Changi Mai and Chang Dou

Hello all good to see that you are all following the blog and waiting anxiously from me every blog. Well we arrived in Chaing Mai three days ago by train. Now this was an adventure we thought we were in a recliner train but it turned out to be just a train that seats semi reclined not so good for the back but hey it was only 10 hours long. any who it was on this leg of my journey that i impressed ryan and arley with my bladder holding capabilities. I mean i pretty much held it for a good 22 hours and that aint nothing! after arriving in chaing mai it was good to finally get out of the city of bangkok to a place where it is nice to just walk the streets and the dogs actually wear collars and are not completely mangy. Since it was Sunday here we hit up the weekly Sunday bizarre. it was awesome i bought cool things for 30 cents and ate some fantastic street vendor food. I also found my new love ...... chang beer (sorry nick it is just to good) it is about 6.5% alcholol so i was feeling really good. That night it was real easy to pass out i mean sleep. the next day we caught a truck to chang dou which is 1.5 hours north in the mountains remarkably close to Burma. this place was heaven we checked in to a private bungalow with a mountain view absolutely amazing. The woman running the joint was great too her name was O yes just O and on her staff was a ladyboy (for those of you out of the lop that is what they call transgender here which is quite common) who was our server. IT was here that i had a wonderful thai dinner it was absolutely amazing burned in all the right ways! We walked to the caves and also to a local market that night then hit the hay. Yesterday we had the ultimate adventure we went on an elephant ride through the jungle to a mountain tribe and then rafted on the river. When we arrived the elephants were waiting and boy were they cute. Mine was a bit of a hand full ya know full of piss and vinegar breaking down trees and trumpeting but he was a sweaty. Arley and Ryan lost their tour guide half way through when he jumped off and from then on it was just them and their elephant. After about an hour long ride we arrived in a tiny village where received the grand tour they even let us interrupt the school where all the kids said hello and showed us their class pet a dressed up poodle ( there is something about poodles here they are so well kept and i even saw athena's mother with bows in her hair). From here we were sucked into buying thins from m\the most adorable little boy around the age of three. The next day we walked up (i mean hiked it was at the top of 500 steps) to a hillside temple that was maybe the most gorgeous thing i have ever seen with emerald Buddhas just amazing words dont do it justice. We then returned to the garde of Eden (otherwise known as our hotel) and ate another wonderful meal. This time since we were getting to leave we decided to tip the ladyboy for all his hard work on the past 5 meals so we each chipped in 4 US bucks a piece (1200 baht) and gave it to him. I have never seen such appreciation in my whole life he jumped and squealed then went and shared it with the chef. O commented on what had we done to her staff they were so happy. As we headed back here to chang mae everyone came to say goodbye and it was sad to go. Today though we arrived back in chaing mae and relaxed by the pool then god spa treatments. i opted for the foot and thai massage. Foot massage= awesome thai message = lady twisting you like a pretzel and using her entire body but it felt good and i am glad that i got one for two hours it was roughly 20 bucks so i am set. well tomorrow we booked a SLEEEPER train with beds so back to bangkok we go NEXT STOP THE BEACHES!! love and miss you all keep up the comments ps i have smuggled puppies for all