Jen and I hurried off in the morning to find a place to switch to while Amy was getting ready in the prison erm… “guest house” shower. We tried a place we had asked yesterday (900 baht.. no thanks) but today they had a room for 560. That’s 10 more than what we were paying Sarah for 2 rooms, but it fit all of us, two HUGE beds, two bathrooms, and A POOL! I ran back to get Amy before checkout time and when we got back it turned out that while one person said the room was 560, the one taking the money from Jen said 500… right on!
We had some breakfast at the restaurant downstairs and met an Irish girl… she had a bit of insight on what to look for in treks, but not much more than we already knew ourselves. She invited me to go horse back riding with her while Amy and Jen were cooking, but again around 1000 baht, massages wins over bumpy rides in the hot sun.
We set off from there with plans to meet up at 7:00 to eat up Amy and Jens 9 dishes of hard work. The three of us decided we needed to book a trek as time was just passing by and so after what seemed like ages we finally found an actual tour company instead of a reseller and went with them as we got a really good feeling (which was not what we expected after hearing all the horror stories of failed, not fun, not enough food, over touristic treks.)
Amy and Jen went off for their class, I read a book and picked up the laundry etc while I waited for them. We met up with Christina (the Irish girl) and her friend Leigh-Anne who had a bit of bad luck and was back in Chiang Mai after losing her bike off of a bus. The food was amazing. Probably my favorite spring rolls and pad thai yet, and the sticky rice with mango and deep fried ice cream were a great dessert.
We headed to get a drink and while we had THOUGHT the ladyboy bar-girl keeping all the old guys excited was going to be entertainment enough, we were just blown away when a dancing elephant showed up at the front of the bar. It was a young looking thing and while our logical side said “what a horrible life, cruising the streets with it’s owner, dancing for food” it was really hard not to enjoy the surrealistic experience. The elephant looked well taken care of as well which made it easier.
We went back to the new room and packed for tomorrows trek.
I hope you got copies of the recipes to share when you get back home. I’d love to have you make us a traditional Thai meal when you get home.
Keep having fun!
Funny, I just wrote on a previous blog that I hoped that the elephants were well treated and if I had just scrolled up I would have been able to read what you thought in regards to this…like-mother-like-son…not shocked that it too would be a concern to you…
Deep fried ice-cream- there are soooo many questions!!! Glad to hear that you are having a good time. I would never in a million years have figured that someone could train an elephant to dance.