I woke up this morning still feeling the effects of the food poisoning so I reluctantly pushed back my plans yet another day.

At noon I had to checkout of the guesthouse I was staying in as they were fully booked and I moved next door to another one.

It’s funny that I’m in this little ocean side beach resort town and I’ve literally been outside my room a total of 2 hours in the last two days.

And one of those hours was when I had the meal that most likely put me in this predicament.

By the late afternoon I was actually starting to feel pretty weak and it dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten anything except for a few crackers and cookies in almost 48 hours.

I felt like I was up to it so I headed out into the afternoon sun to a restaurant down the street.

A different restaurant.

And no seafood this time!

I ordered some fried rice and also some chicken soup.   I ate the rice but I think I might be gunshy with food now as I left the soup on the table untouched.   It just didn’t look right.

I also took a ham and cucumber sandwich with me for later.

After a nice long, hot shower I actually felt remarkably better.

So, once again – really a do nothing and heal up day – not much to report…

Oh, wait…

There was that whole HUGE decision I made…

[blockquote type=”center”]I’m going to spend a week volunteering at an elephant nature park![/blockquote]

A few days ago I met Lee, Emma and Laura from the UK and they had just come back from their volunteering stint.   Hearing them talk about it, I knew instantly that this was something I was going to do too.

The park is in northern Thailand in Chiang Mai and the route I was taking through Cambodia and Laos would have planted me there at the beginning of April.

Of course, there were no openings for April but I did see openings for May.   I started brainstorming a way to rearrange my trip to get there in May instead.

And then today, when visiting the website again, I noticed they had an opening for March 10th – just 9 days away.

Hmmm… could I swing this?

I’ve always maintained it’s better to travel without having to be in a certain place at a certain time and, certainly, making a commitment for 2 months from now would always have that time clock running in the background.

If I went now though I could just do it and then be free to go where and when I want from there on out.

And then in a brief moment of clarity I changed my plans for next week.   Instead of traveling on the Mekong Delta over to Cambodia from Ho Chi Minh City I’m going to fly to Chiang Mai instead!

I’m still going to visit everywhere I was going to – just in a different order.   Once I’m done in Chiang Mai I’ll head over to Laos, down to Cambodia and then over to Bangkok before heading down to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore as I had originally planned.

The only thing I miss out on in the Mekong Delta tour but that’s okay cause I’M GOING TO LIVE IN AN ELEPHANT NATURE PARK!!!

I booked the week at the nature park for 12,000 baht ($410) and booked a couple of flights for next Saturday to Bangkok and then directly on to Chiang Mai for about $180.

I’m so excited to go!   And I think it’s right at the perfect time as a week hanging out with elephants and (hopefully) a bunch of cool people is just what’s needed after tackling this whole food poisoning thing.