The song says it all … as I (with great fortune) captured a plane on approach at SNA (Orange County’s John Wayne airport) passing directly ?in front of the much discussed (but not all that incredible) “supermoon”. The time was about 8:45pm, so just about exactly the time the moon was at it’s closest (perigee) to the earth for this year. First, our supposed supermoon, alone:

The next two shots show a smaller jetliner, landing gear down, on approach to SNA … I haven’t figured out if the light at the middle of the plane is moonlight (is that “supermoonlight”?) showing through the window, or a light on the plane. It doesn’t appear in the second image, though, so I suspect that it’s supermoonlight.

And while I was upon the rooftop I grabbed a few images of the Santa Ana watertower and the incoming Amtrak train (Santa Ana station):

and an art photo of the moving train:

Of course, it wasn’t so simple. WordPress was broken. So I tried the “update automatically” button to see if an upgrade would fix it. Nope. Manual upgrade process: supposed to be 5 minutes. Nope. About 6 hours later, I figured out how to use SSH so I could export and re-import my SQL database so I could upgrade THAT to 5, then spent hours with my host to get PHP from 4 to 5 … then revived my themes, figured out where WP stored everything and revived that … basically, I just got a massive lesson on things I’d never hoped to know. My point, though, is simple:

If you see anything wrong with the site, please let me know so I can fix it before it become too broken again!

Thank you!!

So yesterday was a dream, right? I mean … where else does one stay in a colonial mansion with amazing people, incredible service (like hot water bottles to warm our feet in bed), umm … and giraffes which come to the door to eat? Well … if yesterday felt like a dream, today even more so.

We experienced more giraffe heaven, feeding them at the door and out the window for breakfast. We enjoyed more incredible food … and we generally loved every moment at Giraffe Manor. There were so many fantastic pictures they won’t all fit in the text here … check them out below in the gallery.

With sadness, we left Giraffe Manor, promising ourselves that we somehow need to find a way to come back here … even if it was the most expensive (by far!!) place on The Wedding World Tour. We left to the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, where we giggled as we watched a bunch of baby elephants get filthy dirty and play in the mud. Oh, the joys of childhood!

The Kenyan school children, dressed colorfully, loved it was well.

And then … it was off to the airport, where we finally met Charles of Maridadi Safari, who was our amazing travel agent in coordinating many of the difficult details of a Maasai wedding. Many thanks, Charles!!!

We boarded an 18-seat Otter twin-engine bush plane. We flew low, and it was amazing to see Maasai villages as small circle below, and to see the left half of the Mara completely dry, and a massive storm off the right hand side of the plain, with flooding clearly evident … realizing that “we weren’t in Kansas anymore” … and quite literally anything could happen out here. As we landed, we saw a Maasai (and a TV crew from Kenya Broadcasting Corp) awaiting our plane … our excitement level jumped: was this Sammy, our kind and generous email friend whom we had been indirectly communicating with this whole time?

As we greeted him, we instantly saw that he was an intriguing mix of modern and Maasai. A large silver watch and a cell phone merged with his traditional Maasai attire. “Call me Sekerot,” he said as the plane roared up the dirt runway and off to it’s next destination.

We took a 2 hour game drive en route to Leganishu, the Maasai village which was soon to become our adoptive home in Africa. (In fact, we loved it so much and want all of our friends and family to travel there … so we built a website! We urge you to visit … it’s incredible!)

In those couple of hours, we saw wildlife that’s just incomprehensible to see wandering around in the States. Rainbow colored birds near wandering elephants next to sleeping lions … it’s all just normal in the Maasai Mara. And yet, it feels like it’s 1,000 years ago and humankind hasn’t overrun everything yet.

We arrived far too late at our village, and the surprise of being met by various villages was somewhat ruined as much of our greeting party needed to go back to their own villages.

We were surprised at how nice our accommodations were. We truly had no idea what to expect, and for that reason we kept our stay there short … which in retrospect, was a big mistake. Our manyatta (hut) was clean, had hot water and a standard toilet (!!), and we ate tasty and safe food.

We spent much of our time in the center communal hut, where we met our new  family members. At one point, I was asked to try on my Maasai clothing … and received a message: “Jason, your father would like to speak with you.” As this usually foretells a scolding, I was a bit nervous to see “Baba” (papa) Ole Mpetti, my newly adoptive father.

I was brought into the tribal hall area, and several elders sat, swatting flies with their ceremonial whisks, looking sternly at me. I sat, and he looked intently in my eyes. After a burst of Maa — completely incomprehensible to me — and I awaited the translation of this deep, serious piece of advice.

