The most eventful part of this was the motor-trike back to the hotel. The driver drove like a maniac. Thank god for the oh-shit handles. Of the 2 lanes of one-way traffic, we were in the third lane– the dotted line separating the 2 lanes. I had images of one or both of us rolling out of the trike into traffic.. or the trike tipping over. holy.shit.
Some pretty lights that I will bring home once the girls decide which ones they like!
So as some of you may know, there was a slight issue with my 2 week reservation volunteering at Elephant Nature Park. We are volunteering the week of the 12th and the week of the 19th. Sabine’s reservation went through for both weeks but mine only went through for the 2nd week. We called this morning to confirm the Monday morning van pickup to the ENP office. I explained again that my first week reservation seemed to be dropped, so they suggested that I volunteer the first week at Elephant Nature Park for dogs. That way I can still be on the premises yet have housing; there was no housing available for elephant volunteer. I agreed to go to the ENP office at 11 a.m. since it was too late to make an online reservation.
We decided to leave a little early and arrived at the ENP office at 10:30 a.m. Who should be in the office (which is like a little tropical office space loaded with office cat and dog rescues, the resident 4 leggeds) but Lek (founder of ENP) having her picture taken with stacks of boxes of donated clothes. We saw her and she immediately smiled and said ‘You back!’ We said yes, every 2 years has been our plan. She said how nice it was to see us and we tried to scoot aside so that she cold finish with her photo-op moment. 2 young local Thai volunteers at the registration desk offered to assist us and I proceeded to tell my story again and then agree to do the first week with the ENP dog volunteer
alternative. As we were talking, sweet, tiny little Lek comes up behind our chairs and puts her arms around us to say hello. She said how she is so glad to see us again. She asked if we were volunteering again and I explained my situation aaagggain – not to get any preferential treatment but just telling her that Sabine was doing 2 weeks with the elephants and i was doing first week with the dogs and 2nd week with the elephants. And she says…
‘Oh, no, no… you can do both weeks with elephants’. And I said how I was told it was full. But she said, ‘no, no, we make room for you.’ And then I said thank you but I know there is no more housing available. And she says, ‘I always have housing for you, especially when you keep coming back…’ I stared at her, then jumped off my chair and threw my arms around her, and, of course, started crying. I could not stop saying thank you…. and she smiled and kept hugging me back. I was overwhelmed at her gracious gesture. I would NEVER ask for preferential treatment and would gladly accept working with the ENP dogs.. although my preference is the elephants. But it was like everything aligned just right at that moment: getting there 30 minutes early, running into Lek at the office, Lek recognizing us and insisting that there is enough room for me at the park. And even further more, when the 2 young men were registering us, and we said we would pay the balance now (rather than the typical Monday morning during pre-park registering) we realized that the balance was less than what we owed. When we said this, they said, ‘no, Lek told us to give you a discount’. What??? I was just filled with emotion. So, to not offend and tell her that the discount
is unnecessary, we accepted her ‘gift’. And I will be making an online donation to the park in the near future.
We had a slightly bumpy time since the start of our trip, but now everything has fallen into place. I am beyond happy!!! Thank you, Lek… angel and my heroine.
Jumping into Thai time zone… 12 hours ahead of home. Feeling a little fuzzy and happy.
Not the happiest camper. We actually arrived at the hotel by 12:00 a.m. ish on 1/9/2015. It is raining which it never does in Thailand in January. This saddens me… Frazzled and exhausted because the flight from NYC to Seoul was delayed which made us land in Seoul 5 minutes AFTER our boarding time for the 2nd leg or our trip (Seoul to Chiang Mai).
I had about 472987234987623957 hot flashes (I have noticed that some of my hot flashes can be triggered by stress) while running from arrival gate, through security (again) where the line was 43958736729768725621340685868234 people long, to the next departure gate. The whole time I think I may have been yelling that we are to miss our next flight. The entire process was very unorganized and not ‘typical’ of the Seoul airport experience.
The rest went relatively smoothly until we opened the door to our room… and it was warm, and muggy, and 2 post-grad graduates could not figure out how to turn on a single light switch in the room. In fact, some seemed to be missing… I was ready call the front desk, but not only could I not see the phone, but the power to the phone was also off.
I’m not sure what made Sabine think to put our keycard into a little slot by the entry way to our room, but when she did, the lights went on, the air-conditioning turn on, the mini-fridge turned on… I guess this is a slightly clever idea so that guests do not lose their keys so easily AND they are forced to shut off the power when the leave the room. But it would have been nice if this was explained to us.
This deluxe room seems to be 2 deluxe’s less than the last 2 times we were here and I have to be standing in the hallway or near our toilet (which is nearest to the hallway) in order to get an internet connection. Skyping is loud and disruptive on a 12 hour time difference, but whatevs.
I (we) am (are) showered and clean and ready to comfortably rest on our beds while we loosely plan our next couple of days before volunteering…
over and out.
million indentations of happiness 