Phi Phi and paint

Our last day of adventure tour might just as well have been the best. Pouring cement in the monsoon in Mae Sai seems miles away right now as I write this poolside in the sun. I'm definitely not ready to leave the beautiful beaches, but I feel satisfied with Thailand. The promise of my own bed, a legitimate pizza, and Seattle sun have me feeling ready to come home. I explained to someone last night that Thailand just didn't connect with me like Africa did, I can't explain it. Either that makes me ready to leave after 4 weeks or my current physical condition does. My ankle still hurts to walk, I am now sunburned to a nice even crisp, and I just wrapped up a head cold that has turned into a mean laryngitis. It's pretty pathetic.

Alright, now to our last day. It was our day to snorkel at Phi Phi Island, which to me just screams Thailand. I didn't realize it was going to be an all day experience. We got out on the boat bright and early at 8am and cruised an hour or two to our first snorkeling spot. Our snorkeling guide was a notably good-looking Spaniard named Albert. Actually he was from Barcelona so he made sure to clarify that he was Catalan, not Spanish. I sat and chatted with him here and there throughout the day, but he was so good-looking it was intimidating. But I could have looked at him all day. And thankfully he took our snorkeling group out so I got to.

Unfortunately the first snorkel stop was too choppy to be enjoyable. A few people got sick before we even got there, then more got sea sick in the water. We cut it short and went back to the boat when it was too rough to be fun or see anything. Then after we got back on board we headed to Phi Phi island for a quick look see before lunch, and the waters eventually got even worse. About 20 min before the island the Captain told all of us to go down below because it was going to get really windy and rough. So we gathered all our things and went down below in the bow, where we proceeded to get even more sick. But if I had been up top I would have possibly fallen overboard we were rocking and tipping so dramatically. So far as I know I don't get sea sick, I haven't yet even while it was rough. However being down below and watching the water disappear and reappear into view as the boat tipped made me a little queasy. People were literally sprawled out on the benches and the floor, eyes closed, praying for it to end or to not vomit. But as soon as we hit terra firma we immediately felt better.

Phi Phi Island was INCREDIBLE. Nirvana. Remember I was writing about Sombop's discussion about different levels of heaven? This was definitely at least the second level. I told the scuba instructors I didn't want to get back on the boat, I wanted to be left here. Then hot Albert said "do you know how expensive it is to stay here? At least 1000 bhat a night." I had to keep myself from laughing as I did the mental math, 1000 bhat = about $30. Sounds good to me. We only had an hour on the island to shop or hang out on the beach. The place was packed with tourists and consequently had some pretty good shopping. I bargained my way through the place and picked up some odds and ends. I have this bargaining thing down to a science; later that night a few girls even had me bargain for them for night out clothes. After a half hour of shopping for more cheap things I don't need it was time to beach. That's when I spent the best 30 minutes of the trip on one of the best beaches I have ever seen. Rivaling Mozambique even. A couple girls and I walked way out into the water and it never got deeper than our knees. So we just sat in the sand with the water to our chests, floating and playing.

I can't believe we only had an hour there. At the pier getting back on the boat we saw the ISV Thailand coordinator, a guy named Chad, just getting onto the island. We may or may not have suggested that he scrap the hill tribe trek and let future groups spend a couple nights on Phi Phi instead. I don't think he realized we were serious... or at least I was...

After lunch the seas were much more manageable and the second snorkeling spot was gorgeous. Turquoise sea, lots of coral and brightly colored fish, etc. Nothing thrilling but it seemed to go by quickly so I know I enjoyed it. Then it was an uneventful 2 hour boat ride back to Railay. Mae suggested we get cleaned up and meet for dinner later, then go to what she called a "body paint party" at a bar for the night. None of us knew what to expect from this, we just knew we needed clothes that could get dirty. I went with a few girls to the small nearby market to buy neon pants and cheap white tops so we could get painted and hopefully glow under the black light. Thankfully it worked out perfectly.

