Chang Mai I love you, but You're Breaking My Heart (and almost my ankle, and my wrist, and probably my spleen)

According to Wikipedia, Chang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand (home to just under 1 million people, not exactly a close second to the bloated sprawl of Bangkok and its 8 million residents), the 24th greatest place in the world to visit as a tourist, and the most culturally significant city in Northern Thailand. Not bad shakes, eh? I wouldn't exactly put too much stock into that 24th greatest tourist destination designation, since it ranks Bangkok at 13th (which is kind of a hellhole, just ask anyone who's been there) and there's no mention of Winnipeg. That said, I'm pretty sure that list was created before work began on the Museum of Human Rights, otherwise I'm sure we would have cracked the top ten. Probably top three even.

It is monsoon season, and it has lived up to its name in Chang Mai. Today was the first day we saw sun all week, and it rained poured from about 1700h yesterday until 1130h today. It did make it very convenient/easily justifiable to grab a massage (at 6 bucks a pop!) during the downpour, and also removed any shred of guilt about over that second superbottle of Chang however, and even though it was raining, life goes on without skipping a beat. Nothing closes (the night market closed a little early, and the French girl I passed last night felt that "le temps est merde"), everybody just keeps on driving their scooters around like maniacs, and the puddles were remarkably warm. It's completely unlike a rain storm in Winnipeg, where even if you do decide to bike to your buddies' concert at The Zoo in the rain and get so wet that you pour out half a pint of water from your shoes, you still regret it and wish so badly that you had driven, or taken a bus, or at the very least that you don't have to ride your bike home through the sporadic showers (that last one worked out, "big ups" to my good friends Seth and Tera). In Chang Mai, it's not that it's raining, it's just not sunny, and that's a great thing, because there are loads of great things to do, rain or shine.

Mountains shrouded in a pale white mist surround you as you wind your way up, past an ancient Buddhist temple that has stood in some form or another for over 700 years. Finally your van stops as you get to your ultimate destination - an elephant conservation camp, with a panoramic view of lush, green mountains, wrapped by a lazy river winding through the grounds. Thailand has kind of a strange relationship with pachyderms - they're revered almost as gods and literally helped build the country, but due to deforestation and the exploitation of the giant paenungulates, there's about 5% of the population left from 100 years ago. Which is obviously pretty shitty. The park we went to doesn't exploit them (i.e. riding on their backs ala Tolkien's oliphaunts¹ and utilizing training methods that range from morally questionable to completely barbaric), and they predominately foster old and disabled elephants (apparently a popular way of teaching an elephant a lesson is to blind it in one eye.  And eventually in the remaining eye. Barbaric is really the best term for it without resorting to profanity). And they've got rescued dogs running around all over the place, hilariously that the elephants are scared of. Apparently there's even some truth to the myth of elephants being scared of mice, largely due to their ability to sense vibrations through their feet. They are rather intelligent animals, but they really don't have a sense of how ridiculously large they are. Which is probably a good thing most of the time.

The next day, ride up the mountains again, higher this time until you've reached the top, the point at which you become enrobed in that same mist, then hop on a bike and ride miracle your way down it. And back up a little, but mostly down. It's unfortunate Manitoba is so flat, as riding a bike down a mountain is a pretty much a kickass time (definitely kickass in fact). Although the frequent bailing off your bike for the first 1/3 of the ride is a little disheartening, once you learn to trust your ability to balance a little more and get behind the physics of it being easier to maintain a straight line when you're not riding the breaks like an 80 year old dude (or a 15 year old girl), it actually becomes rather enjoyable. Relaxing even.²  My back hurts, my legs hurt, my ankle hurts and my arms hurt, but my heart is full. A couple of prairie kids went up, and we certainly came down prairie kids as well, but with some well-earned bumps, bruises and scrapes, along with some fantastic pictures, the joy having
biked through a jungle/forest/rice farm(which used to be an opium farm) and a healthy dose of moxy.

Also,when kids in Chang Mai play on the most whimsical bouncy castle thing that you've ever seen, they don't listen to carnival music, they listen to D&B. Yeah, that D&B, seemingly Thai parents in Chang Mai want their kids to grow up to be ravers.


¹ I've never read Lord of the Rings, due to the fact that I'm not a huge nerd. I even had to look up how to spell oliphaunt.
² Not really. You still feel like a badass the whole time. And for some bizarre non-intuitive reason, especially when you fall. Particularly if you happen to fall in an epic fashion.