A few words from me before we call it a night......
Today Eva, Nok, Peter (a visiting prof. from Ryerson University) and I visited an elephant training centre and hospital where these huge mammals are housed,trained and cared for. We had the opportunity to see them bathe in a river and show off the skills they used to use in the logging industry. Machines have taken over their work as loggers now and caring for Thailand's 4,500 mostly unemployed elephants has become somewhat of a costly proposition. I've included a picture of a patient in their hospital whose foreleg was badly injured when she stepped on a land mine at the Burmese border.
Later we visited a large ceramics factory which supplies Pier 1 in Canada. We came away with many samples. The picture shows us happily displaying our ceramic bird houses which we'll somehow have to bring home in our hand luggage, I guess. On the way home to Chiang Mai from these 2 places in Lamphang, we stopped at a local fresh food market. Among the fascinating foods being offered for sale were plastic baggies full of live gigantic frogs. No, we only bought fried bananas ! We were too tired upon our return to go to the humungous weekly Sunday night market-I can't believe I said "uncle" on that activity. There's always next Sunday!
Tomorrow we get down to work-we've interviewed 51 students and chosen 10 who will be going to Canada in April .They're to spend 2 weeks at the LBPSB school of international studies working on their English and then 2 more weeks attending various classes at Ryerson University in Toronto. One of our jobs here is to prepare them for this trip. As well, on Monday afternoon Eva, Nok , Peter and I will travel to Mae Hong Son province at the northeastern tip of Thailand to scope out it's tourism potential .We'll get back here on Thursday and let you know how it went. Talk to you later.....
Jean