Exploring the Northwest Territory: Part 3

That night, once we’d arrived in Chiang Mai and checked into our hotel (the Imperial Mae Ping, ooh la la!), we made our way over to Chiang Mai’s famous night bazaar. The night bazaar isn’t really a specific place, so much as a series of streets lined with pushcarts surrounding buildings with more pushcarts. Lots of cool things to be had here, and I think I actually bought more stuff here than I did at JJ market. Still being only one of two guys on this adventure, I wound up my shopping experience much faster than others of our group. Thus, Joey and I went and found a place more to our liking that we’d read about on Wikitravel: The Red Lion Pub. Not as good as The Londoner, but still serves products better than Chang.

Speaking of chang, the next day we made our official obligatory pilgrimage to the nearby elephant farm (coincidentally, also the filming location for parts of Rambo 4) for the official obligatory elephant ride. For those who are familiar with my Dad’s blog about our Egypt trip from 10 years ago (holy crap I’m old), you will recall my distaste for methods of transportation requiring large mammals. This whole experience has revolved around trying new things and exploring beyond the western comfort zone, so I gainfully hopped aboard. Turns out, not much has changed in those 10 years. I’d still rather ride the motorcycle through the muddy jungle after the rainstorm than Dumbo.

I’m guessing Joey might have said the same, since after we returned to base, he noticed that his wallet was not in the pocket where he left it. After a little running around, we determined that it was probably off somewhere in the jungle, though I suggested that he stick to the version of the story where the elephant attacked him, stole his wallet, and ate it. Not to worry, he managed to get everything taken care of, though I guess there’s always the chance that a band of enterprising monkeys could try to steal his identity. Still, he dealt with the whole situation way more calmly than I would have. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my miniature high school diploma given to me by Beverly National Bank.

In the afternoon, we decided to stop by one of the nearby national parks, partially because as one of my colleagues put it, “but, we haven’t seen a waterfall yet!!” I have to admit, my expectations for this endeavor were pretty low, especially when I walked to the edge of the parking lot and saw a mediocre trickle flowing over some equally mediocre rocks. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this was only one of ten waterfalls in the park, and that there was actually a solid dose of hiking required to see them all. The Boy Scout in me lurched into gear, and we headed off into the jungle (again). The scenic forest combined with the layer of extremely slippery algae/moss that destroyed any semblance of traction made this an exciting little junket, one which reminded me of the Daintree forest north of Cairns, Australia.

After a day of jungle exploration, we were all in need of nourishment. To fix this, we sat down to a traditional kantoke dinner. A moment of explanation: I don’t actually know what “kantoke” means, though I’m guessing it could mean anything from “traditional northern Thai meal” to “dinner and a show” to “take of your shoes, sit on the floor, and make a mess of your pant legs”. I asked about this, and no one seemed to be able to give me a straight answer. Anyway, the food was delicious, even though I did get about equal portions on my clothes as in my system (occupational hazard, I’ll deal with it). The traditional northern curried pork was especially good, and I nabbed most of the leftovers until they were no longer left over. The cultural show was essentially the same routine we’d seen before, with the standard series of Thai dances and musical performances. At the end though, they invited members of the audience up on stage to dance with them. Had I known this was going to happen, I would’ve postponed my bathroom visit. Had I known that the “take off your shoes” rule also applied to the bathroom, I really would’ve postponed it.* Still, I managed to make it home and crash into bed, albeit with a few more bacterial stowaways in tow.

*This wasn’t nearly as gross as it could’ve been, and for this I am truly thankful.