Our Trip’s Second-Tier Top 11 Experiences

Well, we’re home. It was a wonderful trip, but we’re happy to be back in the comfort of the United States. But before we get back to the reality of work (or seeking it), I wanted to give you a sampling of our top experiences overall. I’ve broken this into two posts. Below are our second-tier experiences, those that were great but just short of incredible. The next post will have our top nine, the experiences we’ll definitely never forget. 

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Laotian Branding, or Why I Rode an Elephant in Laos

When I was a pre-adolescent, I attended a middle/grammar school called Frank Antonides School. FAS had all the things a school should have, except a good music program. A violinist, I played the flute and oboe parts in everything, usually as the only “flute” or “oboe” in a sea of boys blasting brass trumpets and emptying spit valves on the floor. One song that I was particularly fond of was a little ditty called the “Baby Elephant Walk.” It consisted of a dainty melody for flute that conjured images of tiny pink elephants parading in a neat line, trunks linked for safety’s sake. It’s either that, or the image of elephants running in herds in the Serengeti, that I have in my head when I think of elephants. Now that I have ridden an elephant, I can safely cast those images away.