Northern Thialand

After our exciting elephant treking and bamboo rafting we had a day off in Chaing Mia. Dad found a tuk tuk driver to take us around town. We started going to 2 more wats, and then went and saw all the different factory's along the Golden Mile. This is a big stretch of road that has all the traditional skills showcased for tourists to come and visit, to see how each traditional item is made, and then purchase it! We went and saw the Thia silk factory, umbrella making and painting, teak wood carving, and jewlery factories. Halfway through the day, I was getting food grumpy ( a phenomenon when i don't eat i range from being pleasantly straving, to weepingly desperate to enraged cow) I politely demanded we find food.... NOW. So the tuk tuk driver took us to the closest hole in the wall, which served heaping plates of food for a dollar per plate. It was the best Thia food i have had yet!!! Dad got Pad Thia, which is his favorite local dish, i discovered Ginger fried anything is amazing! You could serve me ginger fried big toe and i would eat it! It was the most fantastic meal i have ever had and it cost us $5 us dollars for 2 plates of food, 2 drinks, a big bottle of water and icecream!!
After our factory day ( i must say we did pretty good... i desperately wanted a teak dining room table for chirstmas but dad said no..... the chairs were each about 30-40 lbs... solid wood) we went back to Wat Chedi Luang, where they offered Monk Chat. This is where novice Monks come and talk with the public about anythign they want to talk about. Buddhism, Thai culture, Monk life, temples, etc. This not only educates the public, but also allows the novices to practice their english!
Dad and i sat down and talked to a Novice who was 22 years old, and had been practicing for 10 years. We talked about a lot of different things, and i really wish Dad and I had a recording of it, because mostly i got a gerneral overview of the topics. But it was really interesting to talk to him and learn about the Monk life and a bit about the Buddhist beliefs. He was as equally interested in our lives, cultures, and was bit confused as to how i was living in a different country than my father. We kept it simple just saying i had been going to school up there, but is shows you how different our cultures can be. Some of these countries are smaller than some US states, or Canadian provinces, and few ever leave their country, either from a lack of means, or just as it is not the culture to do so.

THe next day we had planned a tour to take us up to Chaing Ria, and the Golden Triangle. For those who were oblivious like me to what the Golden Triangle is, it is the border of Thialand, Burma and Loas. This is where a lot of the Opium from the 1970's importing during the Vietnam war and so on came from. Think American Gangster with Denzel Washington....
Anyways, not that i really wanted to mess with anything poppy related. Most of the Southeast Asian countries have big signs to let you know that drug trafficing is punishable by death, and the death penalty WILL be used!... Okay no poppies and dumping out my tylenol bottle. However i thought it would be interesting to see/learn about that history. What dad and i were painfully unaware of is that we had somehow ended up on a market tour, where they trick you into thinking that you are going to see a whole bunch of really cool sights and do some adventure things, hotsprings and long boat trips in to Burma and Laos, local Thai food lunch, drive to the most northern part of thialand and then go through the jungle to the long neck people's village..... ummm no. Instead the hotsprings, were hotsprings fountains which was the size of a pond you might put in your backyard, with a big Market, next was the long boat into the different countries, well you go 3 minutes up river and look at a casino on the river bank, OH your in Burma! THen backtrack 6 minutes down the river, and go to a.... Market, and Oh your in Loas. Then they take you to the most northern part of Thailand, where there is a big touristy gate saying "Most Northern Part of Thialand" and surrounding it is.... yes you guessed it a market. Oh i forgot to mention the lovely thia style lunch, well the resturant is called "A Buffet for Tourist Groups" No explanation necessary.. except the food sucked!
THe only really interesting thing was the local village, which unfortunately was not a local village, but a tourist stand set up for the villagers to sell their goods, and also to be "viewed" almost like animals at the zoo. I was completely uninmpressed by our tourguide as he would just walk up to each person talk about them, finger them or move them around never seeming to actually acknowledge them. They were lovely people though and although i wasn't able to talk to them due to language barrier, i made a friend with lady from the "big ear tribe" ( i dont know the real name of each tribe or village due to lame tour guide) but this is where they stick big rings in their ears and stretch their earlobes, similar to what some people do today. This lady's ear was streched with a ring big enough you could maybe fit a banana through!
All in all it wasn't quite what we had anticipated but we got to see different things such a beautiful jungles, traditional Loation "medicine" such as tiger penis, gecko, cobra, and scorpion whiskey! Um ew, i'll just be sick thank you very much.
The next day was really exciting where Dad and I went ripsailing through the jungle tree tops. This is where you are up in the canopies of the trees hooked onto cable lines in a harnass and "sail" from tree top to tree top. There were 17 cables lines, 2 sky bridges, nd 3 abisailing, where you go vertically down the tree via a rope. The longest cable was 120 meters, and the highest abisail was probably about 75 m up! It was such a fun day and dadand i had a blast! We were a bit nervous at first, and you just hold on to your harness as if somehow you are controlling wether that keeps you from falling, but by the end we were throughing ourselves off the platforms and "flying" (flapping our arms and kicking our feet) through the air. Dad and i raced down the last abisail together.
Our last Day in Chaing Mia was spent in a Thai cooking class where we learned to cook Pad Thia, curry dishes, different soups and appetiezers. They took us to the market in the morning so we could learn aout the different herbs, vegetables, fruits and spices to use. Half way through the class we had a break and dad decided to go for a 15 minute, 3 dollar hair cut. I giggled on the couch the whole time while this lady shaved dads head. He now looks like a military man!
We are now i Vientiane, Laos.. it is a little quiter than we first anticipated, but tomorrow we are going either kyaking or white river rafting, we're not sure which, they say kyak, but then show you a picture of white river rafting. Either way should be another great adventure.
Finally found a computer with a USB so look back for some pictures of previous trips!