. 

Wet kisses.. lol

We spent the whole day there with them we played, fed and washed them, who would have known ñthat such a massive animal could be so kind and gentle. Taking care of these beautiful creatures all day was truly a must for anyone who visits Thailand, as soon as we were finished washing them at the end of the day I told a girl from our group that my life was complete now (I may have been exaggerating a bit but it was really an amazing experience and I would do it again in a heart beat). 

Phet and Vee.

We were so sad to leave them but we unfortunately had to so the minibus drove us back to our hostel where we chilled, got cleaned up (mud everywhere imaginable from giving the elephants a mud bath) and all had dinner together then packed it in for the night.

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Feb 24th, 2015

Jay feeding the plant.

Today was definitely a lot more chilled out than the last few days between cooking classes and playing with elephants, it was nice to relax a bit. We went for our fruit this am then Jay, Vee and I had to book a hostel for when we get to Koh Lanta tomorrow morning. We leave in the am at 6:25 am and have a 2 hour flight to Krabi, we're back tracking a bit but since Jay only has a few weeks out here we figured we would do whatever he wants to do and he picked beaches.

After sorting out our accommodation we got some lunch followed by a bit of lounging and walking around. We honestly did f*ck all today, nothing productive other than dropping off our laundry was accomplished. When dinner rolled around everyone was nowhere to be found so me and Vee just went to grab some curry and khao soi, it was delicious and as always J4U never fails us!

Once were were stuffed, Jay and Ross randomly appeared and decided to join us for vegan Nice cream so we started walking. It's quite the far walk but we got there quick and got to shove amazing Nice cream in our faces! Since it's our last night in Chiang Mai for a little while we thought Nice cream would be a great way to wrap up our fabulous time here. 

Early a$$ flight in the morning so it bed time for us! 

A bientot,

Janelle Brine

"It is more important to prevent animal suffering, rather than sit to contemplate the evils of the universe praying in the company of priests."

- Buddha

Thai Trickery & Cookery

Hard at work!

I will start by saying that from now on I will be posting a blog every second day containing two days in it as I am starting a new blog. In this blog I will do my best to stick to inputting content about our activities and the new one is more about my passions and random things I want to either talk about or inform you on. I'm truly enjoying blogging for you all and I've gotten loads of positive feedback along the way which makes me love it even more and also makes me want to keep writing.

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Feb 21st, 2015

Street art.

Today was simple but complicated at the same time, we woke up and had our daily massive bowl of fruit and fruit shake then once back at the hostel we chilled and decided what to do for the rest of the day. Since Mar had already left to go do some more yoga in the park and Lucille was content chilling at the hostel, Ross, Jay, Vee and I figured we may as well use up the rest of the gas we put in the scooters before bringing them back to the rental place. We all wanted to get a workout in so we drove to the same globo gym from the day before since its only a 2 dollar drop in fee and pumped some iron and got our sweat on for about 45 minutes. With my back being out for a while and just being away and moving from place to place, going to the gym really made me realize how much I miss working out and especially how much I miss crossfit...

After the gym we hopped on the bikes and headed back to town, got lost and missed the right exit about 4 times. When we finally got back to the rental place the guys working tried to make us pay for some damage on one of the bikes that was already there when we got them. Just when we were about to see vicious Vee come out the dude said fine just go, so we left and went straight to Juicy 4 U for a vibrant and delicious salad. After our late lunch we literally were all bumps on a log and did zip all afternoon until we got hungry and got off our a$$es to get some dinner at Bamboo Bee. Like most nights everyone or the majority of the people go out to drink and socialize but we usually choose to be well rested over being hungover, so we went to bed while the rest went out.

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Feb 22nd, 2015

Thai cooking class!

Got up nice and early (We're on Thai time now, don't forget!) this morning, got ready and we were out the door at 7:30am. You guessed it we went to get our daily dose of breakie fruit salad and shake, then The Worobys had to have their Starbucks and we made it back to the hostel just in time for the truck to pick us up to go to the Thai farm for our cooking class. After gathering everyone from different parts of town we were brought to a local market where our teacher talked to us about different sauces, rice and other ingredients we were going to be using today in our cooking. Following the market we drove to the beautiful Thai farm where we would be picking some ingredients fresh from the garden and learning all about Thai cooking methods along with cooking 5 different dishes. First we made soup, second was making fresh curry paste from scratch, third was the stir fry followed by the curry and to finish up we made the oh so classic mango sticky rice. If I don't say so myself, everything I made was damn delicious and I can't wait to finally be able to properly cook Thai food when we get home. 