Mae arranged for us all to have a final dinner together at a place called the Last Bar on the east side of the island. My group had been there the night before and loved it, they had watched a fire show there and were raving about it. Dinner wasn't bad, I was a little ashamed that I ordered Indian food for my last meal in Thailand. But the idea of more Thai food right now makes me gag. I need a serious break from phad thai. Then we all migrated over to a little deck area where we sat on cushions and drank embarrassingly tropical drinks. While there Mae broke out the lantern we'd been carrying around for the last week. The deal is you light a bottom portion on fire, which fills the paper lantern with hot air until it slowly floats away. We all gathered around and watched it fill with air and made some wishes. But when we let it go it made it about 6 feet up then came crashing down into the adjacent water. I guess there was a hole in it, it was so anticlimactic. And the worst part was that everyone had watched us crowd around this thing and then it completely flopped.

Then around 1030 the fire show started. A dj played a bunch of skrillex and other house music while 4 or 5 local guys twirled flaming batons and chains in really fast patterns. The others were right, it was pretty epic.

After the fire show wrapped up the dj kept playing and our group of 20 started our own little dance party. The bar brought out cups of neon paint for us to splatter all over each other and things got wild. We were all crowded around the dj dancing, flailing paint, and taking pictures. Eventually a group of what I think were 4 young lady boys semi joined in and danced in our periphery for a while. Then I got passed some pink paint and continued to splatter people when I think a lady boy got caught in my cross hairs... He/She just froze and started inspecting the one or two spots of pink, watery paint looking all pissed off. Then the rest of them started looking pissed and went off to pout at a table. That's when I passed Mae my cup of paint and slipped into the dancing fray to avoid the potential wrath of the lady-boys.

Soon after I noticed a guy sitting nearby on his own. Earlier I had done the Dougie with this guy (or tried to) and chatted with him for a bit. Then another girl swooped in and I just kept dancing. But I pointed him out to Alexandra, and she marched over to him and told him to come dance with everyone. Then she tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around she was basically presenting him to me. It was so embarrassing but you have to hand it to the girl, she's a ballsy wingwoman. His name was Govid and he was from the bay area, backpacking on his own through Thailand for 3 weeks. He was there with a collection of other single backpackers he'd met along his way and I chatted with a few of them. His English friend Ben was for some reason convinced I had an Irish accent. I insisted I didn't but eventually we conceded that I at times used Irish inflection. Sounds like someone I know...

We stayed at the bar much later than I'd anticipated and I was one of the last few to leave. When the other 5 girls said they were going I said my goodbyes to Ben and Govid and headed home. Then we decided to go wash the worst of the paint off by jumping in the ocean, and I ran back to invite the boys along. Govid joined us and we crossed the island and went straight into the water. It was incredible out, it was nearly a full moon which reflected off the water and lit up everything. The beach was empty and the place was silent. It could not have been a more amazing moment. Govid and I chatted into the early morning comparing stories about giant Thai spiders and weird Thai encounters, joined by a lonely black cat who wanted to cuddle. It was a truly memorable last night in Thailand.

Sunday/Monday: I will call him Squishy

The reason we got up and left so early the next day was because of the tides. We were set to drive another 3 hours to Phuket where we would pick up a boat to take us on our next leg. On the way though we would stop to sea kayak through some caves to some hidden lagoons. But the tide needed to be out to get through the caves, so our time table was tight.

When I woke up my cold had progressed severely. I felt like death warmed over, even if it was only in my nose/throat. Thankfully someone passed me some dayquil, so I only felt like crap during the bus ride. By the time we'd loaded the big boat I was almost functional. We cruised on the Andaman sea for about an hour until we reached one of many tall, miniature limestone islands. This is when we broke out the kayaks and paddled around until we found the cave. It was pitch black and lacking a headlamp I had to paddle through with my flashlight in my teeth. I felt kind of bad-ass but probably just looked really stupid. Once through the cave we came across a shallow lagoon where we took some pictures and watched these things called mudfish flop around. They are fish with 2 front legs who crawl around in the muck and survive out of water by holding some in their mouths. I have a feeling we covered these fish in some zoology class.

Going into the cave...

This process continued for a few more caves, one of which we got to get out of the kayaks and walk through. But at that point all I wanted to do was swim. The water was so incredibly warm, I'd been looking forward to it the entire time. But once we disembarked on a tiny stretch of sand and got in the water Heather felt something... then I felt something... squishy. We were convinced it was little jelly fish, so we bolted back to shore. Then a few other girls felt it and we migrated down the beach a little. This worked for a bit, then another squishy thing grazed me. Even if they weren't stinging us I still didn't really feel like swimming with jellies. So it was back in the kayaks and to the big boat for lunch.