“You must always feed your wife, so that she does not starve,” came the translation. Hmmm … not exactly what I was expecting … however, as both an indicator of cultural differences and as a metaphor, this has given me pause for thoughts many times since.

I learned further that “A man is not a man without a wife. And a man is not whole without children.” It was impactful, heartfelt, and honest … and I don’t feel that there’s any equivalent in our culture.

This was followed by dancing and singing from April’s newly adopted “brothers” from her neighboring village. (April didn’t have any “official” duties that night.)  At all times I was accompanied by my best man, new brother, translator and planner of this entire wedding: Samuel Sekerot Ole Mpetti. He guided me through the rituals, and helped me at every turn. It would’ve literally been impossible to experience a Maasai event such as this without him — and as I learned later, this was the only non-Maasai wedding that any of them could remember in the past 15 years.

We headed to bed, our heads reeling with an intense day, my stomach churning, and a large spider guarding our toilet all night … curious and ready for our Maasai wedding to come…

The Wedding World Tour continued from the USA wedding — an outrageously fun and beautiful party — on 11 February 2011, to our incredible, spiritual, loving wedding in Lampang, Bangkok on 18 February … and now on to Kenya for our Maasai ceremony on Wednesday, 23 February.

We took an overnight flight Sunday night from Bangkok to Nairobi. We flew Air Kenya (the only leg of our flight not on our favorite airline), and I have to say … it was terrible. Never have I been so cold on a flight; it must have been 50 degrees in our seat, and the flight attendants were downright sour about just about everything. I slept with the one blanket I could get covering my head, only my nose sticking out, and 2 jackets piled on me, two pairs of socks … it must’ve looked hilarious, but certainly wasn’t funny.

We arrived about 5am, to be picked up by our host from Giraffe Manor (history here). In case you’ve never heard of it, Giraffe Manor is a world-famous guesthouse which has 11 rare Rothschild giraffes living on property, along with warthogs, birds, and the family dog (yes, a standard canine).

I’d chosen it based upon it’s nearly 70 ridiculously happy reviews on Tripadvisor … but to be honest it was our one big splurge, and somewhere down I didn’t believe that it could actually be worth the exorbitant price.

I was wrong.

It wasn’t just the giraffes — which in itself was an unbelievable experience — but also the incredible staff which attends to every need. Heavenly French-pressed Kenyan coffee? Yes … about 6 times in our 24-hours. A fine drink from our always-open liquor cabinet? Again, yes … several times. Food beyond compare? Yes … 3+ times a day. The company of interesting hosts and fascinating guests? Again … yes, yes yes. Giraffe Manor was heaven. It felt as if we had gone 100 years into the past, staying as kings and queens would at a colonial mansion in Kenya, surrounded by wild nature.

Our morning started early, with the famous Giraffe Manor breakfast. With giant giraffes poking their head into the window of our breakfast nook, it was hard to eat the delicious food … but we did, and had seconds to boot (as well as taking hundreds of photos!).

Next, we got the official tour of the manor by Nigel. He showed April how to put a pellet of giraffe food into his mouth, and the giraffe — with her 18-inch long tongue — would take the pellet out of his mouth. Then came April’s turn … and quite possibly my favorite series of photos from our trip:

Yes … a classic moment. April went up for a nap, and I went outside and got a massive sunburn (to be seen later in all the Maasai wedding pictures) from the high altitude (about 4,500 feet), and the equatorial sun. I couldn’t help but stand out there, having a Tusker beer, talking with the staff, and throwing pellets into Lynn’s mouth.

Lynn was one of our favorite giraffes — and also the namesake for our room — and she loved to play “catch.” One person would throw a pellet in, which she would amazingly catch … then she would turn her head and stare at the other person, awaiting the pellet from them. I have no idea why, but it was incredibly fun to go back and forth, taking turns throwing pellets into this giant’s mouth.

I must’ve spent an hour playing with Lynn and a couple of the other giraffes, and watching Nigel’s dog chase the warthogs. (She’d run up to them, nip their butt, then run in a feigned panic when they turned around in [real] anger at her.) It was hilarious to watch.

We had an amazing, amazing lunch — definitely among the best meals of our Wedding World Tour …

… followed by more giraffe-time…

…more social time, and a long, long meeting with a reporter from Kenya’s newspaper, The Standard. The reporter, Crystal, was quite nice, and we talked for several hours.