Awhhhh look how cute😘

The cooking class was definitely wicked and we were in good company as always, made all kinds of new acquaintances and had loads of fun and laughs. There was 3 main things we wanted to do while in Chiang Mai and we've now completed two, the trek and the cooking class. Tomorrow will truly complete our visit here, we are going to an elephant retirement park which we are all super looking forward to, especially since we've only heard amazing things about this place.

Vee's mango sticky rice.

After showing Jay the madness of the Sunday market we came back to home base to clean up and rest our sore (gym..) bodies for our awesome day that awaits us tomorrow.

A bientot,

Janelle Brine

Nueng, sueng

Little mishap with the selfie stick turned out ok lol.

Last night I was super tired and decided I would just write the blog in the morning but we had a pretty busy morning so I forgot. Therefore, I will write yesterday and today as one. Yesterday wasn't too hectic, it was Jay's first chill day since he got to thailand because the first day he was dead from endless hours of flying and then the last two days have been jet lag recovery days and traveling to Chiang Mai. Every morning we've been going to Tip's Best Fruit Smoothies to grab some massive and delicious fruit bowls and shakes, it's been such a consistently great start to our day and I couldn't ask for a better breakfast. Once all carbed and sugared up we walked and showed Jay around town until the others came to join us, around noon they showed up at the hostel to check in. After lunch we all walked around a bit and went to a tourist Center to see what kind of activities we wanted to book, we ended up booking a one day cooking class for all of us on Sunday. This specific cooking class seems better than most because you go to a family farm where you pick all your organic ingredients then learn how to turn them into amazing thai dishes. 

Jay! China town!

Just before dinner Jay and Ross got thai massages and me and Vee got to see them get into positions we didn't know they could manage to pull off, it was great! When dinner rolled around we went to an Indian restaurant called Curry Pot where we had some awesome food in good company. It just so happened to be Chinese New Year yesterday so when I asked the girl at the hostel if anything was happening she told us to go to the park which when we got there there was absolutely nothing going on. We did end up figuring out that inside the park there's some community outdoor gym equipment so me and Ross were like two kids in a candy shop running around like a pair of ADD cases. Once our fun was over we took a taxi back and Mar, Ross and Lucy went out while the rest of us went to bed.

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Chiang Mai Crossfit, such a wicked box setup, half inside,half outside.

As I mentioned before we had a busy morning, we woke up around 7:30am, got ready, had fruit then went out to find Chiang Mai Crossfit so Jay could do the 9 am class. My back has been feeling much better especially if I compare it to when we were in Bangkok but I don't think it's quite ready for crossfit  yet since I get super competitive when I WOD. When we got to CMF unfortunately Jay wasn't able to WOD because they only allow drop ins at certain times and 9 wasn't one of them. While making our way back to town we stumbled upon a globo gym which was only 2 bucks to drop in so we worked out for about an hour and then came back to the hostel. 

Globo gym!👎lol .

We didn't do anything all morning after that but around 1 pm Mar and Lucy decided to go do yoga in the park while the rest of us felt like being a bit more adventurous. We rented 2 scooters and drove 45 minutes to the Muang On Caves, it took a few tries to find it and Vee almost lost her leg to a vicious pack dogs but we finally found it! Apparently while we lost Jay and Vee for a little while when Ross was driving like a racer, they went down a dirt road and after the first turn there was 5 dogs barking and surrounding them and whenever Jay tried to go forward they would get vicious, which at one point turned into them wanting Vee's leg for dinner (not much meat there but I'm sure it would taste like princess meat which would be royaly good right?). 

Cave!

Once we were at the right place we hiked up to the caves in company of two little doggies that showed us the way, the hole was short but steep the the caves were really wicked to see. We got to see some rock climbers come down from the top of the cave and then in one of the caves we walked through there was bats and monkeys so we didn't hang around there too long (Ross was making noise on purpose to get the bats going while I had to pull Vee out of the fetus position...Ha! What is it with bugging her that's so f*cking fun!).

Doggies!

After another 45 minute drive back we gathered back up long enough to talk about our very different days, showered and then parted again for dinner, good food is followed by Zzzzzzz.

