Big Buddha and Elephants

For my last full day in Phuket, I went to see the Big Buddha, a giant statue on top of a mountain that’s visible from just about half of the island. There are a bunch of shrines and incense is burning everywhere and so many monks are just wandering around meditating and praying that the place has a pretty surreal ambiance.

Along the steep path that winds up the mountain to the Buddha, there are several little coffee shops, but more importantly there are heaps of elephants. You could pay to ride the elephants, but the trainers were sticking some sharp tool into the elephants to guide them and I didn’t really want to support that happening. But the elephants seemed pretty happy anyway. This one would not stop bobbing his head up and down…it was like he was on speed.

A nice lookout over the surrounding banana groves and Kata bay. I liked living on an island small enough that you could see either coast from the peaks of mountains, definitely going to miss the views.

It was sad to have to say goodbye to everyone from the TEFL class today. Spending an entire month together in that kind of environment really lets you make some strong connections, much more so than a month in the “real world”. I met some amazing people during the last month and I already miss everyone. If any of you are reading this I hope we meet again soon.

My flight from Phuket was delayed an hour, but my luggage was NOT lost this time around, so I can't really complain. Now I’m staying at a hostel in Bangkok for one night, and about (to attempt) to cook a gluten-free dinner of rice noodle soup with pork, potatoes and onions...with just an electric water boiler. Before leaving Phuket I cooked a lot of food, froze it, and took it along so that I can eat a few meals this weekend while I don't have access to a kitchen.

So I've been traveling for exactly one month now. Being 100% gluten-free in non-Westernized countries, where they don't even know what "gluten" is, is MUCH harder than I ever anticipated. But it's definitely worth it...I feel that if I can handle this, I can pretty much handle anything. And it's an amazing feeling. OK, enough introspection. Tomorrow I will take an overland bus across the border into Cambodia to chill with my college roommate Gabe and his buddy Miles in Siem Reap for a couple weeks. They have a blog of their own so check it out. The end.