Moving on

Our time in Chiang Mai is up! We're leaving tomorrow morning to travel to the border by van. We're staying in the border town Chiang Khong, which is supposed to be very cool. Then we're off to the slow boat to Luang Prabang in Laos.

We went on a day trek today. Started by taking an ox cart ride, which was a bit hokey, but still cool. They took us in a little 15 minute loop. Kind of a time filler, but it was interesting to be on these old rickety carts. After that we went on a stifling bamboo raft ride. Sun beating down but again, totally beautiful scenery. When that was done we rode elephants. Absolutely awesome. It was a very bumpy ride, and terrifying when our elephant seemed like she wanted to take a shortcut down a cliff, but once I realized that the elephants wanted to fall down even less than we wanted them to, I felt like I could relax. One of the elephants had a little baby that trotted along beside the whole time. Later when the ride was over, we were all playing with the baby, and it wrapped its trunk around the strap of my camera and almost flung it into the bushes. John had a little tug of war with it and eventually won. After the elephants we visited a mountain tribe village where all the women had elongated necks and wore metal coils around them. We bought a couple hand woven scarfs which are absolutely beautiful.

Once we got back we ate khao soi (maybe our last bowl ever) and walked around the Sunday market, trying to resist buying everything we saw. We ended up getting 60 bhat foot massages, which were pretty intense, but left us feeling like we were walking on air.

Now it's off to get a good night's rest before our travels tomorrow. Bye Thailand!