Ps: nueng and song are 1 and 2 in Thai, we haven't learnt much Thai but we do know 1-10 and a few other necessary words like hello and thank you.

A bientot,

Janelle Brine

The Great Escape

Massive bowl for 40 Baht or just a little under 2 bucks.

Super duper chilled out day today, we woke up and had huge bowls of fresh fruit along with fruit smoothies for breakfast. After our fruit binge, our cells were all fuelled up to start the day right, we mainly walked aimlessly all day with some breaks in between to shove food in our faces as always. It's quite hard not to look forward to eating while being out here because the food is like treating your mouth to a symphony of amazing tastes every single time. Everything is always fresh and while it's not posted as organic it's definitely much more organically grown than back home, which is always something to feel good about when you're putting nutrients into your body. It's happened to me a few time over the last 4 or so years of eating organic that people will tell me that it either doesn't actually matter or that they can't afford it therefore they buy conventionally grown foods. News flash! It does matter and much more than you think, even if you're buying the mass produced version of an organically grown apple for example, that company still had to abide by more regulations than the others. The best way to go about anything when it comes to food is to buy as organic, spray-free and local as possible, period.

Thumbs up to all the great vegan restaurants in Chiang Mai.

This whole trip we've basically been on food search more than anything else, it's seems like everything we do is only to kill time in between meals and often I catch myself thinking about my next meal before I'm done eating my current meal (Obsession, I'm telling you!). I guess I could be addicted to worst things than healthy vegan foods, I don't do drugs, I don't party and I haven't drank a single drop of alcohol since leaving Canada. Someone a few weeks back had asked me why I wasn't drinking and while I don't remember what my answer was I do remember thinking about it further later on. I told Vee that I truly think that we drink more back home because we're bored and there isn't much to do, but here it's completely the contrary, were far from being bored and there's so much to stay occupied with.

Ross and his new bestie.

Anyway after inhaling a massive salad for lunch we walked around some more and ended up getting myself a murse (man purse) along the way. We were just killing time until we had to go to the Chiang Mai Airport to meet Jay, Ross, Marleigh and Lucille which were flying in from Bangkok. They weren't expecting to see us because we had told them we would see them at the hostel but we figured it be nice to surprise them at the airport. Once they walked through the arrival doors and the hug fest ended we all grabbed a taxi back to town, everyone was quite hungry so we all agreed on going to Bamboo Bee vegetarian restaurant for dinner. The food was amazing as always, I had something new which was a pumpkin curry and I loved it! Vee had the most amazing pad Thai yet while Jay and Mar scarfed down some veggie burgers, Ross and Lucille also enjoy some delicious curries. After dinner we walked back to the hostel, only Jay is staying at the same place as us and the rest are staying at Mar's friends house somewhere a bit out of town. They grabbed a taxi to the friend's house and we headed upstairs to relax and go to bed, that's all for today folks! Coming up tomorrow... Watching Jay go through his culture shock, yay! It's going to be quite the difference from -40 in winterpeg to +37 here, I guess all the Canadians wanted to escape the cold this winter, amen to that!

A bientot,

Janelle Brine

Ice love you sho mush

Vee's b-fast.

Today started out like any other day, it has definitely become the norm to sleep in, wake up and dick around on the iPad for wayyyyy too long. I'm not happy about this but it's so hard to break a habit once it seems to engrave itself inside of you. I'm finding it hard to fall into a positive routine while traveling, most likely because we never stay anywhere long enough to enable us to even start to think about having order in our lives. Then again is order that important in the first place? I mean look at the majority of people in society, they have order in their lives and most are just kind of content or borderline depressed without even knowing it. For example, having a morning routine, going to work at the time each day, eating the same ol' sh*t and finishing your day with exhaustion from working all day, is that it? I wish I could speak more modestly but I know for a fact that, that's not what life is about, it may be different for people with kids but all in all people have got to get themselves unstuck and unbored (new word..yup!).

Buddha.

To some of you I may be repetitive but lezbehonest here, most people need to hear this sh*t more than a few times. I already knew most of what I'm stating to you before this trip, but seeing Thai people work 12 hours days, everyday, with no days off and being happier than people back in Canada made me realize more so that something ain't right. When did we get so bored and boring? Probably somewhere in between the crappy unwholesome food we shove in our faces and the advanced technology (like I'm using right now...), is where we were pushed into a downward spiral. I really do hate to sound negative because the outcome I desire is completely the opposite, but sometimes it comes across as such, unfortunately. Awaken, enlighten and surround yourself with what and who you truly love, everything else is just a speed bump or irrelevant, think about it. You hate your job? Quit. You can't because you have too much stuff to pay for? Sell what you don't actually need. Wish you could travel? Start a f*cking piggy bank (No, really do it..). There's a way around anything and at the end of the day you need to follow your heart (Awwwwww.. I know right, sho cute!), don't become bored or boring, that's just painful to watch for everyone else and like an old broken record for you bro!