Soon it was time for dinner. We had the choice to eat outside or in; and although outside looked incredible …

… we chose to be indoor, as it was a communal affair. As we were introducing ourselves, I said “This is my wife — whoa!!!! – April!” I realized it was the first time introducing her as wife. (She, of course, then introduced me as her husband … and we explained the funny looks on both of our faces.) The dinner was candlelit, filled with joyous conversation, laughing, incredibly amazing food, and followed by desert and drinks and more talking in the main hall. It was the perfect end to a truly perfect day.

Below … some more pictures — some of them amazing in their own right but with no more room to post. Next up on the blog … a few more Giraffe Manor pictures from our next morning, plus our elephant orphanage  … and our meeting of Sekerot and the Maasai!

——

Okay … the title of “One Night in Bangkok” isn’t entirely accurate: we actually had one night surrounded by two afternoons in this vibrant, contradictory, crazy city.

But before we arrived that Saturday afternoon … there was still Northern Thailand. We left Lampang early — after a bittersweet goodbye to our new family there — and took the hourlong taxi ride with our family and new friends to Chiang Mai, then the Air Asia flight to Bangkok.

(Two points of interest on this journey … the airport was shut down in front of our eyes while one of the Thai Princes arrived at the airport to great fanfare of military officials, and great amounts of military security. Meantime, we got a foot massage while awaiting our delayed flight, for like $5 … I love Thailand!) At this point, my mom and Jack stayed in Chiang Mai for a few days, and Holly, Nick and Missy went down to the south of Thailand to see Phuket and the islands. So it was me, April, and her brother Scott, to explore for a day before heading out of Thailand.

(Click below to see more Bangkok photos)

Another taxi ride and we arrived at our hotel, The Gulliver Hotel. We loved this place … it was affordable, clean, had lots of hot water, was modern, and was in a central location. We were very happy with the choice, and highly recommend this for a Bangkok stay. (This is their restaurant next door … we checked it out, not our style).

Across the street was a middle-eastern area, so we ate a great persian lunch. The rest of our day was pretty simple. We were loving the hotel room — and the amazing shower, after the muggy, dirty air of Bangkok left us feeling filthy — but we finally made it out, met with the local Ronald McDonald for a photo op …

… and, to be honest, most of the rest of the night was unmemorable. Everywhere we talked there were stray dogs, sometimes heartbreaking. (The stray dogs became a recurring theme of our trip, oddly, as we continued onward.) Later, we did take a walk around the seedier side of Bangkok at night, and ended up staying up way too late.

The next morning, we nearly got scammed by a taxi driver … (Watch out! They will tell you that they can’t take you to your location because of traffic, but they can take you to the river where you can ride a river boat up. Of course, they get big commission because the boat is totally overpriced … which we figured out, walked away from, and took a “public” boat for about 1/5th the price.) … but made the best of it and enjoyed our tour up the river.

We toured the King’s Palace, which was stunning. Of course, it was beyond crowded, beyond hot, and with the humidity of Alabama … so that took a bit of the enjoyment out of the moment … but again, April, Scott, and I had a great time. This is one of my favorite pictures, not the least because April — in her ao dai (white hat) — is walking through the stunning scenery:

I love this shot of the “palace trashman,” giving perspective and contrast to the temple.

I also love the contrast of the sharp corners and the garden in this shot:

After several hours there (and many, many more pictures not shown here!), we left, tired, hot, and a wreck. April and Scott were responsible and went back to the hotel by our checkout time (6pm) … I begged to have a little more time and check out a couple of temples as quickly as possible … which I did, including the massive reclining Buddha complex of Wat Pho …

… and this shot of the back of his head to show scale.

There was this incredibly beautiful “clanking” sound in this complex, which sounded like huge drops of water in a big cave. It was really people dropping small coins (donations) in a long, long row of metal containers … it was music of a sort I hadn’t heard before … another happy moment on the Wedding World Tour.

I took a quick ferry across the river, and climbed up the VERY steep, somewhat scary steps of the Wat Arun…

(And now that I look at these photos, I see that I should’ve chosen some more wide shots to show the scope of it all … very beautiful, though!)

It took a water taxi, a boat, a tuk tuk, the sky-train, and lots of walking to get home … and I certainly wasn’t on time by the time I finally arrived. But Gulliver’s Tavern (the hotel) was cool about everything, and I had time to shower, shop some more, and pack. A few hours later, we were on our way to the airport for our overnight flight to Nairobi, Kenya, for the next phase — the Maasai ceremony! — of our Wedding World Tour.

— a gallery of some more photos —

Immediately following the Thai Wedding and brunch of our 4-wedding world tour, we took the chance to turn up the AC and take a short nap while our friends went shopping and got affordable Thai massages. (I think they said they were $3 or $5 for an hour.) Then on to our next excitement … a party with the entire small village!

