Well, the elephant thing didn't exactly wrk out yesterday. Christopher put on his adventure shirt to start off the morning, and we should have known that would only lead us to a new adventure. We got up and took a bus outside of Chiang Mai to a town called Chiang Dao. It was a nice trip through the country, even when a policeman got on and dragged one of the passengers off. No worries! We actually passed our stop and then the bus lady realized we should have gotten off and we scrambled off with everyone laughing. We had planned on getting off at a bus stop, then taking a tuk tuk or taxi to the elephant farm. Instead, we got off at a 711, and no one seemed to know what we were talking about when we asked about the elephant farm. Oops. So we went with the flow and decided to check out Chiang Mai's main attraction, very long, very ancient caves filled with Buddha statues and other carvings. I thought it would be a nice like walk like Luray Caverns; it was actually a spelunking adventure, with a guide carrying a gas lamp, tight passages to crawl through, and bats flying around overhead. The statues and rock formations were absolutely stunning, and the ride there and back in the back of a pickup truck was an experience in itself. And even though we didn't get to ride elephants yesterday, we did see a guy riding one down the freeway, so that was almost as good.
So, TODAY we are actually going to go ride elephants, with an organized tour group that will take us to a waterfall and some villages, then bamboo rafting down the river. A full day, but should be fun!