A smooth 2 hour boat ride later we arrived at a slightly bigger small island, this one called Koh Yao Noi I believe. There we took our overnight bags and headed down the road to our accommodation for the night. This place had a pretty beach, hot weather, and lots of hammocks. It would have been great except the island was a Muslim community. Now I'm all for cultural experiences, but this meant all the girls having to cover their knees and shoulders. I was so incredibly hot. And that also meant no swimming or sunning unless you wanted to do so in your full clothes. Such a waste of a good beach. I spent the rest of the day in a lightweight tshirt and a sarong tied around my waist--as beachy as I could get.

After another cold shower, this one refreshing though, it was hammock time until dinner. Mae talked at length about our schedule for the next few days while we watched the men bbq us piles of amazing kebobs, which we sat there and watched get cold. Torture. And once we finally got a shot at it all and sat down with our plates, the power went out. I'm talking pitch black except for the light of a passing motorbike. We hung headlamps on whatever we could find and made due.

The problem wasn't eating in the dark, the problem was our plans for the rest of the night: a Muay Thai demonstration after dinner. No lights = no boxing. Luckily right as a motorcycle gang of boxers pulled up the power came back on. We cleared the tables away and set our chairs in a circle. Then the guys did some sparring and had us come up to try some punches/kicks. I was so looking forward to this but at the time my ankle hurt too much to kick anything and my nose was too stuffy to breathe. Claudia went up there and showed us all how it's done. I really need to take a kickboxing class next quarter. I don't like the idea of getting hit but I like the hitting part.

Once the boxing wrapped up I took some nyquil and was out early. The next morning we were back to the big boat by 8am for another round of kayaking. This time our guide took us to some island off Krabi to kayak through a mangrove swamp. It was a legitimate maze, but this time I was steering in the back of the kayak while Megan was the engine up front. It was a lot more relaxing with no wind and no waves to fight, just zig zagging through an eerie mangrove forest. In all I think it was about 2 hours. Then we set sail again for another swimming spot, on the way to which the boat broke down. No one knew what was going on except we stopped, dropped anchor, and the crew started yelling at each other in Thai. Maybe 20 minutes later they finally got it going again.

At the swimming island they dropped anchor away from the shore and told us we could swim there or kayak to the beach or into another lagoon. I was all for jumping off and swimming until someone pointed over the side to the water. There were large, white, bowling ball sized jellyfish swimming around and under the boat. Even though they weren't poisonous according to the captain, I got in the first kayak I could and paddled to the beach. There 6 of us hung out in the warm water with the captain and Mae.

Then the captain, Tom, brought us over a dead jellyfish he'd found on the shore. For some reason this fascinated us and we played with it for good half hour. We took pictures with it, threw it at each other, ripped holes in it. Don't ask me why we were so enthralled. We named it squishy. When we got back to the boat we started throwing pieces of the now shredded jelly at our unsuspecting comrades.

An hour of incredibly rocky seas later we made it Railay beach. I tried to video how badly the boat was rocking, mostly because I kept thinking "mom would be throwing herself overboard right now" but I'm not sure you can really see it. Immediately after I stopped recording this we hit a large wave and multiple trays of watermelon went flying towards me. I don't know how that doesn't make me sick but airplanes do. It makes no sense.

Railay is a lot smaller than I imagined. I had pictured a long, touristy beach in a bay. Instead it's a relatively small strip of sand on both the east and west sides of the island. We had to take 3 long tail boats from our boat to the shore. Then since the tide was way out we had to transfer to a tractor to take us up the sand. There we gathered our luggage and had to walk it from the east shore 5 minutes across to the west shore. Not a difficult task except for the guys pouring cement in the middle of the path... We had to pick up our humongo bags and haul them past all the wet cement and construction to our resort. I just kept thinking TIA.

Once we'd found our bungalows we dropped our bags and ran straight to the pool. The pool was small but clean, and relatively cool. After a while my group gave up on it and walked over to the ocean instead. Believe it or not it was significantly warmer. The Andaman sea I believe is part of the Indian Ocean, which explains why I loved it so much. This is still by far my favorite ocean, shockingly warm with big, calm waves. I spent a good while out there until it was time to take a shower and get dressed for dinner.

