The next day we booked a local tour that included an elephant ride (they are huge, powerful, and hungry animals--they also blow elephant snot in your face if you don't feed them bananas on a frequent schedule), trek through two hilltribe villages, a waterfall and bamboo rafting down the Maung River (I think that is what the river was called). Toward the end of the rafting trip we stopped for some swimming and cliff jumping (video and pictures to come soon).

After touring the countryside we stopped at the Wat Suen Dok Buddhist temple for "Monk Chat" where we spent 1.5 hours discussing Buddhism with young monks who were finishing their university studies and wanted to practice their English. So, we got a very enlightening discussion about their religion and they got to practice English--win-win (and also a fantastic experience).

After our first few days in Chiang Mai, it is definitely one of my favorite cities on the trip so far.

written by  GoBlue on June 8, 2007 from Chiang Mai, Thailand
from the travel blog: Carl's Circuit
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Carl,

Where you inundated with the 'Same Same, but Different' line? Whenever I talked to the street merchants in SE Asia, they would compare their merchandise with that phrase. I saw a dude here in DC wearing a shirt that quoted the phrase.

written by  Jesse Atkinson on July 23, 2007

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