Chiang Mai adventure, pt. 2

At the end of day 2, we just chilled after we came back into the city. We also had some pretty delicious burritos for dinner. And yes, I almost forgot how delicious burritos were until that point.

Day 3, we had our huge trek. First, the trekking company or whatever picked us up from our hostel and took us to an Orchid Farm. Wasn't terribly exciting, but I got some pretty okay pictures.

A bit too lavender, but GO 'CATS.

Next, we went on our elephant ride at Kaeng Kued elephant camp. Yes, I did have a moral dilemma about riding elephants and was thus super conscious about the ethics of the place we were at. Thankfully, my elephant trainer dude was super nice to my elephant and didn't use the spike thing (a piece of wood with a metal hook attached to the end of it to poke into the elephant's tough skin and make it move) at all. But I did have a huge problem with the camp chaining a baby elephant to a large tree because it was sick and the owners were worried that it would run away if given the opportunity. But regardless, here are some pictures.

At this point, the baby elephant was poking my friends' and my hands with its trunk. It was cute.

After that, we had a nice lunch at a villager's home. Mmm, nothing hits the spot better than mediocre pad thai wrapped in a banana leaf. Then, we had a hike to a waterfall. Along the way, we got to meet some of the hill tribe villagers in the area and walked on sticks literally 5 inches wide. I couldn't handle it... Mostly because I fell pretty early on and something I fell on made a deepish hole in my leg. Oops. So while I was tending to that, I didn't get any good pictures. But the waterfall at the end was super duper, let me assure you.

Finally, we went whitewater rafting!! Definitely my favorite part of the day because rafting gives me fond, fond memories of my family and my time at Camp Broadstone as a kid. Except this time, I was much more blind without my glasses, and we were hitting class 4-5 rapids the entire way. The time we spent was pretty short, though, because the river we were on was flooding and thus wasn't safe for a longer trip. Regardless, it was a great end to the day.

When we arrived back in Chiang Mai, we had amazing Indian food again. Then, we went to a real live Muay Thai fight. We were expecting brutal fights from the best of the best in Thailand, but what we really got was 5 matches involving 12-14 year olds, one match involving 2 women, and one match involving two dudes who were around 16 in a puny stadium in the middle of a dark alley. Here, take a look.

So.. underwhelming to say the least. Except there was one "special match" with 3 Muay Thai teachers blindfolded and just beating the living daylights out of each other. The highlight came when the ref literally did a flying kick towards one blindfolded guy because he kept alternating between wailing on the air and wailing on the ref. I really, really wish I had taken a picture.

Then, we went to a nearby reggae bar because, you know, when in Thailand, right? There, we met up with 2 crazy Burmese girls who worked at the burrito shop we ate at during day 2. We also accidentally met up with the South African man we got in an argument with on day 1. After that, we went to a bar called Spicy under the recommendations of some other farangs in the area. And when I say that there were prostitutes everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE. Sketchiest place by far that I've been to in Thailand so far.

Day 4 was pretty uneventful. We did a Harold & Kumar-esque quest looking for cao niew mamuang (sweet sticky rice with mango) and finally found it after walking around and asking random people for upwards of 1.5 hours. We also had a sub-par chat with a monk at one of the wats we had visited on day 1. Monk Chats are meant to allow monks to practice their English on foreigners and for foreigners to practice their Thai. But what I mean by underwhelming is that he didn't understand the terms for the 4 Noble Truths in English. Nor did he know any terms in Buddhism in English. Ah well. Later, we ended our adventure with pizza and met a completely drugged out guy from Lake Tahoe that had lived in Chiang Mai for the past 3 years. He didn't know a word of Thai, btw.

Then we headed back on the bus for another 12 hour ride. And my mp3 player was broken so... I certainly got a lot of sleep!

Tomorrow, I'm off to Sisaket province and later Ubon Ratchatani province for the water and dams unit. After that, I'll be going to Bangkok to visit my family again as well as a few friends. SO EXCITEDDD. PS. Check my facebook if you want to see more pictures of my adventures! Miss you all!