Because it was low season the four of us ended up being the only ones that “Tony”, our tour guide, had to supervise for the day.  This made for a much more relaxing tour.  Our first destination was a local butterfly and orchid farm. Honestly, compared to the butterfly hatchery at the science museum in Seattle this was not impressive.  There weren’t many butterflies and they were all the dull brown ones. This didn’t matter though as this wasn’t originally part of our tour and had been thrown in as a “freebie.”

On the way we stopped by a local market for some fruits and snacks.  We bought fried chicken skin (which is good, but would be much better if still fresh), mangosteen and durian.  There are also some photos below of things we didn’t buy.

That photo above is a stack of Mangosteens.  Mangosteen is Sam’s favorite fruit in the whole world.  I don’t know if it is my favorite fruit in the whole world, but it was very good – and my favorite new fruit I tried.

It takes some time to learn how to open it right, but once you’ve figured it out it’s a really easy fruit to eat.  Sam actually took a video.  In the first video she was telling me how to open it and I followed the instructions but the fruit exploded all over my shirt because it was spoiled.  That’s why in the video below she says “take II.”

Our real adventure started at the elephant camp.  The way into the camp is to cross a river on a bridge made of wood and vines.

We fed the young elephants bananas before watching them take a bath.

Then they had a show which was mostly the elephants pushing or pulling logs and doing things in unison before the long finale of an elephant “painting” a picture.  I felt bad for the elephants, it certainly didn’t look like much fun, hauling logs for the amusement of tourists.
However, the elephants’ next trick was hauling us on their backs.

We boarded the elephants for a half hour trek through the rainforest mostly walking through a stream.  This was a great experience that is hard to describe.  Not only were we ten feet up in the air, but the terrain the elephants were navigating was not just a mud trail, but a variable elevation course of streams rocks and hillsides.

The entire time our elephant was eating a tree.  Yes, it was curling a tree with a circumference the size of my head in it’s trunk and then taking a crunchy bite every now and then.

After half an hour we delephanted and walked through a jungle village.  There was a woman mashing grain the old fashioned way – but the while thing looked like a seat-up for souvenir shopping as there were no living spaces or people walking around, just people watching their souvenir tables.

After half an hour in the village (we wre done in ten minutes) we boarded our elephants again for a ride back to the camp.

As we were leaving an 8 month old baby elephant came over and wanted to shake “hands” with us.

(Sam is shaking hands with the elephant’s mother below)

Our driver then took us to “nest 2,” a restaurant (attached to a resort) at the edge of a fantastic mountain range.

It was a surreal setting and the food was good too.

As a light rain began to fall we headed to Chiang Dao Temple and caves. Before we entered the caves we fed a bunch of full size catfish.  Imagine a ten foot diameter circle of foot wide mouths gyrating below you with a hundred fish whiskers poking in and out of the water.

The below video is of the entrance of the caves.  When she says “you must take a lantern or otherwise ‘forget it’ and a guide who know what he’s doing” – that’s where we went.

As we entered the caves it became clear that safety issues (although this was already thoroughly demonstrated on the freeways) are nonexistent and people are expected to look after themselves.  Strangely I kept thinking about how this country in many ways would be Ron Paul’s fantasyland. Unlike in America, here we were encouraged to touch the stalactites and stalagmites as our two guides lit the way with only gas lamps.  We went through two or three “gateways” (holes) that really would not be big enough to accommodate a frequent mcdonalds customer. The whole time we could hear the bats above us.

There were still insects everywhere too.  Since the only light was the lamps there were tons of spiders and grasshoppers (?) skittering away when the light would hit them.  Or they’d just shrug and stay put like this big fellow:

After leaving the caves (which were a large loop) we briefly visited the temple and ancient stupas on the grounds.

Sam taking my picture taking my picture.

After leaving Chiang Dao Caves we headed to Ping River to ride on bamboo rafts.

When we got back to Chiang Mai we ate.

I found this strange generic wood sculpture of #3 in the back by the bathrooms.

After nightfall we headed up into Doi Suthep mountain overlooking Chiang Mai to visit the doi suthep temple and stupas.

On the way there we saw another random roadside waterfall.

Because it was raining and there was a thick fog on top of the hill the all-gold stupas made the air glow.

Also because it was late and raining we shared the grounds only with the actual monks and some large insects.  We followed  tradition, taking off our shoes to walk around the stupa three times for good luck.  The whole experience was (in the absence of any religious faith) magical.  Many Thai people actually consider this a sacred site.

Unfortunately on the way back to the hotel we backed into a truck that was parked in the road.  After 45 minutes the insurance adjuster showed up on a motorbike to take photos and collect signatures.  So I really got the full Thailand experience, complete with insurance adjusters.