Back into the wild

Kat and I were lucky enough to have the wonderful Nick Postornino visit us in Chiang Mai! We had a great time together riding scooters and lounging around this great city. He was working down in Singapore for a few weeks and decided to fly up and meet us. It seemed as though we spent a good amount of time hiding from torrential rain but it didn't seem to dampen our spirits!

Tonight Kat and I leave for Laos. We're taking the night bus to Chiang Khong and the we'll be taking a 2-day river boat ride to Luang Prabang. I don't think there's much internet activity in Laos so we may be out of contact for a week or two. We've met a few other travelers heading in the opposite direction so we've heard very good things about Laos. In case we can't make contact, our plan is to boat to Luang Prabang, then bus to Vang Vieng, then another bus to Vientiane, and then fly to Hanoi. Hopefully we'll be in Vientiane by the 4th so that we can vote!!!

Elephants! One of the 'must do' things on my trip list was to ride an elephant.






This is a waterfall that we relaxed at during our jungle trek. As you can tell it was a pretty difficult journey.










A waterfall in the jungle.











I saw two of these spiders in the jungle! With their legs they're about the size of my hand.







This is the jungle hut we stayed at on our trek. The entire structure was made of bamboo! It was pretty incredible. The man made a deck while I watched. His skill at cutting the bamboo with a hatchet was pretty incredible. He made the lower deck you can see in an afternoon.



We saw a lot of ants in the jungle. I like ants so I thought I'd share this nice snapshot.





Big trees and lush foliage in the hills around Chiang Mai.











Another waterfall with the classic long-exposure shot.







Kat near a field of tiger lilies. This was during our visit to the palace atop the hill above Soi Suthrep above Chiang Mai.






Orchids are everywhere! We saw georgeous specimens at temples, around town, and of course perfect ones like this on at the palace.






I found this moth lying on the ground. I have size 13 feet so I hope this puts it in perspective for you!






This wood carving was just out and about in the palace grounds. It seems wasteful to put such a work of art outside in this climate!










This is a giant bamboo grove at the palace. Nick is wearing a bamboo hat that he made himself.






Badass #3











Badass #2











Badass #1