The whole group met up with Mae at 6 to watch the sunset over Railay. This turned into a photo shoot (as tends to happen with so many girls) with the beach and sunset. But at the end of our time here I expected no less. We walked to the east for some dinner, and on the path I found a wad of American $20 blowing along the ground. I picked them up, then stood there calling "hello? Any Americans?" looking for someone either shopping nearby or perhaps looking for something. I waited for a while and the shop keepers all started coming up to me like I wanted to buy something. Then I decided to just move on and donate it later. Perhaps to DEPDC or the elephant nature park. I need the karma. Now after dinner I've gone home early instead of the bar to get some rest tonight. Tomorrow we are boating to the super famous Phi Phi Island for snorkeling. Here's hoping I can kick this cold in time to enjoy that and a real night out tomorrow--our last real night in Thailand.

On probably the 20th try we finally got one of me in the air. We need practice

Thurs/Fri/Sat: Good-bye Chiang Mai

I'm pretty sure the only thing that got us through the trekking weekend was the promise of a free day upon our return to Chiang Mai. And as if that wasn't enough, our free day was going to start with program-included Thai massages. Now if you've been reading you know that the DEPDC crew is old hat at Thai massages now. This was going to be my fifth and final massage, so I went big. I opted for a 2 hour Thai massage followed by a facial and pedicure. I believe I was there 3.5 hours.

The spa ISV works with is pretty fabulous, better than any we visited in Mae Sai. You would never know it was staffed by ex convicts. There is a massage place at the Chiang Mai women's prison that trains inmates to  be masseuses upon release, and apparently this is an off shoot of that. Interesting right? The only time I got a little nervous was when she was cracking my neck... Even with all the added services I got out of the spa for under $10. That is one thing I'm going to definitely miss about Thailand. This would be the perfect place to retire, once here you spend practically nothing.

I did some writing and some napping for the rest of the day. Then we all headed back to the everything restaurant for one last taste of deliciously unhealthy western food. Then it was off to the night market! Thank goodness I put this off until the last night otherwise I probably would have kept going back and bought way too much. It was 3 large streets that shut down every night to transform into a knock off-filled Thai market. The walk there was longer than expected, it was over by the major hotels, and the streets were lined with bars with hookers and lady-boys waiting at the entrances. There was also about an equal number of old. white guys probably there for one reason.

Our large group of girls paired off and split up to spend a good 1.5 hours at the market. I bought some more weird Thai pants and some fake Ray Bans (my sunglasses broke in my bag a few days ago) to take down south. I'm going to miss Chiang Mai, so far if I could go back to any place in Thailand it would be there. But I'm so looking forward to some beach time  down south.

Friday we flew to Phuket, which even at the airport was packed with tourists. But beach going tourists this time, not the backpacker types like up north. It was mostly couples, likely here to honeymoon. Seriously, couples everywhere. From there we took a 3 hour bus ride out to Khao Sok, a rain forest and national park. According to Mae this rain forest is older and more diverse than the Amazon, something about the ice age didn't cover this area with glaciers like it did the Amazon so the rain forest went undisturbed. It's beautiful up here, huge limestone cliffs with all sorts of tropical plants and trees growing on the rock face. From a distance it looks like moss on a rock, but it's really forest on a rock.

When we finally arrived at our lodge we realized we were legitimately in the jungle. This time along a really warm, clear river. And as soon as we got to our tree house room we found the first of many bugs. It was a cockroach on my bed's mosquito net... I knew we were in for some nasty surprises when Mae advised us to come get anyone at reception to kill bugs for us should we find any. Most of us took full advantage of this offer. First thing I did was get someone to come get the cockroach, but it ran away and either escaped or was hiding in our room for 2 days. I chose to believe It made it out the window, but I kept my bag zipped the whole time just in case. Then later that night Tegan found a giganto spider in our bathroom. I didn't even look, just ran, but I was told it was about the size of a hand. I went with her to reception to retrieve someone, and the guy there said "it's ok, you can touch it." To this I responded, "no, you can touch it." Then when the guy walked into our bathroom he looked a little surprised and just said "Oh..." which was a little validating. Then finally, as we're packing to leave Sunday morning we find a scorpion in our bathroom. A little one, it looked a little like a crayfish, but a scorpion no less. I just wanted out of that jungle, I was done with the place.