Buddhist Temple.

Ok, ok time to talk to you about our day:)

Wakey wakey, not eggs and bakey. We got up, showered and went downstairs to grab some breakfast from J4U, Vee got a peanut butter and banana toastie (we call these bagels in Canada) and I got a fresh orange, pineapple, banana and ginger smoothie. After breakie went back to see the amazing temple we saw the night before because we wanted to see it in the day time. The temple is next to the Buddhist university so we stopped in quickly to ask a few questions, I wanted to know if they take English students but sadly they don't, I guess I'll have to stick with the free monk chats they offer each day. Yesterday I looked up a blog that had a post about all the vegan restaurants, food stalls and markets they went to while visiting Chiang mai, so I decided that we would go on a search for some of them today. 

One of many gates to enter old town Chiang mai.

First up! Tip's best fruit smoothies, we stopped here for a fruit snack and it was very much worth our while. Later on we walked around a fruit market then went back to have a fresh veggie loaded salad at J4U once again. Back at the hostel, I decided to give myself a homemade haircut, it turned out pretty good actually and the lesbi-bun is sadly almost gone... It was time though because it was getting so long that it quickly reminded me why I cut my hair short in the first place back in grade 12 (Too many top knots out here, who likes to blend in anyway, that's just lame). After my somewhat successful haircut we then hung out at the hostel until dinner time, we gave ourselves a pretty good buffer and made sure we left the hostel not too hungry but fully expected to be hungry once our 45 minute trek to the resto of choice was over.

Paintings at ice love you.

The restaurant was called khun Churn vegetarian restaurant and I think the food was good but I'm not entirely sure since the spiciness destroyed my mouth. When we finished our meal we met a cute little man named Mike who was looking for some help finding his guest house, he's from Minnesota but has been living and teaching English in Japan for 15 years. Mike told us a bit about how to maybe get into teaching English out here to make a bit of extra cash if needed, which was awesome because we've both thought about it but didn't really know what the next step was. After our little chat we walked another hour to get to a vegan ice cream parlour called "ice love you", once we finally got here it was probably one of the most wicked places ever. Ice love you was filled with superhero paintings and dolls everywhere along with 20 different flavours of vegan ice cream, needless to say the ice cream was epic and the experience as a whole was epic'er.

Vee pretending to be patiently waiting for the ice cream.

We ended up with 3 each which were, mint choc, choc cookie, 2 vanilla cookie, blueberry soy yogurt and Spider-Man flavour. I promise the scoops look bigger in the picture lol

Since it was dark out by the time we left the parlour we took a taxi back to the hostel and now... You guessed it! It's time for bed.

A bientot,

Janelle brine

Lesson from the can't get lost university

You can't get lost, if you don't care where you are going.

We did the longest trek yet with our bags today, after we packed and checked out of our dumb hotel we walked into town with our huge bags. The walk was about 40 minutes as usual, except we were carrying and extra 30 pounds each, warriors I tell ya! We had some pineapple for breakfast but by the time we got to Old town it was noon and we were starving as always. We are definitely creatures of habit, or I guess we just really like what we like because we had lunch at Juicy 4 U again which won't be the last time either. With our bags we just went straight into the restaurant, even though our new hostel is literally just next door, we couldn't bare to wait until after we checked in, so we sat down and had yet another amazing meal. Sophia never ceases to amaze us, her and her family own this restaurant where they all work in symphony with constant big smiles on their faces, she also told us that her mom and dad have been vegan their whole life which to me is so inspiring. 

Nice little tag... Lol

Once we were done we checked into our room next door, settled in then went for a long walk. So far Chiang Mai has been amazing, we for sure see ourselves being able to easily stay here for a while but I guess it will depend on what the others will want to do too. Jay (Vee's bro), Mar, Ross (English dude we met in Penang:)) and Mar's friend Lucille from Manchester will all be here in a few days which is going to be wicked! There is so much to do in Chiang Mai and around it, I believe that we are also planning to visit some neighbouring cities like Chiang Rai and Pai which all seem awesome and are highly recommended. It seems that since our lives mainly revolve around food this is probably a main reason why we love it here because it has been the most veggie friendly place yet.

