A post about nature, food, and pretty animals. Oh Thailand, you beautiful, beautiful thing. 

In China, there’s a thing called “Golden Week,” otherwise known as the Chinese National Holiday. During Golden Week, which runs from October 1st to 7th, the entire Chinese population is on vacation from school and work, which means that 1.3 billion are on vacation at the same time. That’s more than 4 times the population of America. So imagine 4 Americas simultaneously on vacation.

Sounds insane, right?

Last year, over 400 million people traveled in China during Golden Week. Here is a picture of Chinese tourists visiting the Great Wall during their holiday.

Needless to say, this seemed like the prime time to plan a trip out of the country. The choice was Thailand–and what a wonderful choice it was.

For the whole 7 days, I stayed in and around Chiang Mai, a city in the north of Thailand near the Burmese border. My time in Thailand consisted of three main activities: animals, jungle, and food.

1. ANIMALS

I was fortunate enough to spend two days playing with two very beautiful creatures: tigers and elephants! I still can’t decide which I enjoyed better. The tigers, on one hand, were beautifully fierce (except for the baby tigers, which were downright adorable).

On the contrary, the elephants were beautifully gentle. I compare the tigers to an over-aggressive father and the elephants to the mother who feeds you delicious homemade pudding. To see the elephants, I visited a sanctuary. Here, volunteers take care of abused and mistreated elephants and nurse them back to care, rather than working for a tourist trap where the elephants are ridden and forced to participate in shows. It was a very human way to spend the day with them. Bathing them, petting them, and feeding them was truly magical.

And, to top it all off, the sanctuary had kittens. Cat lady Leah was so satisfied.

2. JUNGLE

In a bout of spontaneity, I decided that it’d be cool to go on a three-day trek through the jungle where you sleep in huts, cook for yourself, and hike for hours through lush landscape. It sounded decently cool, but it turned out to be, hands-down, the coolest thing I’ve ever done. Here are some pictures from our incredible trek, and here’s a detailed description. The highlights were the river we camped next to and bathed in, the food we cooked entirely with bamboo cooking utensils, and the beautiful farms and jungle of the region!

Yet another highlight was the family we stayed with in a small hilltribe village. They cooked for us using their fire stove and allowed us to sleep in their home. Every night, they sleep on the floor with a thin carpet as bedding. It was an incredibly humbling and eye-opening experience.

3. FOOD

Questionably the greatest section. My expectations of the food in Thailand consisted of eating yummy Pad Thai, but they were far exceeded: Thai food blew my mind. Here’s a collection of pictures (with captions) of all the weight I happily and un-regretfully gained:

 

---

Thank you, Thailand, for being incredible. I wish I had time to visit the world-renowned islands of Thailand, but I guess I’ll just have to add them to my ever-growing list!

Shoutout to my parents who will be arriving in Beijing next weekend before embarking on a 12-day tour of 4 cities in China…guess I know where I got my sense of adventure from. Can’t wait to spend a few days showing them around my new home!