Unfortunately we spent 2 nights there because we were going on a lake tour Saturday. We took Thai long tail boats around a pretty massive lake that's surrounded by limestone cliffs and rain forest. It's a man made lake, so you could still see the tops of large trees that had once grown there poking out from the lake's surface. The long tail boats were long and narrow, we sat 2 to a bench all the way down to keep it balanced. And boy did they need balancing, it was precarious getting in and out. But the sun was out and the lake water spray was warm so it was pretty relaxing. We even took a swim in the middle of the lake. I'd like to day I was the first one out of the boat and eventually everyone followed.

We wrapped up the day by getting lunch at a floating restaurant in the middle of the lake. I wouldn't really call it floating though, it was just perched on one of the many small islands in the lake. Then we spent a couple hours sunning and swimming there, which is where we all fried to a crisp. Especially the tops of my legs and half of my knees, likely because of sitting on the boat all morning too. Sometimes I forget how close we are to the equator and forget to sunscreen the parts that don't normally burn. Except here everything burns. Hopefully it will crisp up into a nice little tan by the time I'm home.

I was exhausted that night, slept most of the ride home even. Pure exhaustion and sunburn. Not to mention the start of a nasty cold, my nose is all sorts of stuffed up. But it was up and at em before dawn the next day--the tour must go on.

Monday: "This sucks... but it's kinda fun.": Team Sassy

Sometimes I start to feel really mundane. Then I trek 10km... up a mountain... through the jungle... in the rain... with a sprained ankle.

And it was absolutely miserable.

Our trek involved hiking 10km, almost all straight uphill, through the jungle hills of northern Thailand to visit some remote hill tribe villages. One day up, one night at an outpost at the top, and one half day down. The drive out to the trail head for some reason reminded me of Forrest Gump in Vietnam, which then reminded us of Forrest's description of monsoon rain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2ihL_FrFPs). That pretty much sums up our time at the wall in the rain. And some of the trek.

To start, I stayed in the back with the self proclaimed slow group (which we named Team Sassy) comprised of 5 or 6 non-hiking ladies like myself. Though I would argue my taking it easy was more a product of my hurt ankle. This was probably the worst thing one could do to a sprained ankle. I taped it to oblivion and wore good stiff shoes, but every time my ankle bent in the direction it rolled, like on a rock, it hurt like crazy. What made it even worse was the slippery mud we encountered about half way in. I'm pretty sure I only fell on my butt once. At first the hike with Team Sassy was kind of fun and funny. As Tegan so aptly put it "This sucks...... but it's kinda fun." Shortly thereafter one girl fell in the mud, and the girl behind her laughed so hard she peed herself. No joke. Or as the Brits call it, she "wee'd." We were taking our time at the back, taking lots of pictures and falling all over ourselves as it slowly started to rain harder and the path started to get more and more slippery. Then I fell, and instead of laughing everyone behind me just went quiet. That was the point in the hike when falling went from being hilarious to sucking.

Minus the rain it would have been an amazing hike; super tough with all the steep hills but the views were incredible. We didn't get to see much of them though as we walked the whole way looking down to be sure of our footing. By 10km and probably 5 hours of this we were wet, muddy, and miserable. So miserable. We were so grateful to reach the outpost even though it was about as rustic as it gets.

The place was raised on stilts and seemingly built entirely of bamboo. The floors, for example, were bamboo beams covered with flattened bamboo slats. We were all convinced that at least one of us was going to break through the floor that night. And every time you stepped the bamboo boards would give significantly or shift so it probably seemed more treacherous than it was. Otherwise it was bare minimum, no hot water, no electricity, not even full walls. Basically camping.

However there were 2 kittens and a couple cats running around the place that kept me entertained. We ate dinner of mashed potatoes and grilled chicken and Claudia and I fed our scraps to the cats at our feet. Then we all gathered around a fire and chatted on the floor until eventually everyone passed out from exhaustion around 930. I found out once we moved to our beds that the floor mats were significantly more comfortable than the beds. And even though I'm proud of myself for making it through and not complaining all that much at the time, basically we were hating life for the day.

The awesome floor cushions and drying our shoes by the fire

Tuesday: Good morning paradise!