Anyway a bit off topic, I was chatting with my mom today and realized that we've been gone for something like 37 days, it almost seems surreal that it's been over a month because it certainly doesn't feel like it (as cheesy as it sounds, I guess time really does fly when you're having fun). We still don't really have a clue how much longer we will be abroad but the more days that pass the harder it seems to be to think about coming home. The only problem here is the fact that we miss our friends and family (lesbi-bros foreva...yeah I went there!) but at the same time we've been waiting for this trip of a lifetime for what felt like a lifetime. This leaves us in a tough situation, but I figured it all out today! So I decided that us being out here is a blessing In disguise for all our friends and family, because if we stay here long enough they will end up coming to visit or join us, so basically everyone wins.

700 year old Buddhist temple.

Alright so after our super long walk, of course we got hungry again and Vee was craving a soup she had yesterday so we went back to J4U for dinner. After dinner we decided to go on a search for somewhere where all 6 of us will be able to stay once everyone gets here. No such luck but while walking down random streets we stumbled upon this massive temple that beat all the other ones we've seen yet. Thankfully some guy was able to talk to us about the temple, he told us that it's 700 years old which is why no one but the caretakers can go inside and that along with a temple in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia there emerald Buddha stayed there. There was a path all around the temple so we walked it and ended up discovering probably the coolest thing I've seen yet. There's a Buddhist university here where you can study Buddhism along with other subjects and it's all free, the only money involved is the fact that you can donate money. This whole thing definitely caught my attention and we are going to go back when it's open tomorrow, this stuff is super interesting to me. 

After our discoveries we grabbed a fresh smoothie then went back to the hostel, now were chilling and bedtime soon, peace out!

A bientot,

Janelle Brine

Market, market... Ohh right more market!

Found another puppy! This girl bought this dude at the market for 2000 baht or 80 bucks...

Today was one of those days where you feel like you did so much but honestly you truly didn't. We left the hotel at 10 am, got breakfast and walked over to what everyone calls the" The square". The reason it's called the square is because the main area of Chiang Mai which is called Old Town is literally in the shape of a square surrounded buy a moat. We grabbed a fresh organic smoothie at Juicy 4 U restaurant where we sat and chilled until lunch time so we just stayed and grabbed lunch too. This place is definitely awesome and we catch ourselves always wanting more so this is an indication that when in doubt we will be going to Juice 4 U. 

People leaving comments and quotes for the restaurant, so cute.

After lunch we started our 9 hour walking journey through Chiang Mai, first Vee need her tea so off he Starbucks we go. Every time we pass any sort of market or just a table set up on a random street with jewelry or clothes, Vee has to stop and look just to make sure she doesn't miss out on anything "cutie". I truly believe that suffers from "FOMOOCT" which is "Fear of missing out on cute things", I usually end up just waiting a few feet away or blindly agreeing with what she's asking me (sorry babe). We walked down this one road and the vendors were starting to set up shop for the Sunday night market, they were selling stuff even though it wasn't the evening so we went in of course to check it out. After walking and looking around we met a group of people from Edmonton which was nice and we ended up talking to them for a little bit. 

Canadianssss.

Vee's salad.

Once going separate ways they left to go back to their hotel and we went to grab an early ish dinner around 4:30pm, which isn't too smart of us because we both know we're going to get hungry again later in the evening. We went back to Juicy 4 U for dinner because it's just too good and decent price compared to some vegan restaurants we've been to. After we were done eating we walked for a lonnnngggggggggg time and then by this time the Sunday night market was in full swing, the amount of stuff and people at this market was actually the craziest thing ever. We have never seen a market this big or this busy since being in Asia, they really know how to pull off extravagant markets around this shizzz. 

Market just started...

We walked, stopped, walked , stopped and walked and walked and walked some more... After getting hit too many times by passing strangers and looking at the 200th stone ring and embroidered blanket it was time to go before I went bat shit crazy. We walked downt the road that the market was on for something like 3 hours and we still hadn't seen it all, so we just trekked home and went to bed.

Sweet and sour veggies with organic brown rice never tasted so good.

A bientot,

Janelle Brine