Thailand - Day Six - Chiang Mai

Eggs for breakfast, a couple cups of coffee and we were ready to go.

The elephant conservatory outside of Chiang Mai is also the only elephant hospital in Southeast Asia. This place is much more humane than the stories we heard of elephant's being prodded until bleeding with other places.

It was only 70 Baht to enter and tour the place. It's close to 3000 Baht to train as a mahout (elephant rider/trainer) for a day, but we decided to spend our money elsewhere. As we show up they are starting a show and we get to see elephants dragging logs, the power of their trunks, a bit of painting (seriously) and then we feed them bananas.

Afterward we walked the grounds and learned about elephant dung paper. They make it on site and I bought a couple of notebooks. Totally orderless, but you can actually see grains of watermelon seed or other things the elephant was eating embedded in the paper.

Then we hung out with some baby elephants and visited the hospital where they were diagnosed with everything from "not producing milk for baby" to "depression." Apparently a healthy elephant swings its tail back and forth five times then flips it over and raising its trunk. If that's not happening, its depressed.

We also took an elephant ride for 30 minutes. It was nice, a bit wobbling and our mahout spoke no English, so at the end of the ride when we went into the lake, we were curious what was going on. I could have touched water. Apparently, the elephant just had something on its ear and he washed it off.

At lunch Lisa had a young coconut. The milk is sugary/sweet inside and supposedly very healthy.

Close by, at a really old temple, Lisa got a hint sick. At this point neither of us had felt ill and had avoided salads, non-bottled water, ice and fruit from street vendors. So she didn't have much inclination to fall in love with the temple, which I loved because it was one of the few that was covered in gold leaf.

Then we hit some factory outlets which were awful, overpriced and pointless. Though we did see a factory where workers were actually making the rings. Not a sweat shop, but in the same ballpark.

In the evening we hit up the Night Bazzar, had a roti (crepe-like thing with chocolate & bananas), and finally bought stuff.

I purchased a cigarette holder and business card case made out of wood. Both are awesome. Lisa decided I got ripped off even though we have no idea how much I should have paid. Price = 200 Baht.