We’re at the airport after a week in Chiang Mai. CM was not without its highlights, after all, how many times in my life will I get to take a mud bath with an elephant?? (see photos). But the sad fact about Chiang Mai is, we spent around a week there, in the very smoggy “old town” (the smog here would make LA cringe), mostly eating amazing and delicious foods (french/thai) to our hearts content and getting thai massages (at the women’s prison— more later) and attending monk chats (where you sit one-on-one with a monk at one of the hundreds of temples and ask them as many dumb questions as you want) and eating more delicious food . . . only to finally realize that we should have maybe spent 2 nights in the old town doing this stuff and the rest in the outlying areas where the beautiful jungle and nature and waterfalls and elephants are. We did get a couple days outside the city after realizing this, but we left way too many stones unturned I think . . . Next time I hope to be more on top of where the real worthwhile action is. Live and learn.
A brief summary of the highlights:
Elephants. There are lots of elephants around the city. They were used in the logging industry but now live out their lives in relative luxury in elephant sanctuaries where they walk around freely and are hand-fed their favorite treats and given mud baths and exfoliations by tourists such as Penny and I. We signed up for a day of hanging out with elephants and went on an hour drive into the countryside. We passed lots of elephants just hanging out roadside like cows, probably awaiting their spa appointments.
Because elephants are one of my favorite animals, I was totally stoked. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to stick entire bunches of bannanas (stem, peels and all) one after another, into an elephants mouth like it was a trash compactor. There were 2 elephants that we hung with (also 2 guides and another couple). While we fed them, the elephants trunks were writhing around trying to locate where the next treat was going to come from like they were the tentacles of an octopus. There was really nothing like it.
Then we went for a walk all together down a mountain trail and watched as the elephants pulled branches off of trees and sucked down entire branches that were an inch in diameter without chewing. It was jaw-dropping. We then came upon a big muddy pond and we all went in. We sunk in to half way up our shins in mud (in all truth, it was probably 50% elephant crap). The elephants lay down in the middle of the pond (about 2 ft deep including mud) and we smeared as much mud all over every part of them as we could. There weren’t any rules about what Penny and I could or couldn’t do. The latter was a little disconcerting to me, seeing as in the US you can’t even get close to an elephant much less do what we did, and they do weigh a bit. I kept imagining them rolling over on one of us (me) and that would be the end of the trip. But the elephants were very conscientious it seemed— they knew that they had to keep track of where everyone was and not be sloppy about where they put their body parts. They were also ridiculously shy for an animal that could crush any one of us with one foot. The same mentality as cows except maybe not as skittish. After that we all went down to a swimming hole and washed everyone off with buckets and buckets of water then walked the elephants back up the hill and fed them more bananas and pulled on their ears, kissed their trunks and tried to find where they were the softest (the area under their chins I think, although they are fairly rough like sandpaper in general).
The Durian. This is a large green fruit with spikes all over it the size of a persons head. I have been intensely curious about it since many of the places we’ve stayed have had signs posted saying “no durians allowed”. The reason is that once you cut them open they smell “like rotten flesh” according to Penny who has never actually tried one but has allegedly smelled one. I had to find out for myself.
One of the awesome things in Thailand is that you can walk down the street and buy a serving of pretty much any fruit from a street vendor, peeled, sliced and in a plastic baggie with a toothpick so you can eat as you walk along. The durian slices though, I noticed, were all completely sealed on a styrofoam tray with saran wrap like it was a slab of meat.
One night I bought one. I asked the vendor selling them a few questions and she just smiled a knowing smile, saying you either love it or you hate it. Then she gave me a pair of disposable gloves to use while eating it. I smuggled it into our hotel room where an unsuspecting Penny was waiting. A slice of durian isn’t really a slice, its more like a lobe which looks like a banana slug and is a light ochre color. It looks kind of odd, really. I told Penny what I had and she must have been really hungry, because she consented to try it. "Lets do it!" I put on the gloves and unwrapped the package and the smell hit: a mix of rotting fruit and farts (in my opinion). Next I held my nose and tried a bite. It was soft and creamy and in the finicky Ms Bernhisel's words, tasted like "a cross between pineapple and baby dookie”. In all fairness, she’s probably right. Since that night, I’ve tried a durian shake, durian ice cream and chips. Its not that I particularly like durians, but I find them fascinatingly weird.
Maybe Penny will have the energy to elaborate on some more of the highlights of Chiang Mai such as the Monk Chats and the Women's Prison massages? Theres a lot more to say. I hope to also be more on top of writing more frequently going forward, since waiting till the airport makes the task of getting everything out seem pretty daunting.
So its NOW off to Yangon, Myanmar. Everyone we’ve met who has been there seems to say that NOW is the time to go due to the fact that the country has recently opened its borders to tourists. In fact, the latest Lonely Planet says “now" is the “MOMENT" to visit Myanmar, which makes me wonder if they chose the word "moment" thinking that the moment is fleeting. At any rate, Ive learned that when the consensus says “NOW” is the time to do something, you’d be wise to listen. (For example “NOW” is the time to buy a house (3 years ago), or “NOW” is the time to visit Thailand (15 years ago)). We hadn’t really planned on a trip to Myanmar together, but we decided we have to see what this NOW thing is all about.
One thing we’ve already realized is that Myanmar is not going to be easy. So far everything has been way too easy— finding our way around, staying in awesome hotels, eating great food, getting cheap flights and rides exactly to where we want to go, being entertained without barely lifting a finger. Thats because the tourism trail is so well worn in the places we’ve been.
But figuring Myanmar out took several lengthy conferences between Penny and I. To enter the country, we had to already have bought a ticket out of the country, so we pretty much had to plan out the next couple of weeks and it wasn’t easy figuring out the transport and a good itinerary. But, the plan is: Yangon 4 days, overnight bus to Kalaw, 2-day trek to Inle Lake, stay on Inle for 2 nights, fly to Bagan, stay 3 nights, boat ride to Mandalay, stay a couple nights, fly back to Bangkok Dec 31.
Bangkok may be where Penny and I part ways for the next month and a half. She will start the return trip east with a solo stop in Vietnam and I will hang out in Bangkok for a week before continuing west solo.
