Chiang Mai

I woke up when we arrived in Chiang Mai. Erin, Lisa and I were the last to be dropped off. Erin’s brother and father were there to greet us at the Safehouse Hotel. They already checked me in, so I dropped off my bags and walked to the office.

Burm was at the office waiting for Brad to come by. I sat with him and played with a cute little puppy.

He had a purple elephant stuffed toy as a friend.
Then he suddenly got all energetic. He was biting me (it didn’t hurt, I think he just wanted to play) and I didn’t know what to do because I’ve never played with a puppy before. I tried to keep him away but he kept jumping on me. I threw his elephant away. He followed it and began to play with the other dogs.

I waited for a long time and Janet still hadn’t come yet. I was a little worried because her van left before ours and we had agreed to go to the office right after we check in.

Finally, Janet came. She still had her luggage with her. She had misplaced her passport and the hostel wouldn’t let her check in. fortunately, my room had two beds. We went back to Safehouse hotel so she could drop off her stuff.

The Sunday bazaar is literally 50 metres away from my hotel. We went there to explore the market stalls, do some shopping and get some dinner. Janet said “Chang!” every time we saw an elephant haha. Here are some of the things we saw:

Chiang Mai Walking Street.
Porcupine toothpick holders and elephant salt shakers.
Soap Flower Carvings. He carves flowers out of regular bar soap, and then he paints it. He only uses two tools to carve and they looked really rudimentary but the flowers were beautiful.
Embroidered bags. (I could do this!)
Baby in a tent.
Quiche in boats made out of leaves.
Insects snacks.
Spiral potato snack. It didn’t taste anything amazing, but it looked so cool.
Since this is a picture, you can’t tell that everyone is standing still. But I assure you, they are! Everyday at 8 in the morning and 6 in the evening, the national anthem will play in all public areas and everyone drops what they are doing and stands still.

Crochet animal purses. You can buy the handles at the dollar store. I want to make one!
Elephant neck pillows. I want to make this too! (I took a lot of pictures for craft ideas)
J-E-L-L-O! They had rose shaped jelly, alphabet jelly, kanji jelly and symbols too.
Here’s a chocolate version. You can buy your lover’s name in chocolate! haha
Little street buskers.
Chomp jewelery.
Pandas.
Puppet show.
Bamboo cups! I bought one. It was mostly ice (most drinks are if you buy them at the market) but I wanted to bring a cup home.
SPY wine cooler stools.
Mmm cake.
Candle holders.

Stick people. Literally.
Sheet metal art. His son is playing daddy.
Pop up cards. I’ve seen a great book on how to do this at the bookstore but I haven’t had the time to see if they have similar books at the library. I bought the materials a while ago so this was a good reminder to try it out.

Fertility scoops.
Rabbits.
Teddy bear hamsters.
I bought some stuff at the market. Off the top of my head, I got: two hats, 4 pairs of earrings, two hair sticks, lamp, a fan painting, and two scarves. Everything was so much cheaper here compared to Bangkok. I didn’t even bargain because apart from the fan, everything else was under 100 baht.

We went back to the hotel so Janet could try to look for her passport again. It didn’t look like she had it, but it was in the last place she checked! She had hid it with her gifts to send home. She even hid some money with it. Finding money you hid from yourself is the best thing ever. She took a quick shower and then we walked over to the office.

We were late by 5 minutes, but we were still the first ones there. Derrick was inside the office playing with all the dogs. Lek was working at the desk. It was past 8:30 and they were still working hard. It was encouraging to see.

Chris and Emma showed up next and then Lisa’s family soon joined us. We walked over to the What Bar. Lisa covered our first round, Chris got our second and I got snacks for everyone (onion rings, fries and fries with cheese). Group Picture!
We saw an elephant working on the street outside the bar. It was my first time seeing this. I never guessed that I would react the way I did, but I cried. It was so heart breaking to see the little thing chained and begging for food. I’d seen it in the documentary on the ride to the park, but I didn’t realize how sickening it would be to see it in real life.

I thought about Kham Paan and the other elephants. I fed them, bathed them, and watched them grazing on the field all week. They’re so happy at the park. I took their freedom for granted. I realized that they don’t have any rights. All the elephants at the park had to have their freedom bought and paid for.

We don’t have the money or resources to buy all the elephants freedom. We couldn’t save this elephant even though he was only 5 metres away. We did the best we could do. Erin talked to the tourists feeding the elephants and gave them brochures. She told them if they wanted a better experience and a real experience with elephants, they should check out Elephant Nature Park.

Later on in the night, Burm, Brad, Chrissie, Michelle and some past volunteers showed up. Then Melita and her friend also came by. Here’s an all girls picture!
After the What Bar, we stopped by a reggae bar. It was almost two when I got back to the hotel. I was going to take a quick shower but the water was so nice. The park only has cold showers so hot water was a treat!