(click through below if you don’t see more pictures!)

Unfortunately, we got a late start. I think we missed something which was supposed to take place at a very old Buddhist temple, but our gracious hosts never said a word, so “what we missed didn’t hurt us,” I guess. But when we went to pickup our family from Riverside Guesthouse, we were happily surprised to find our new friends Quentin and Stephanie — both from France, whom we had met on the short flight to Chiang Mai a few days earlier. We had invited them to the wedding on the plane, but didn’t think they’d be able to divert from what they were planning and actually meet us there. We were so glad they did — they were both wonderful, fun, amazing people, and we enjoyed their company that night and the next morning.

So we all took the long drive (getting lost made it longer) out to a small village outside of a small town outside of a small city in a relatively small country … and to be honest, I have no idea the name of the village.

When we arrived, about 100 of the villagers were there waiting. A pig had been roasting on a spit all day…

… and there was much toasting of the many bottles of Thai rum. We snacked on pieces of the freshly-roasted pork (AMAZING!) and soon it got dark.

Out came the fire balloons — which we had long been looking forward to. They were quite … interesting. Once a fire balloon was lit, we had to hold it for a bit while the air inside heated up. Then we’d let it go. However, sometimes in the waiting the wind would come up a bit, and some balloons, when let go, would go sidewise instead of up. Sideways right into the dry trees which bordered our area. Then they would sit in the tree, burning away, causing quite the panic amongst the visitors — we really didn’t want to burn the village down!!! — but no big concern amongst the locals.

Our friend Quentin tried to “blow” the balloon up in the sky, chasing it as it drifted a bit too low until it caught the right updraft …

Fortunately, we didn’t burn anything down, nor did we even catch any trees on fire … and all was well. The balloons were fun, and quite beautiful to watch as they soared off, farther and farther in the distance as little specks of light …

We enjoyed the rest of the night, seeing a large full moon rise above us, and headed home … we’d started at about 5am, had the wedding, the brunch, and the village reception to culminate our Thai wedding. We were married, twice now, and our bond felt more sacred, more secure, and — with the added feeling from the village party — we truly understood “community” in a much deeper sense of the word. We had new friends from France and Thailand, closer bonds with our family who had accompanied us, and new “family” from our wonderfully generous Thai hosts. We couldn’t have been happier.

Next up … Bangkok! (And below, a gallery of some of the extra photos) …

The second of the four weddings on our Wedding World Tour took place in Lampang, Thailand on 18 February 2011 … just one week to the day after our first USA ceremony.

It’s only been a week, but since we had unbelievably great flights on Emirates, toured Chiang Mai and saw the most amazing temple, swam with elephants, and learned Thai cooking. Now, after so much anticipation, is at last the big (second) wedding day!

We started off very early from Papa’s house — about 5:30 am — for our wedding clothing, hair and makeup. While the girls got ready, I took a walk around the block and discovered the town center: an old clock tower, surrounded by a fire station and fountains. The sun was coming up on a beautiful Thai day, horse-drawn carriages passed on the streets, and monks made their morning begging rounds. All in all … a beautiful way to start the day.

(If you can’t see the rest of the pictures, click through below.)

I returned to the wedding-rental place to witness the transformation of April and my best friend Missy. Wow! The hair and makeup artists there were truly amazing.

At around 7:30 am we travelled back to Papa’s house, just a few minutes away. A large crowd of people awaited. April was scurried upstairs to “secretly” wait for me, hiding in the bathroom and peeking out …

… while I was ushered down the street. We blocked the two-lane road as a small band of drummers started playing. My existing and newly-adoptive family joined me in the road, and we paraded back down the road to the house, a rowdy, happy bunch, me in my beautiful silk wedding wear, preceded by my mom and husband Jack in their wedding gear, surrounded by about 30 people. As we got to the house, the entrance was blocked. Traditionally, this is where the bride’s family demands proof that the groom is worthy of the bride. So immediately the questions began. April’s new family challenged me (in Thai), and my new family replied (again, in Thai). Soon, there was just a bunch of people shouting at each other — not in anger, but certainly playing the parts, and caught up in the passion of arguing my way in. I was slipped a few envelopes with money, and gave those to the challengers to ease my way in. Only when Jack gave his very large GOLD flower pot in exchange for the bridal family’s SILVER flower pot did they let us into the compound.

But a moment later I was at the stairs to our “home,” where April and the girls awaited … and again, another group of her family challenged me and my family. We gave a few more envelopes as the drums, arguing, and celebrations all continued. Finally, they let me take a step up, and let April take a step out of her room. She slowly came down the stairs, bowed, and briefly washed my feet before we headed inside for the ceremony.

