April 3-8, 2015

When we arrived in Chiang Mai we did the usual stuff. We got our bags and found a taxi, or in this case a taxi booth. This time we did it much faster. When we arrived at our guest house called The Funky Monkey, everyone was very nice. We had talked to the owner about the many restaurants and excursions. There were so many it was overwhelming.

Like almost any new place we visit we walked around town to get our lay of the land, and predictably got lost in the 100F weather. Eventually we came to a restaurant we heard about called Free Bird café. I had pancakes which were huge and delicious.

A few days later we decided to go on our first excursion. We were going to spend a whole day with elephants, and play with them. The company was completely against the abuse of them, which is very common in Thailand. The owner of the complex said the Thai people think of them as tanks, not as living beings. After our talk preparing us for the day, we put on some weird hats and clothes. Then we stuffed a bunch of bananas in a bag and took off. Before we even got to the exit there was a huge elephant blocking our path. He wanted food. He was sticking his trunk in our bags of bananas. We stood for a while and fed him before we could go further.

First we went to the mud bath. We had to take off our shoes, which I wasn't fond of since there were turds floating around that the staff had to pick up with nets. Eventually I got in, but it was not pleasant. Everywhere I stepped there was a squish. Maeve and Mom were in there splashing around. When I walked in, the naughty elephant started splashing me.

I quickly ran out, rinsed my shoes and waited for my mom to get out. When she and everyone else on our tour got out, they had to clean the crap off themselves and then we could finally go on. We went looking for my dad because one of the guides took him to see the babies and their moms. On the way we were told that elephant poop is good for babies and doesn't taste like anything since it's made up of hay and other organic material. So that means the babies eat their mom's poop until they're old enough to live on their own.

When we found Dad we saw the babies for a little while and then went to eat lunch. It was delicious. There was chicken and beans and rice. There was also the most beautiful husky dogs I'd ever seen. One had the brightest blue eyes and the other had the same except he had one brown eye. They were so sweet and bouncing everywhere. I couldn't keep track of how many pieces of chicken I fed each.

When we got up we went down the hill and walked with the elephants to bathe in the river. It was a long walk, and the one naughty elephant kept giving everyone kisses with his trunk. When we finally got there we took off our shoes and hopped in. It was so fun because the elephants were sneak attacking us by spraying us with water, and we were splashing them while rubbing the mud off their backs. We took many photos and videos until we had to leave. It was one of my favorite excursions yet. When we were leaving and I was saying goodbye to the elephants and dogs, the baby elephant charged at me and stepped on my foot. It was extremely painful.

This is the baby that stepped on my foot

We went to many more restaurants such as the lady with the cowboy hat. We were told it's one of the best restaurants in Chiang Mai, which is saying a lot. She only serves chopped pork with rice. She wears a cowboy hat and has money popping out of her pockets. The food wasn't extraordinary, but it was pretty good. A few days earlier we had gone to a restaurant called Lemongrass. They had much more variety, I got the pork fried rice which wasn't as good as the one in Bangkok, but still pretty good.

The owner of our guest house had two dogs, Mugly and Phat dog (their actual names). When it was time for us to leave they chased us. Then, as we got into a taxi, they ran away down the street, then came back and started chasing the taxi. I will miss Chiang Mai.

The lady with the cowboy hat's food stand

David, our guest house host, had to hold Mugly back from chasing our taxi