Chiang Mai, Thailand

Since we decided to opt out on a trek in the north of Thailand, we decided that it would be worth our while to visit the hill tribe museum 2 km out of town. While being extremely informative it also cleared up a lot of misconceptions that we had towards our trek in Vietnam. The tour companies always want to assure you that it is the real deal. They paint this elaborate portrait of a people living in another time, doing things like they have never seen the modern world. There was a huge billboard at the museum titled "what to expect before going on a trek" that basically told us the opposite. It asked, why do poeple expect to see something from another time when these people in fact live in the same time as us. We both reflected back to the moment where the black Hmong lady answered her cell phone. We were appauled! It makes sense though, we all need communication in the world we live in. Apparently, long ago, the hill tribes owned the best land for growing poppies that they later harvested and sold to people that turned it into opium. Although they weren't directly part of the drug issue, the problem started with them. After years of deaths and overdoses the world woke up to the addictions involved with opium and pronounced it illegal. After this happened the tribes people were at a stand still not sure if they should continue their lives as criminals or die in the process of starting a new way of life. They chose the latter. Many of them became bitter and whole families were faced with big problems. Death, starvation.. These are big problems. The late king (he is so loved here - photos everywhere!) took it upon himself to travel to these tribes and teach them the lay of the land to grow other things. He taught them to grow corn, potatoes, rice, fruits and vegetables and registered every man, woman and child under the government so that they could travel into towns and sell their produce and gifts legally and pay taxes like everyone else. The woman desperately trying to sell us things, although aggressively, makes a lot more sense now. Right now is a strange time in their lives where they are merging into a civilized world but are not yet ready to immerse themselves. Unfortunitely, the future will only take them further away from their traditions and closer to the daily grind that we were all brought up to know.

Now firstly I would like to say that I am not as naive as it may seem sometimes. Nothing could prepare me for the amount of open prostitution in Thailand though. I figured it would be around and since we had already seen countless mail order brides since we landed I knew there was a huge market for it. My emotions started to rise in Bangkok where we first encountered it (thank god we went through the red light district during the day). There was one moment where I was following norm down a single file walkway and got behind a little bit. We are talking 45 seconds here. As soon as I wasn't in view there were 5 ladies ready and pouncing on norm! "you want boom boom?" Wow! Arriving in chang Mai you would nver expect the sleeping dragons that populate the streets at night. Pretty much every bar on the main street to the night bazaar is specifically set up for older dudes picking up young Thai girls. It was crazy and overwhelming all at once. They were even selling Viagra in the night market!!

This day was interesting. We tried to catch the local buy to lampang which is an hour out of Chiang Mai. The first problem is that the local bus the tourist office told us about is no longer in existance. The second problem was that after spending 40 minutes walking to said bus, we now had to go to arcade bus station which was another 40 minute walk away. We opted out an took a tuk-tuk there. We managed to get on the bus no problem but the bus goes all the way to lampang and the conservatory is 15kms before. We managed to communicate that somehow so an hour later we got off, along with an Asian girl who was going to the conservatory. The conservatory Was set up because the government outlawed the use of elephants in the forestry industry, and so this was a place to take care of the sick and wounded elephants. Since then it's grown to be a training grounds for aspiring elephant trainers or caretakers. When we arrived we started off by seeing and elephant show. The elephants picked up some logs weighing 90 kg with their trunks. It was quite amazing. They played some music on some drums and and a xylophone too! After that they got the elephants to paint pictures with a paintbrush in their trunks. One drew some abstract thing, the other drew some moderately straight lines, and the last one drew an elephant! It was amazing! They were selling 20 or so bananas for 20baht ($0.65) so we bought some and fed the elephants! As you can imagine it was pretty cool. After that we had a 10 minute ride on an elephant ( only cause it was $3) and we bought a picture of it too! After eating some lunch, we got to see the elephants have a bath. The trainers stay on top, riding them while they walk up to their heads in a pond. A few of the trainers were forced to take a swim! When this was all over, we got back to the entrance of the building to find out how to get back home and luckily the Asian girl was walking toward the gates, so we figured we'd follow her to get back home. As it turned out, we didn't look at her too closely and she was a Japanese tourist! We eventually found out we had to stand on the side of the highway and flag the bus down when it came back the other way from lampang. Somehow it all worked out and we made it home. A great day with these amazing creatures.