I didn't sleep particularly well during our night at the Lahu outpost. I had dreams that there were ants in our bed and woke up completely disoriented and panicked. I heard later that Megan had found a giganto spider in her room on the other side of the outpost, which thankfully she told no one about until we had left. We were essentially sleeping outside so we could have woken up to anything on our mosquito nets. Thankfully all I woke up to was morning dew and the sound of rain outside. Then I heard Tegan next door going outside and simply saying "Good morning paradise!" in a loud, overtly sarcastic tone. It was both hilarious and unnerving as I laid there in my moist bed thinking 'oh great....'

Tegan called it. I opened our door to a fogged in, drizzly, miserable morning. It made for some amazing views later but was also so unbelievably muddy. That mixed with steep downhills the whole way made for a slippery mess. We were taking bets on who would slip first. I was legit scared of injuring myself it was so slippery, you should have seen how I inched down those hills. And the downhill was not good on my ankle, I was in so much pain but I had no choice but to go down. God forbid I stay another night in the hills. It was truly miserable.

A small ray of sunshine was that a puppy from the Lahu village followed/led us all the way down to the waterfall. Then a grown dog that looked just like him took over guiding us the rest of the way from there. It was adorable, reminded me of the dogs in Mozambique that would walk you all the way home at night.

Once the ordeal was finally over we met with the vans at the end of the trail and drove straight to white water rafting. There we ate lunch and got changed into our rafting clothes just as it started to drizzle again. By the time we were on the river it was a light rain, but for the most part we didn't even notice. Having white water rafted 2 or 3 times before I was pretty comfortable with it and went in a boat with some nervous first-timers. As an offshoot of Team Sassy we were Boat Sassy. We did 10km down the river, including four class 4 rapids and a couple of swims outside the raft. I'll admit the class 4's were pretty scary at times but it was awesome. I will never miss a chance to river raft.

We came back to cold showers at beautiful eco lodge. It was at the foot of the hills in a Lisu village (called Lisu Lodge) nestled right up against rice patties. It rained the rest of the night as I hung out and bonded with the girls from the other project.

Wednesday: Elephant kisses part II

We were all pretty excited for this day, even though us Africa ladies had already been to an elephant reserve. But first our trekking guide joined us back at Lisu Lodge to take us through the surrounding Lisu village. He brought us to a shaman's house (witchdoctor/spiritual healer) which I was looking forward to. However, yet again, it was a little disappointing. The tour guide talked the entire time about what the shaman does when someone in the village comes to him while the shaman and his wife looked on. They literally sat there staring, not understanding the English and with nothing to add or demonstrate. Like I said, a little bit of a let down. But then it was on to the elephant nature reserve.

The park was started by a tiny hill tribe woman named Lek, which means small in Thai I think. Once there we were able to feed two elephants and look around the massive reserve before lunch. The two elephants we got were best friends, Maedo (mae=girl, do=limp) who had had her hips broken in a forced breeding program, and Maelenna (don't remember what lenna means) who was completely blind. Poor Maedo looked completely crippled and had an awkward, painful looking gait which really broke our hearts. She also preferred to eat bananas and refused the squash we offered her.

Maedo's hips (and Megan creeping)

Then it was off to lunch, which was a gigantic vegetarian buffet, complete with huge plates. Challenge accepted. I took a little bit of everything at the beginning, only to fill my plate before I hit the noodles. I had to pile those on top. We had all gotten a little overexcited and ultimately couldn't even eat a majority of the food we'd gotten. I blame the large plates. But I'm pretty sure they gave the scraps to all the dogs.

One thing I loved about this place was that it had also recently developed into a dog shelter. There were massive floods in Bangkok not long ago and they opened up a shelter for all the stray dogs that were displaced. Most were deformed in some way, missing eyes or legs, it was so sad. But they were just roaming free with the elephants and volunteers. It was quite the scene. If anyone is looking for a dog, there are hundreds and they're all fixed, vaccinated, and being adopted out.

After lunch it was on to what we were all waiting for: bathing elephants in the river. We got two new ones whose names I don't remember, and with our buckets we splashed them incessantly with river water. I got hit a few times in the face by someone on the other side of the ele throwing their water a little too high. Mae and our guide stood on the shore and took pictures for all of us, each with 10 cameras hanging off their arms.