Once inside, we knelt at the shrine, three times bowing our heads to Buddha. As we arose, three dots of ash were put on our foreheads, and we could see the room. It was intensely decorated: a large, pink backdrop had our names on it in painted styrofoam, as well as the Thai date. Chairs had been covered for us to sit on, and frilly heart-shaped pillows placed in front for us. A corner had been curtained off, but we could see behind that a bed. Flowers were everywhere. As much of the town as possible was in the room.

We were seated on the chairs and the Officiant began his “sermon.” I quote the word because I actually have no idea what was said … it was in machine-gun fire rapid Thai, and although it seemed interesting, half the room was talking amongst themselves or on their cell phones.

Next was the string-tying ceremony. We had heard about this, and thought that it meant that one string was tied around each of our wrists. We were partially right.

An elderly man came up to the table in front of our chairs. He took a silk string from Missy, who sat on April’s left. He tied it first to April’s wrist, then left about 6-inches of string and tied it to mine, so that we were tied together. As he was doing so, he gave us advice. Then April and I bowed down, with a Thank You to him. Wrists tied … string tying ceremony done! Right?

April and I looked to see where Missy was getting her strings. We noticed that there was a bowl of white, full of a spaghetti of strings. We gave each other one of those “uh oh!’ looks, as we realized that we might not be able to move from our perch for quite a while, what with hundreds of strings overflowing the bowl.

In order of age, it seems, one-after-another each person in the room knelt at the table in front of us, took a string from Missy, and tied my wrist to hers, or vice-versa. Each one gave us advice, and — so kindly! — some even had presents for us! This was really an unexpected, wonderful time …  hearing their kind words and advice. (We frequently heard “have baby, have baby!”, by the way.) We loved every moment of it, and soon our hearts were overflowing with not just our joy, but that of the whole community.

Soon, though, our wrists got tied tighter and tighter, until they were touching. This would be fine, but every time we went to bow a thank you, we hit our heads together!

Somewhere in the midst (I don’t recall if this were before or after the string ceremony), we exchanged wedding rings. (I doubt this was a part of the traditional ceremonies, but seems to be an adopted Western tradition.) April had purchased me a new Thai ring, which was perfect since I lost my “adventure ring” when we were swimming with the elephants.

After everyone had given us their blessing, one final string was tied, which held both of us, the other end held by the officiant. He led us by that string over to the bed n the corner of the room. We could see that they had decorated the bed with flowers in the shape of a heart, as well as coins to symbolize abundance. We sat on the side of the bed and the officiant, with a blessing, broke one of the strings holding us together.

Then mom broke a string, followed by Jack, Missy, April’s brother and sister, etc. Finally, it was our turn. We pulled and tugged and snapped the rest of the strings tying our hands together, and left a very large bracelet of silk on each of our wrists.

Mom and Jack were then told that they needed to show us how to properly lay in bed! You should’ve seen the look on their faces … about the same look that passed across our faces as they told us that now it was OUR turn to lay in the bed and cuddle. (Apparently, having babies is a very key component of Thai marriage!) A few pictures later…

… and that was it! The official ceremony was over. We had a few minutes together, then went down to a very happy group. They were signing and eating, and we joined them for a fantastic lunch. (I’m not sure, but I’d guess there were around 100 people at lunch … nearly as big as our US wedding.) We sat on pillow chairs, loved the food, and loved the company.

The sense of peace, joy, and community at the Thai ceremony was something completely different than we had felt at our USA wedding. The Western wedding was fun — a lot of fun! — and we did our best to make it as spiritual as the format allowed. And we loved having all of our friends and family there. But in hindsight, the Thai ceremony just felt more authentic, more spiritual, more down-to-earth. At last, we finally felt married, and were amazed at the generosity, joy, and spirit of the Thai people. Having two ceremonies (so far) left us feeling more well-rounded, and with a deeper, new understanding of  the word “community.” We were married once again, falling deeper in love, committed even more strongly, and understanding just a bit more of ourselves and the world around us.

See below for some pictures to “fill in the gaps” … next up: The Village Party!!!

It is 17 February 2011, and after an intense, amazing day with elephants, we slowed down a bit and attended a cooking class through Thai Cooking Farm.

As an aside, there was an elephant story that I forgot to mention on that post: April and her Mahout (her elephant’s trainer) had both taken their shoes off and forgotten. When they went to leave, the Mahout grabbed April’s shoes — and in so doing, forgot his. However — to prove that he was smarter than the both of them — April’s elephant went over, grabbed his Mahout’s shoes, and brought them to the trainer! April witnessed the whole thing, and was amazed at the intelligence this massive animal had just shown. Anyway … back to our story:

Once again, we leave our charming hotel, Baan Orapin, and travel a short distance to the local market.

