Last week we went "by thiaw" to Kanchanaburi, Thailand and then on Friday to Khao Yai National Park (if you are a regular reader of this blog then you know we go to Khao Yai quite often and have had many adventures there!). As you can see above, Adele started showing us her beautiful smile. She actually smiled for the first time on my birthday! (I believe it was her birthday gift to me!). She has done remarkably well with all the traveling we did last week and I think she will be going thru some Nanny withdrawls in a few days.
On Friday, we visited Farm ChockChai before going to Khao Yai. We had never done the tour before and decided to do it. It was really well done. Farm ChockChai is a dairy farm here in Thailand...the first, I believe. They have 5,000 cattle. My dad said it was the cleanest farm he had ever seen...good news for us since we drink their milk! =) Anyway, we got to ride in covered wagons pulled by a John Deere tractor and saw the farm. They had horse rides, pony rides, a western style show where they showed us how to lasso a cow, etc. Above you see our cowboy riding a pony for the first time. He was so excited and happy to get to ride a pony. He really wanted to ride the horses but he was too short...maybe next time! We ate at the steakhouse they have at the farm for lunch and on our way out we got milkshakes...and they were REAL milkshakes...so good!
Before we left for our trip mom and the boys and I made Christmas cookies. This was the first year Calvin was really able to participate. Here we are cutting out some dough.
And then last Monday we headed to Kanchanaburi, Thailand. If you are a history buff, then you might remember that western Thailand was occupied by the Japanese during WWII in which they built a railway to Burma (or they almost succeeded in building it). So, we visited some WWII museums. The Bridge over the River Kwai is located in Kanchanaburi and we took a short train ride over the river and back again on the original train line. The railway is also known as "The Death Railway" due to the thousands of men who died to build it. The Japanese used POW's to build the railway, working them all day and night with very little food. A good book to read on one man's personal experience is "To End All Wars" by Ernest Gordon. The museums were really well done. I wish I had more time to hike part of the line and even take another train about 30 miles on the "death railway." Maybe in the future! It will make a good field trip someday!
Pictured above you see all of us at Sai Yok National Park which is also located in Kanchanaburi Province. We hiked a little here and there and Paul explored a couple caves but didn't find much. The boys enjoyed the outdoors. Kanchanaburi is a beautiful area of Thailand. The place we stayed was gorgeous with mountains surrounding us and a river running past our rooms. It was so peaceful..I could have spent all my time there and been happy!
On Friday when we went to Khao Yai we also had another elephant sighting! This time the guy was just mozying along back and forth on the road. (it was nighttime) He came right up to the van we were in (if he wanted he could have touched it with his trunk). PJ was sitting in the front seat between my dad and Paul and the elephant was pretty much right in front of him. It scared him a bit...but all in all, I thought he was very brave! PJ prayed that we would see an elephant that day and we did! Mom wanted him to pray for us to see a tiger but he refused to pray that prayer...and I can't say that I blame him! We did see some wild dogs, though, which we haven't seen before.
So, that's what we did last week. Lots of stuff and lots of fun!
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