Chiang Mai! Part Two

Why, hello again friends. This blog entry will be written by the two of us, so forgive us for anything that doesn't make sense. We woke up in Chiang Mai, which coincidentally is the same place where we fell asleep. We then ate breakfast, checked out of the hotel, and then headed to church. PS Our driver is a member. He took us to the branch in Chiang Mai. This building actually looked like a church and they had a lot more members than the branch in Phitsanulok. There were four sets of missionaries, the elders ignored us completely, but the two sister missionaries were very friendly and chatty. For once, we were not the only white people there. There were actually a lot of students from BYU. Laura knew one of the girls from her ward back home, and I talked to a girl who is really good friends with my roommate Sammi. They gave us headphones and the elders were able to translate all of Sacrament Meeting for us. We also had Relief Society translated and went to an English Sunday School class. It really was a nice building with a wonderful atmosphere. PS headphones make it difficult to secretly fall asleep in church meetings, Sarah learned. She nodded off twice, with headphones crashing to her lap noisily. Church was good.

Meeting House in Chang Mai

Afterwards, our driver took us to a "garden." Now, you might be thinking "How nice. A garden. Most likely with flowers and stuff." I bet you aren't thinking the Disneyland of gardens, but you should've been. Ake probably thought that it would be hilarious to send us off to a GIANT garden full of gardens, without giving us advance notice to its largeness. Well, Ake, it wasn't funny. We didn't have sunscreen or water (which is surprising for Whitney because these always tend to be mandatory for her to have at all times). So, he wandered around the large garden for three hours, baking and sweating our brains out. On the plus side, we are all tan now. The gardens were really pretty, too. We enjoyed the International Gardens, the garden palace, and the children's playground the most.

Beginning of the Garden of Gardens

This might be the prettiest view of the weekend.

The Kings Palace?

Turtle Hill

Bulls

The Netherlands

A leaf as big as my arm

This turtle was hot enough to fry an egg.

A romantic teeter totter and my very white legs

Giant drums

We then went to the train. The ride home was considerably better than the ride there. We got to be on a sleeper train, with nice beds and a lot more room than uncomfortable train seats. Alisha was the only one who ordered dinner, but Whitney ate most of it anyway. We also met a nice German lady who took a year off of work so she could travel. We both tried to sleep, but neither one of us did very long. Alisha had the top bunk, Whitney had the bottom. Somehow, before we reached our destination we switched beds. This was due to the fact that Alisha had climbed down to Whitney's bed after a napping failure, talked for hours, and then fell asleep. Whitney fell crowded, so she went to the top bunk. We arrived back to Phitchit safe and sound in the wee hours of the morning. We still taught the next day.