Always a fascinating place for me to visit in any culture, we see the vast varieties of rice available, chickens (and their feet), and amazing varieties of food. (The pictures of the food still make my mouth water.)

(Click here if you can’t see the rest of the pictures)

Another drive, passing ladies riding with elephants in trucks, men “mowing” the rice fields, and children riding standing up on their mopeds …

… and we arrive at the Cooking Farm. We learn about the base ingredients, and spend the morning cooking up our own delicacies. It was fun, and we have a great cookbook to now try at home. The best part, of course, was eating it, with April’s favorite the papaya salad. We loved learning how many different ways you could smack, hit, crack, or crush a pepper to change the fire of a dish; and how if you ate enough lemongrass and peppers the mosquitos — so they say — would leave you alone.

After enjoying our breakfast, lunch, and (early) dinner, by 3pm we had to take off towards Lampang, about an hour and a half drive away. We went to the Riverside Guesthouse (with rooms as low as $12 a night!) and met up with my mom, Marcia, and husband Jack. The Riverside Guesthouse was beautiful … and the service and company supposedly (we stayed with our new family) was even better:

My mom freaked out as Jack and Nick rode on the bumper of the taxi, and we went to the wedding clothing rental shop. They were AMAZING … world-class clothing and makeup artists, in a smaller town outside of a small city far in a not-all-that-large country. (They quite possible did April’s hair better than anyone ever had … including all of her modeling gigs in the States!) We were the “talk of the town” and the ladies couldn’t help but stop in the store and stare as we got fitted for our clothing (yes, we look terrible!) for the next day … our Thai wedding!

Several fun hours of fitting later, we head out to dinner. The town looks like it came straight out of Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride (or would it be the Jungle Cruise?).

We at last get to meet our hosts and new family for the Thai wedding, “Papa,” Tuk, and Tom, all arranged through our local friends Jib, Noi, and Linette of the fantastic Thai This and Thai Juan On restaurants in southern California. Words can only scratch the surface of the gratitude we feel to them for setting up the next day’s more-than-amazing wedding ceremony, and their kindness — which we found throughout Thailand — was the stuff of legends. We are eternally grateful… but more on that as I cover the Thai wedding … next up!

—

Swimming with elephants. Three words that can only give a hint at how incredible of an experience we all had at Patara Elephant Camp, near Chiang Mai, Thailand.

It had been 6 days since our USA wedding — the first of four on our Wedding World Tour — and tomorrow was to be our Thai wedding ceremony. So much had already happened, it was hard to believe our first ceremony had only been a few days earlier. We were traveling with my best-friend Missy, and April’s brother, sister, and her boyfriend … and were soon to meet up with my parents. And although expensive by Thai standards, we had done lots of Tripadvisor research and finally all decided to go together to Patara Elephant Camp’s “Mahout for a Day” Program. 

We were picked up from our fabulous hotel, Baan Orapin, and 30 minutes later were staring at a beautiful field with about a dozen elephants standing around. We first learned from Pat the mission of Patara, and why most elephant camps in Thailand — although they are much less expensive — aren’t so great for the elephants. By the end we were all fully convinced that Patara was the only camp that we’d ever recommend. (There’s lots to look out for if you’re researching a camp to go for … but whatever you do, avoid the camps where the elephants are doing tricks!.) Patara’s efforts at conservation and understanding the elephant’s needs are truly impressive.

We then “suited up” and headed out to meet our elephant. My “best (wo)man” from the USA wedding, Missy, was the first sent out to her elephant. It’s a bit (okay, a lot!) intimidating to approach a 14-foot tall animal with gigantic tusks, and to essentially stick your hand in his mouth as he eats each a bunch of bananas out of your hand. It’s even more intimidating when you’re the first one of the day, with the largest elephant … but Missy did great. Even so, when I approached my elephant Maesi Noi — I have no idea how to really spell her name — it was daunting. She iss about 35 years old, pregnant, and very stubborn. Her ears weren’t flapping in happiness as we were told they should, and I took this as a bad sign. (Turns out, she just really isn’t much of an ear-flipper.)

Into her massive, wet mouth my hand (and several large groups of bananas) went. (I still have my hand, so I consider this a success.)

(If you can’t see the rest, please click through!)

