"Go for it, mate, she wouldn't have come on holiday if she didn't want it;" or, in Chiang Mai there be dragons

After Lao our next stop was Chiang Mai, a cute little university city in the northwest of Thailand near to the Burmese border from which a lot of nature treks depart. After a brief search for hostels, we eventually settle on the 3 Sis, a fantastically located flashpacker set up with AMAZING service. Seriously, the folks at the front spoke better English than any others we’ve encountered in this part of the world (I know, I know, I sound like an American) and they always seemed genuinely enthusiastic and pleasant. For dinner we settled on a big northern Thai/Burmese sampler dinner with all sorts of random dishes, including what seemed to be pork rinds.

Frank is still a little under the weather at this point, and at the behest of Dr. Mama Stern he strayed away from the super spicy menu items, which pleasingly meant more for me. While walking around town Frank and I bemuse how CM, with its layout and cute little boutiques, reminds us so much of La Plata, a cute little Argentine university city where we randomly both have family. After a drink at an underwhelming backpacker bar, we walk back to the 3 Sis.

Saturday morning we set off on the Lonely Planet recommended walking tour of the Chiang Mai old city, which visits a lot of the historic wats (Buddhist temples) in the town. Many of them are “protected” by these crested dragon/sea serpent statues that are really incredible.

One of the wats offers group chats with one of their young monks which was neat although could have been more interesting and informative if it were more one on one rather than in a group, since Frank and I have more unanswered questions about Buddhism than you could imagine.

Also, Emma, I spotted this little guy:

Enter the deluge. As the heavens opened we retreat back to the 3 Sis and Frank departs for his much anticipated personal training session at the only CrossFit gym in SE Asia. Like a kid on Christmas, but wearing Vibram 5 Fingers. To keep myself busy I grab some overpriced falafel and get a mani/pedi at the hotel. Yes, that’s right, *I* got a mani/pedi. It’s hard to pass up when it’s raining like crazy outside and only costs $8 and is done right in your hotel lobby. When Frank returns we discover that the entire country of Thailand is dry for the next two days due to the national election on the 3^rd. FUUUCK. Seriously, nightmare.

We grab dinner outside of the old city at this restaurant run by this super eccentric awesomely kooky ex-pat who used to be a chef in New Orleans. After dinner we hop back to the old city and wander around the “Saturday walking street” night bazaar. It’s at this point I realize that I should have gotten more souvenirs at the incredibly legit Luang Prabang market, but still got my dad a cast bronze tiny version of those awesome wat guardian dragon things. The guy totally ripped me off, and I walked away twice, but I really, really, really wanted it because I know how excited my dad will be to get it. So I forked over the $25 (at least I got him down from $40!) much to Frank’s dismay. Sometimes you just gotta sack up and not “know the price of everything but the value of nothing.” Or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better haha.

On the wander back home from the night market we spy a pack of wild 19-year old Irish guys drinking just inside the gates of a hostel. Intriguing. Turns out they had stocked up earlier (“It never ceases to amaze me how you will just walk up and talk to anyone” – FBG) so we joined them for a quick brief drinks. Quite a bunch of characters: they tried telling us that they had an American accent (despite the fact that they sounded Irish as FUCK), about how Justin Bieber was one of their role models, and blah blah drunk Irish accent blah. As we bid adieu after about an hour, one of them pulled dear Frankie aside and laid it out for him: “Just go for it, mate, she wouldn’t have come on holiday if she didn’t want it.” Spoiler alert: Frank and I didn't hook up.

What better way to celebrate a Thai election day than getting the eff out of the city and hanging out with some rescued Asian elephants all day! Sunday was our requisite elephant day in Chiang Mai. We went with the Elephant Nature Park, which rescues abused working elephants around Thailand and gives them a happy home where they get to eat bananas and watermelons all day and chill and bathe in the river whenever they want and have people aid them in these two endeavors. Many of the elephant activities in Chiang Mai involve demeaning elephant shows or long arduous treks through the jungle and treat their elephants really poorly. ENP works to combat this and educate people about the hardships many elephants in Thailand face. Some really heartwrenching stories include:

• An elephant that was blinded after refusing to work after her baby was stillborn
• An elephant who lost most of a foot in a landmine
• Female elephants whose pelvises were broken after they were tied down and forced to mate with a violent bull elephant (as you may imagine, there aren’t exactly elephant casts or splits so this injury leaves them horribly deformed – it’s a miracle they can walk at all)
• Baby elephants whose mothers had been killed by poachers or died from overwork
• Rescued bull elephants that are now apparently quite a handful to deal with

