After countless hours in a plane we at last reached Chaing Mai around 1030pm Saturday night. Wow I forgot how long of a trip that is! We were greeted by two Thai men in matching shirts with my name on it at the airport and they ushered us to a pretty sweet ride. We climbed in and started driving through the night. They didn't say anything to us and about 40 minutes into the ride I had to ask "how long until we get to the hotel?" The looked at each other, then back at the road, saying nothing. There is usually at least one moment in every trip where you are entrusting a stranger to not rob, murder and dump you in a river... This was that moment. 20 minutes later we arrived safe and ... read more

Getting ready to head home. I have a full day left in Chiang Mai and trying to figure out what to do with myself. A few of the things I thought I would do turned out to be not so great. The tiger kingdom which they say is some kind of conservation I have heard from a good naturalist friend is not, and they sell the adult tigers to China for pelts. Not going there. The hill tribe I was excited to see apparently they almost stopped wearing the neck rings completely until tourism picked up, then they started wearing them again. There necks don't stretch but there collarbones break. That doesn't feel right now either. I think I ate something at the night bazar that didn't agree with me. I got a smoothie with fresh ... read more

Thusday Had dinner in my room last night and fell into a heap after my busy biking day! Hanging by the pool today feeling a cross between perfect contentment and guilt that I should be out exploring more. I am the only guest on the rooftop pool deck hanging and reading, I will release my guilt and enjoy this until I no longer enjoy it.... Then I will do something else.There is no honking of horns here. There is a lot of traffic and craziness, but the only honking is done when a driver passes a Buddha or a spirit house they know. Car accidents, they call them kisses, and don't do much about them, (apparently unless its a fatality)(then what, kiss of death?)I think about this as I leave the pool were I have been ... read more

Tuesday Ok, I picked the hotel filled with senior citizens, haha there is a group of about 20, 60 something's hanging here and I have not seen anyone else. I chatted with some of the ladies at breakfast, which was nice, they were all from Chicago, most retired teachers, they'll be here for three days so I'm sure ill at least have people to chat with. i guess when you go for the safe hotel instead of a guest house this is what you get. I have to say as nice as it is, I kindof liked the flavor of my one night guest house. Oh well.Ok, after a good nights sleep and breakfast I found the woman in charge of tours and booked a day bike trip through the countryside for tomorrow and then I ... read more

This morning I was lucky enough to have Jodi take me on another elephant walk with just me and mellisa (my room mate) It was so great really Learning about the elephant. Families, and the different personalities. We got to just hang, and observe and take pictures it was AWESOME! Totally everything I would have hoped for! I will be sad to leave tomorrow. Later in the afternoon we were all working on the "firebreak" to create a border around the park in case fires start in the mountains. Basically we were picking up dryer leaves and such off the side of the road. Then we were all given an orange sash and we were sent to tie it on a tree, and make a wish. The reason that you tie the orange sash around the ... read more