We then learned about elephant poop (doesn’t smell, can tell you all sorts of things about their health, look for at least 6 droppings for a healthy elephant), how they sleep how we can tell if they got a good night’s rest, and how they sweat (toenails). We learned a few words of Thai to help “control” the elephants (not that Maesi Noi listened to one word that I said all day), had them lay down, and brushed the dirt off their skin, prior to taking them into the river and scrubbing them down.

After a surprise shower …

… we rode on the elephant’s neck for about 1.5 hours, up steep hills and down, while our elephants would try to veer off and eat anything from the side of the road they could, to a pool under a waterfall. This area was the highlight of an already amazing day.

One-by-one, we slid down the waterfall into the exceedingly cold water and swam with the happy elephants. They rolled over and over in joy, making it quite the challenge to stay out of their way. But they seemed always conscious of where we were, and apparently knew how fragile we were. No words can do justice to the experience of floating in a pool with 4 or 5 happy elephants, having them play with you, with each other, spraying water. It was truly amazing being that close to gentle, smart, giant animals.

This was followed by what I consider my best lunch in Thailand: all sorts of local-made food, mostly wrapped in banana leaves, served at a little hut near the pool. The elephants were like begging dogs, sitting just outside, awaiting a treat. At one point, a very long trunk made it’s way inside the hut, grabbing bananas off the floor in front of us. It took about 4 trainers to move her back. But soon enough, we were done, and the elephants rushed the hut while we fed them the (elephant safe) leftovers from our meal. It was pandemonium, and if one didn’t know better, they’d think that the elephants were about to overrun our place and stampede us.

Another hour-and-a-half elephant ride took us back to Patara, where I spent some time with the 5-day old baby elephant. The funny coincidence about this baby was that she was the 11th baby born at Patara. And she was born on February 11, 2011 — our wedding day. Another odd coincidence was that April and I were assigned the two elephants that appear on Patara’s logo (although in the logo, hers was a baby still).

Now, if you know us, you know that the number 11:11 is very special to April and me, and so we felt that with all these coincidences the new baby elephant should be named the Thai word for “Fate”. We sent our name suggestion to Patara … we’ll see what happens!

Next up … our Thai cooking class!!

Below … a gallery of the photos above and another 10-15 from the day. (Note: these images are a mix of the images supplied by Patara and the images that I took.)

I left off last as we had visited the umbrella-making area of Chiang Mai (northern Thailand), and here are a few overdue photos from that journey, from our flight through the silk factory:

(Click-through if you can’t see the pictures below)

Our super-amazing Emirates trip to Bangkok, yay!

Chiang Mai’s umbrella craft center

And as we moved on to the silk factory … our SURPRISE view when we looked into baskets which we thought contained silk … silkworms!

Hard to believe that the worm above makes the fantastically beautiful product below:

And for those of you who know me, it’s might be surprising to note that these are UNEDITED pictures … pretty much raw out of the camera … it was just fantastically beautiful throughout Thailand, easy to photograph.

We explored a bit more after out shopping journey, then rushed to see Doi Suthep, a temple on the hill near Chiang Mai. However, as we drove the sun set, and April and I were very, very close to turning the taxi around. We figured that heading to the temple at night was likely a waste of our time: if we could even get in (as we heard that it closed earlier), then it would not be lit. But we figured to “roll the dice” and head up there anyway. This turned out to be one of our best gambles of the trip.

When we arrived, we took a funicular car up the hill, and it seemed deserted. But as we stepped into the temple courtyard, both April and I were in complete awe. We heard the non-stop jingle of thousands — maybe tens of thousands — of windchimes, clanging in the windy night. And we saw a gold temple glowing against the sky, while Buddhist monks chanted. It was magical beyond words, a moment that I can never recreate, and yet will never forget.

My favorite media from this trip is a video of the moment, which I will figure out how to post  in due time. And of course my favorite picture was posted earlier, repeated here:

We finished our night with a fantastic $4.00 meal (total price) of yellow curry, potatoes, chicken, rice, Tom Kha Gai, sodas, and handmade ice cream at Aroon (Rai) restaurant, whose sign reads: “Unique, authentic Chiangmai and Thai foods, since 1957. No branch, either in Thailand or in foreign countries ONLY ONE HERE IN THE WORLD.”

We were exhausted, and headed home to get rest for the big day tomorrow: Patara Elephant Camp’s Mahout (elephant owner) for a Day Program.