And the list goes on and on. Bottom line, it’s really great this organization exists to give these elephants a happy life and if you go to Chiang Mai you should do it (Patara we’ve also heard is very good to their elephants)

And now, I bring you fauna:

(note the deformed hip, poor girl)

They also had a cat with a little Hitler mustache

At the end of the day we went to the Sunday Walking Street (which turned out to be much better than the Saturday version) for some street food and shopping. Street food was absolutely amazing, and we thankfully only ended up with one weird meat spongy thing by accident. I also got myself a little pair of cast metal Thai Buddhas. As some of you may have noticed in my room in Boston I have little pairs of things I’ve picked up during my travels, notably a pair of Delft pottery shoes from Amsterdam and a pair of carved stone elephants from Mahaballipuram, India. And now I have a little something to add to my collection. Frank also was in heaven because we found a golden retriever puppy.

We met a fantastic European couple, Kevin from Germany and Eduardo from Portugal, who found us a little bar that would sell us fairly decent mojitos under the table before the alcohol ban was lifted. Nice find. We discovered we would be down in the Ko Samui/Phangan area around the same time and arranged to meet up in Ko Phangan for the Half Moon Party (get excited!). After the ban was lifted at midnight we walked around the backpacker area looking for a scene, but it turned out the only scene was a gogo bar, where numbered unenthusiastic prostitutes dance without any rhythm (no seriously the worst show I’ve seen in my life) in front of gross sex tourists while they wait for their number to be called. After this depressing showing we went home.

Monday we took the trip up the mountain to Doi Suthep, arguably the most famous temple of the Chiang Mai area. It was pretty baller. We had arranged for a driver with our hotel who turned out to be this fun 25-year old Thai dude who took us around and showed us how to use prayer sticks and get prayer wristbands from a monk (mine had to come from a layperson though cause monks can’t touch women). It’s still hanging out on my wrist today (11 days later fyi). It’s really a shame how ignorant about Buddhism and its practices I’ve been this trip.

After the wat we headed down to the posh shopping neighborhood by the university for a brief shop perusal and more importantly Frankie’s favorite, Khao Soi, for lunch. It’s basically a soup of red curry and yellow curry and coconut milk and noodles and maybe some veggies and I really, really delicious. Place was mad legit, we were totally the only farangs in there. Insert sophomoric humor here:

In the afternoon we visited Tiger Kingdom, where in sum you can pet tigers. They have a whole range of tiger sizes to choose from. We chose the baby 3-4 month tigers. They were mostly really sleepy but I got to pet it on its little Tiger paw which was amazing. Sadly the big tigers look really drugged which was particularly depressing. I’m very torn about the place, mostly between my selfish desire to pet a baby tiger and my desire for animals to be happy and treated well. Ah well.

We spent our early evening at a Thai cooking class led by an incredibly enthusiastic Thai woman. Cooking class was really cool because we got to prepare a lot of things from scratch and cook in a wok which I had never done before (cue Joey and the peanut gallery noting the fact that I never cook in anything). I made: spring rolls, chicken with cashew nuts, Khao Soi, and pad Thai. Yeah so orders and codes by 6:25 please.

As the sound of fireworks echoed through Chiang Mai, Frankie and I realized it was the 4^th of July. Oops! Honestly I’ve spent 3 or 4 July 4^ths out of the country now and eh whatever. After our cooking class we went out in search of an rumored American party, but where we failed to find that holy grail, I managed to find some random South African and American expats who I chilled with long into the night despite the fact that I had to wake up at 7 am for a…

Batik Painting class! Tuesday we only had a half day so for my last day I signed up for a little arts and crafts. Batik painting is done on fabric using hot wax to create borders around separate areas that are painted using fabric dye. Basically you create a paint by numbers with wax and then fill it in. This (as far as I can tell) rich Thai housewife does it out of her suburban home while her daughter is in school. Very cool.

Tuesday evening we took the night train to Bangkok. This old Thai lady sleeping in our berth area gave us like a kilo of freshly picked lychees out of this box she was carrying with her. She just kept handing us more and more branches. They were DELICIOUS.

We hung out for a while in the bar car in the back (yes, Frank, for the 6^th time there is only one bar car on this train) which was a happening scene, with a gaggle of Dutch people singing loudly along to concert videos of Cher and Celine Dion. We met some Aussie art student field trip group. Let me tell you, not a good look those ones…

After dosing Franking on some Ambien we settled into our top bunks, giggling and lightly teasing all those who moved through our car. Next stop: Bangkok.