Elephants, Tigers and Oxen, Oh My!

We had an action-packed day on Sunday!!

First, we visited an elephant camp where we were able to pet, feed and ride elephants! Both Kyle and I even received "kisses" from an elephant! The end of the trunk pretty much encompassed my entire cheek (and then some) like a suction cup! We also watched the elephants perform, showing off their dancing moves (you really have to see it to believe it), painting artwork (a bird, a tree, and an elephant), play soccer, play basketball and generally entertain a crowd. These may be animals in captivity but they seemed like very happy and playful elephants!

Next, we rode in a wooden cart pulled by two white oxen. I think it's a good thing we weren't going far in the cart and a very good thing we weren't taking steep downhills with the braking system!

The grand finale for the day was the Tiger Kingdom where we were inside a cage with full grown tigers and were able to pet them!! Insane! It was pretty amazing.

Here are a few photos of the day. Again, the photos are limited to the ones taken on our iPhones so they aren't perfect!

Sorry for the poor formatting on blogger...the iPhone app isn't quite as good as editing on the laptop!

Thailand!!

Kyle and I flew from Brisbane to Thailand last Sunday. We flew to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand for a week long camp of Muay Thai boxing. There are two 3-hour sessions per day and it is one heck of a workout!! It is very hot (30-35 deg C) and ridiculously humid here so water intake is very important! We have been attending only 1 of the 2 sessions per day and this feels like plenty!! A typical session looks something like this:
30-40 mins running
10-20 mins skipping
Then you put on your wraps (cloth wraps for your hands and wrists) for about 15-20 mins of floorwork. Floorwork is basically air punching, air kicking because you simply practice the motion(s) you go through for each move or combination of moves.
Next you put on boxing gloves over your wraps and practice punching, kicking and kneeing against punching bags. By this time you are absolutely soaked with sweat, shirt and shorts, and ready to move into the ring for padwork. Padwork is where the trainers hold the pads for you to punch, kick, knee and elbow. You go for 3 rounds of 3-5 minutes which is completely exhausting, not to mention painful on your shins and feet from contacting the pads!
After the padwork and s bit of recovery time, there is usually more rounds with the punching bag, before finishing off with core exercises and push-ups etc.

To sum it up, it is a sweat-fest and an insane workout, but a lot of fun!

The Thai people in general are wonderful - really laid back and friendly. We are trying to learn Thai phrases to get by but our mouths don't necessarily make the sounds they need to so sometimes it becomes a game of charades.

The food here is unreal! My mouth waters at the thought of the next meal...so delicious. Pad Thai is one of my new favourite meals!! I'd had it before in Calgary and wasn't a big fan but it is delicious here!

Ok, here are some photos of the Muay Thai training. Sorry for the lower quality photos...these are iPhone pics only!

Update from Oz!

Well hello there!

This post is brought to you from the Royal Lounge in Sydney, Australia. We went on a nice little dinner cruise with Captain Cook Cruises this evening and caught the sunset over the city (including the Opera House) which was quite spectacular. It was an open bar so I took serious advantage of that for as long as possible! Unfortunately it was only 1.5 hours but I did my fair share of consumption. To top it off Cath and I are doing our own pub crawl back from the harbor to our hostel. Second stop is the Royal Lounge (our current location).

So as I'm sure all our faithful readers have been waiting for, I will provide you with an update of our cycle tour so far:

Basically it went like this:

8 days total, 1 rest day, and a $&@" load of climbing. We only did a total of about 440km in the 8 days of cycling which works out to an average of around 63km/day. As any of you avid cyclists will know, that is not a large amount... But, when you do it carrying around 50lbs on your bike it's a bit ridiculous, especially when you go over the Great Alpine Road which takes you from sea level to 1800m with more than it's fair share of ups and downs... It was definitely a challenge and I was concerned we were going to have to turn around at a couple points along the ride... Alas, with a positive attitude we made it over the top (Mt Hotham) in one piece and eventually to Albury where we caught the night train to Sydney. For those interested in our route, here it is:

Day 1: Sale, Vic to Bairnsdale,Vic
Day 2: Bairnsdale, Vic to Ensay, Vic
Day 3: Ensay, Vic to Omeo, Vic
Day 4: Rest day in Omeo
Day 5: Omeo,Vic to Dinner Plain, Vic
Day 6: Dinner Plain, Vic to Bright, Vic
Day 7: Bright, Vic to Yakandandah, Vic
Day 8: Yakandandah, Vic to Albury, NSW

Total km's was around 440km and we went from around sea level to 1800m and then down (not sure what Albury is but definitely above sea level - go figure... :) ).

Anyways, it was hard, but awesome. We had a little rain on day 2 and 3 but after that it was quite nice. Day 6 included the longest downhill either of us had ever done, coming in at around 20km straight - it was awesome!!!!

Fall was in full force and with the elevation we were hitting it was extra cold. We stayed at some great places including sole pub/hotels as well a an awesome lodge in Dinner Plain which we had entirely to ourselves!

If anyone is interested in more details just let us know and we will fill you in - I highly recommend it! Definitely a challenging adventure!!

I will also throw in that in general the traffic was light and everyone was very respectful and gave us appropriate space. Keep in mind that it was late in the season...

Ta Ta for now..

Kyle (I can't wait to find a kebab shop on our pub crawl... I know it's out there... Somewhere... Maybe I'll set a new record??)