We return to “civilization” today not as “April Malina Niedle and Jason Niedle,” but as “Saruni Ole Mpeti and Nasieku Nne Mpeti.” These are the names that have been given us by Kenya’s historic Maasai tribe in our unbelievable ceremony with them. They have adopted us into their culture, and so I return with a new brother and friend, and April with a new sister and friend, and all of us with new family, from a ceremony that was as traditional as it was deep. And while I would love now to tell the bittersweet tale of finding new family overnight, and departing from them just as quickly, I am severely lacking sleep and still needing to book a hotel in Athens, download 1000+ photos, and choose a few photos quickly to post below.

(I had this romantic notion of posting full updates and details on the blog as we went along. That, though, would have taken as much time as our experiences have, and so just these short updates for now, and longer updates with more pictures to follow.)

We are currently at Mara Serena for our last night in Kenya before heading out via Emirates to Dubai. We are safe. We are happy. We miss our new family, but they have also left us many things to think about with you, our existing family and community. For now, a couple of photos from our Maasai ceremony.

At the moment I’m sitting outside an old colonial style mansion in Kenya. It’s Monday, presumably February 21, 2011. April is napping after our overnight journey from Bangkok, I’m drinking an ice-cold Tusker beer, there’s a slight breeze, the temperature is ideal, the dog is chasing the warthogs, and several giraffes are eating from the trees a few feet away. We’re at Giraffe Manor — former home of “Out of Africa” author Karen Blixen — and life is heavenly. (Cell phone picture of the closest living being to me is below.)

Neither of us can believe that we’ve only been gone 1 week, and the experiences have been so unreal that, sitting here with the giraffes, we look back on activities only a day old and wonder “Did that really happen? Is THIS really happening?” As unreal as it feels, though, we are enjoying every moment like a wonderful dream you don’t want to awaken from.

After about 30 hours of traveling, we arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday last, and immediately flew to Chiang Mai in the north. With our amazing Emirates flight, we were actually pretty well rested and feeling healthy, so we hired our airport taxi driver, Josh, for the rest of the day (800 baht, about $24). We first took a “nap” (finally!!), and then took the tourist’s tour of Chiang Mai: the umbrella-making shop (colorful and interesting, but not so culturally authentic), then a jewelry store (turns out the taxi drivers get free gas if they bring you there, we later discovered), and a silk store. The silk shop tripped is out: inside were covered baskets with, we figured, product in them. But lo and behold, when we opened one up it was a writhing mass of worms and their silk cocoons … they were actually making silk. The scarves were of the most beautiful fabric and colors I have ever seen, but were quite expensive (around $40/each) by Thai standards.

(At this point on my writing, Lynn came over. Lynn is a 15-year old female Rothschild giraffe, about 16 feet tall. She first ate from my hand. Then, her 16-inch long tongue reached out and took from my mouth –

(and at this point, we had even more activities, all good … to be continued…))

Tomorrow is our Thai wedding (the second of 4 ceremonies in our Wedding World Tour), and we have to be up in 6 hours. I’m beyond exhausted, but I’m trying to somehow keep up on this. I know that when we go out into the Mara in Kenya we won’t have any internet, so there will be a big gap. I owe full explanations for everything — which I will do by separate posts — and lots of pictures. But for now, here’s a recap of where we’re at as well as a few unedited pictures.

Day 1 & 2: amazing flights on Emirates, blogged about earlier.

Day 3 (Feb 15): First day in Chiang Mai … took a sightseeing tour, visited the most amazing, spiritual place either of us have ever been to, Doi Suthep.

Day 4 (Feb 16): Another experience-of-a-lifetime: getting to know an elephant, cleaning her (him in April’s case), riding him to a pool, swimming with elephants in the pool (absolutely amazing!), an incredible lunch, then riding back … plus spending time with a 5-day old baby elephant, born on our first wedding day.

Day 5 (Feb 17): Today was a Thai cooking class, very fun! Then the journey to Lampang, where we met up with Mom Marcia and Jack. We got fitted for Thai wedding outfits, which was outrageous. I felt like a King, and April a Thai Princess.

Here are a few unedited pix of above:

This was the pre-flight champagne. She was amazing, we got to talk a lot and will keep in touch I’m sure… fantastic Emirates service!

All I can say was that their food was great … yes, that’s seared ahi.

I think we were REALLY lucky to get in to this temple after dark. It was amazing, more later:

The elephants were like begging dogs after lunch, because they knew that they would get our sticky rice and bananas. It was pandemonium (in the best way) as they rushed our hut to get food:

The elephants playing in the water, just feet from where I was standing:

Baan Orapin, our hotel in Chiang Mai:

Us in our Thai cooking garb at the cooking school:

Yes, I look terrible after a long day’s journey … but the suit will be amazing for our wedding tomorrow… and you’ll just have to wait and see April’s!

More as I can, leave those comments!