Finally we finished our time there by going to visit Lek. Our guide led us out to the middle of a field where a small herd of elephants were circled around an older baby. There were people with cameras around it, and once we got close enough we saw that Lek and another woman were sitting under the baby's legs singing to it. It looked like Lek was being interviewed for something by the other woman, then they took pictures of her sitting with the herd. We were all quietly watching from a distance, a line of falongs in the middle of the field with cameras in hand. I hadn't been much for touristy "take a picture of me with an elephant!" photos all day, mostly because I already had some. But as we're watching this herd eat around Lek and the baby, the guide walks up behind me, takes my camera and says to me "this is a great shot, turn around!" And she was right:

Immediately after this a mahout brought up one of the elephants to give us kisses. Everyone for the most part got nice, dainty cheek, neck, even forehead kisses. Then she decided to eat my face. Elephant makeout. This picture is getting blown up and hung on a wall as soon as I get home.

Full contact

It was amazing to get back to the Imm Hotel in Chiang Mai and take a properly hot shower. I scrubbed all the mud/elephant poop off my feet and now I almost feel human again. I'm headed back out to the everything restaurant for a chicken burger and fries (don't judge me, Thai food for the next week after this) then I believe we'll go back to Zoe Yellow. This time I will be extremely careful of curbs.

Charming Buddha

Yep, just a sprain. And I spent the morning at the Chiang Mai hospital to figure that out. However it was quite the cultural experience. This place was so incredibly organized and efficient, and best of all cheap! I spent 900 baht to see a doctor, get a prescription anti-inflammatory/pain meds, and bandages. That comes out to about $30 which I could never do in the states. It took about an hour to go through the whole system. First you go to a registration station, then they send you to specialty department, in my case orthopedics. Each specialty had their own set of exam rooms and nurses. Everyone spoke English and were dressed in the nicest scrubs I have ever seen. Then you pay at the cashier and by the time you sign the receipt your prescription is ready and paid for. It was such a smooth system, I was done in about an hour.

From there Mae and I went to meet up with the rest of the group. I had missed visiting one temple but we caught them at the second. I would have rather just met them at lunch as we're getting really sick of random temples. I'm not Buddhist, if it's not pretty or historic I don't care. But at least lunch was good, a buffet at a really nice Chiang Mai hotel. We found "western food" or bread, pasta and potatoes at one station and all gravitated there. I ate bits of other foods like sushi but spent most of my time on potatoes. No surprise there.

At this point about half of the group bailed and just wanted to go nap at the hotel. But the best and one of the most famous temples in Chiang Mai was up next, so I stayed on even though it was still really painful to walk around. I'm glad I did since the tour guide there helped us figure out our Buddha and we got fortunes and blessings. Apparently the day of the week you're born corresponds with a certain kind of Buddha. Mine is Monday, the charming Buddha. My color that day is yellow (I'm not making this up, it was in a book) which also means charming and lovely, and my year's animal is the horse symbolizing good business sense.

After this we were encouraged to go try the fortune sticks. It's a jar full of numbered sticks that you pray over, then shake until one stick falls out. You can pray questions or just pray for a fortune in general. The number that fell out for me was 23, and the 23rd fortune/prediction answered everything I had been asking. It was absolutely uncanny, or at least the English summary was. I then asked our tour guide to read the Thai portion, which turned out to be a poem that went into greater detail. Thankfully mine was very positive--my luck should be turning around soon, and apparently I should go into business?--but a few got really grim ones about impending bad luck. I'm going to see if Mae can write down the translation for me so I can remember it, like when you keep a good fortune from a fortune cookie.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped by silk and jade factories to do some shopping. Silk doesn't thrill me, especially knowing that they kill the poor worms. But I did find a few jade bracelets. Apparently jade brings luck, happiness, and health and after the last few months let's hope that's true. The shopping continued with something called Chiang Mai's Walking Street, which is apparently a gigantic street market every Sunday. It's right outside our hotel so we all spent the rest of the night eating Thai street food (really good phad see ew this time) and wandering from stand to stand. The place was packed, especially with foreigners. I was really surprised how many French tourists were there, everywhere I went I heard French. Next most might be British.

To wrap it up I didn't buy anything and we've spent the rest of the evening packing for the next few days. Tomorrow we leave for a 2 day trek to visit some of the remote hill tribes. It's going to  be a 5+ hour hike up a mountain, ending at a rustic lodge for the night. The next day we hike back down and on our way to white water rafting (yay!). Finally the day after that we're seeing and bathing elephants at a elephant nature park. It should be a pretty epic few days. No Internet however so expect a long detailed post with our return to Chiang Mai on Wednesday.