Elephants and Roosters

Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand, is located in the north, nestled at the foot of the hills that eventually lead to Burma and Laos. Every night, at about 6:00 p.m. or so, the Night Market starts to collect itself and open up for the evening. The shops are run mostly by families who have stationed themselves on the sidewalk, street, or parking lot for the evening. There is, as far as I can tell, very little organization to the 3000 estimated shops sprawling through a dozen different streets. Everyone can be found strolling around, Westerners and Thais alike. With enough searching, some incredible antiques and oddities can be found, but lying in between it all is cheaply manufactured tourist goods imported from China. Don't worry, though, because whenever you walk by, someone will assure you that the Rolex is real.

The morning after the night market (which was itself a day after the night train to Chiang Mai--none of the workers on the train spoke English but would periodically force drinks on people playing cards or take drinks from people not drinking enough), half of us headed north on a bus through winding, treacherous roads. Four hours and a few bags of vomit later (not me--W.C. gets motion sickness) we loaded onto some long-tailed speed boats to go up river. The boats left us at a completely tourist oriented village where our elephants were waiting. My elephant in particular was pushy and demanded to be in front of the herd which meant taking some remarkably steep short cuts.

Some time later we arrived at an Ahka village that had decided, at best, to tolerate our presence. I felt unwelcome and colonial and a little dirty of conscience on this well-manicured adventure. Village roosters started crowing and cawing around 4:00 a.m., and we left after breakfast, hiking north, deeper into the hills. It would not be hard for all of these hills to be a dense thicket of vegetation, a jungle once inhabited by elephants, but people have lived here for generations and they are terraced, cleared, and had just finished being burned for the next season's crops. The hike itself was needed and welcome with a short break underneath a waterfall around noon.

The next village we came to was similar to the first in construction. All the houses were bamboo huts with tatched rooftops, dusty trails leading from one to the other. This village spoke a different dialect and shared a different culture than the previous night's. It was also much friendlier, and two dozen kids came out to see us when we showed up. They demanded that I put them on my shoulders, stomp around, swing them, carry them, tickle and play. I was more than happy to oblige and got covered in little kids and little kid dust. One of them even gave me the braclet he was wearing. It's on my wrist now, slowly cutting off circulation to my hand because, well, he was a bit smaller than I was, being a five-year-old. We sung songs, Happy Birthday and Jingle Bells they already knew. I played dead and they jumped on my back and screamed in my ear. Little kids, though, have a limitless energy and I was ready for bed far before they were ready to let me be. I fell asleep anyway, exhausted.

Although they asked if we could stay for two more nights, we couldn't, and headed out the next morning. I should note that a lot of the women in the village tried to sell us things--the same things that came from China found in the Night Market, and in the first village, and along the river, and in every gas station. They all sell the same thing, and I'm sure not a person selling them did anything but them him/herself. The trip back to Chiang Mai was spent mostly on a bus rank with an ill-timed deposit in the bathroom. One more night in Bangkok, the night of the largest protests against the prime minister yet.

Tomorrow, Vietnam.