ElephantStay

A few years ago I spent some time at ElephantStay in Ayuthaya, Thailand.  It's a non-profit that rescues and rehabilitates elephants.  You're assigned to an elephant and care for it during your stay.  My elephant was Ramruay.  It was really interesting bonding with her, and seeing how she really began to recognize me after a few days.  They also had a number of baby elephants that would travel around like a pack of 500 pound puppies, constantly getting into mischief.  For example, one night, they took all of the clothes that we had left out on the clotheslines overnight.  I just received an e-mail that Ramruay had a baby.  You can see pictures of her and her daughter at http://www.elephantstay.com/Elephant-nursery-2011.html.  I highly recommend a visit there if you have at least three days.  It's not cheap, but it's a lot of fun and the money goes to a good cause.  Here are a few pictures from my visit there.

Ramruay:

The babies:

 

Singapore

Two friends and I attended a conference in Singapore last weekend.  Unfortunately the only direct flights from Dhaka arrive at 4:15 a.m., but we had booked our hotel for the night before and were able to sleep until breakfast.   Since we had one free day until the conference started, we met up with my friend Randy for a tour of the city.  He lives in the new marina area, which we toured first.  Chinese New Year is the next week, so we then went to Chinatown to see the decorations and booths.  Then it was off to the shopping malls for cameras and electronics.

The conference got off to a bad start.  The host school didn’t have any signage to direct us anywhere, and no coffee or breakfast to start the day.  They did offer to sell us coffee though.  At lunch, after very long lines, there was only water to drink.  Apparently they didn’t realize that hosting a conference or sporting event is a way to show off your school and make people want to enroll/work there, and not a way to make people think you're cheap and disorganized.  They must have received a lot of complaints because the food and beverages improved dramatically the second day.  The purpose of the conference was to introduce us to changes in our subject areas for the upcoming school year.  All of us found the conference to be quite successful in that respect.

I had not previously been a fan of Singapore.  I found it too sterile and commercial, and lacking in the energy I sense in the rest of Asia.  Having the chance to spend a longer time there, and now being a resident of a developing country, my opinion has changed.  The restaurants were fantastic.  I was able to purchase everything I needed for school and for my upcoming juice fast.  It definitely helped to have a friend to show us around as well.

Here are some pictures of Marina Bay and Chinatown.  Don't be fooled by the sunny skies.  After the first nice day, it pretty much rained constantly for the next three days.  And forget about getting a cab in Singapore if it is raining.