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So we had a few free days in Chiang Mai before visiting the elephants so we took in a Muay Thai boxing match which was good fun to watch, its really hard to tell the ages of the people over here but they all looked so young! On the second day I did a cooking class and learnt how to make made phad thai, banana spring rolls and panang curry all from fresh local ingredients from scratch while Cynthia relaxed and slept off her cold. Later that evening we headed to the market for some more shopping, but ended up at one of the real local markets selling mostly shoes, clothing, and food...we were after the tacky tourist stuff so we decided to try again the next night. We had one of our few sleep in days then we headed for breakfast at our favorite places for a giant bowl of fruit,muesli and soy milk for cy and yogurt for k dawg. This is such a welcome change from baguettes that we eat here every day. We are so lucky the dates worked out and got in one more visit with our good friend Kevin,we met for a drink and some chats, and made a plan to meet up later that night. I'm still feeling pretty sick all I want to do is sleep so we head back for a nap while karli relaxes on our balcony. I think all we did today was eat and sleep...oh yeah and drink! We get ready and head to Jerusalem falafel for an amazing Greek dinner! Then we head out to find the night bazaar market. It's quite a sight, the streets are filled with so many vendors, we walk away with some beautiful jade bracelets and Singha beer singlets. Once we are done we head in a tuk Tuk to Kevin's friends bar and the three of us meet up with a good friend of his that's a local,her name is B and we hit it off right away. After closing time we head to a bar called the roof top, it's all open and has a great view of the city, we spend the night reminiscing and getting to know a bunch of fellow travelers. But before we know it it's time to say good bye. For real this time. We head back and hit the sack for only 3 hours before our last fruit bowl breakfast then it's off to the elephants!
The setting here is beautiful ,rainforest covered mountains in the background a river running through the farm and 35 willdish elephants. I say ish because even though they are allowed to walk around the whole property they each have a mahout, someone who follows them around everywhere( when I notice all of these mahouts are men I ask why that is the answer I am given is " oh yeah the women don't like doing it they do other things"... Pfft I had to bite my tongue. All 35 elephants except the two babies have been rescued from some very horrible situations.Many are blind from their previous owners stabing them in the eyes for disobeying, many have been rescued from the logging industry which has taken a serious toll on there bodies leaving them with broken legs and hips. We also saw two that had stepped on land minds. I don't want to belittle what these people are doing because really its great,compared to many other tourist attraction that allow you to ride the elephants and put on little circus type shows for the tourists. I do feel we were mislead a little and over the years they have had to change a bit to keep up with tourism. Even though we did not ride the elephants we shared the day with 40 other tourists making it quite hard to have an intimate encounter. At one point there were three areas, one where an elephant who used to be in shows was standing on a log being fed by people in a line( they say he does those of his own free will because of how he was raised) then there was an elephant who was rewarded with food every time he gave the tourists a kiss with his trunk, and lastly there was a family being distracted with food so people could stand between them for photos. Now I know it's no Shriners circus but it's not what we were expecting, karli and I did not participate in any of these activities instead we went for a dip in the river and watched two best friend elephants on the other side of the bank grazing. The second day was much bette, we spent about 3 hours in the morning with just the elephants before the all of the day tourists showed up.
Tonight we head back to Bangkok and then straight to the beach! Looking forward to some R&R..this past month has been go go non-stop!
Miss you all xoxo
K&C
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