Last days in Chiang Mai

Today is our last day in Chiang Mai. We'll be taking off tommorow early to get to Huay Xai, on the other side of the Mekong river, separating Thailand and Laos. We have to get to the border crossing by 6 pm, or they will close. But, here's what happened to me over the last few days.

I went Rock Climbing! I'm somewhat of an experienced indoor climber (usually my par is 5.9 or 5.10) and although I have taken outdoor top-roping courses, I have never actually put them into practice. Apparently, rock climbing is really popular in Thailand thanks to Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures. I booked a day trip with two guides to take me up to Crazy Horse Buttress. I don't really have any pictures because the camera was crapping up at this point and because most of the time I was suspended 30 feet up.



After being reviewed on how to clean a route of quick-draws and to do all the work at the top of the route, I went up and down on 4 climbs before lunch. Each climb was about 20-30 metres. I found outdoor climbing pretty exhilirating. All the rock at Crazy Horse Buttress is limestone, which means if there is any hint of acid in the rain it starts to erode in little concave bumps on any upwards-facing surface. This sort of looks like the enlarged surface of a golf ball. The edges of these were sharp, and cut my hand initially when I ran into them.

We broke for lunch, which was supplied by a nearby restaurant. During this I saw a bird that moved too fast for me to take a picture of, so I must announce the first

SOUTHEAST ASIA BIRD IDENTIFICATION CONTEST!!!!
The winner of which will get a prize that is undisclosed at this time.

The bird in question is 20 cm, 10 cm of which is tail. The guides who were with me told me they didn't know the English name, but they knew it migrated from Siberia. It was mostly blue, with black and white arrow-like markings on its back. Its belly was orange at the front, fading to white at the back. I knew it had some sort of call, but I can't really remember what.

During the afternoon I got much more relaxed talking to my guides. One of them was more of an expert, one was a novice. When I was resting between routes, the expert would send the novice up on routes that he hadn't been on yet. Somehow, we stumbled upon penis jokes, and I was taught all the neccesary equivalent in Thai. When we were talking about what was funny, I mentioned the Bodyguard 2, which they seemed to think was pretty low humour.

In the afternoon, I rappelled down into a cave, 57 metres down, in fact. It was pretty awesome, and there were some active stalactite/stalagmite pairs. I also did more advanced climbs up top as the guides guaged my skill level. One of the climbs had me hugging around a 3 foot diameter stalactite, but I wasn't flexible enough and too tired to get over top of.

At the end of the day, I got back into Chiang Mai to meet up to Taylor. I have to give a shout out to Courtney here, who introduced us to the Hash House Harriers. 'nuff said.

Dear John Beaty:

Hey John (or someone who feels like contacting him): I vaguely remember you demanding that I buy a gift for you, since you got one for me in Cuba. What do you want?

The next day, we ignored tourism and went to the mall to see spiderman 3. The mall was a really wierd experience - Taylor has more stuff to say about it than I do. I found that all the prices in the mall for imported goods were Western prices (not surprising I guess), but food prices were still pretty comparable to Thai prices, about 1/4th of Canadian. This makes for a pretty weird culture, and just again reminds me that I'm in a slightly incomprehensible place.

There are many things that don't line up in my mind, like the lack of free speech without any feeling of opression, the worship of the king and the incredible emphasis on fashion. I also felt very left out because everyone else is so polylinguistic.

On wandering back from the Mall, we were hungry and looking for a place to eat. Food is so shockingly cheap here 55 Baht = $1.50 Canadian for a GOOD meal, that we eat out all the time. We stopped at an incredibly chill and empty place called the Jade Garden. We were served by what I can best describe as an "Italian Hippie" who ended up talking to us for over two hours about travel, the world, spirituality, his life, etc. He lived for 15 years in Bali, India starting in 1974, and was bitten by a King Cobra. He also knows six languages and is an antique dealer. We keep meeting incredibly awesome people.

CAMERA

The camera has been giving me bullshit issues for several days now. It would have problems such as being very slow, sometimes "freezing" and not turning off, etc. We weren't sure what the problem was at all, and have been confused for a while. This explains the lack of pictures. However, I managed to figure out that the two identical memory cards I got at Henry's in Kingston were the offenders. We tried the camera with a new Kingston one (the brand, not the city) and it works awesome. This is how Taylor and I felt when that happened:



Here is a picture of the offender:

asshole.

Doi Suthep

We had to get the camera fixed because we were heading up to Doi Suthep, the Wat on the Mountain outside Chiang Mai. We chartered a Song-thow using our now-expert bargaining skills for the 16 km ride.

On the way there:
Driver: "I'll offer you 300 baht"
Taylor: "No. How about 150."
Driver: "No. 250."
Taylor: "Fine. How about 200."
[Driver walks away for a bit without any warning. We stand there awkwardly for a minute, then he comes back and takes us up.]

On the way back:
Translator, speaking for the driver: "He offers 300 baht."
Taylor: "What? We got up here for 150."
etc.

Having the camera just returned to us, we were elated and took many pictures:




A monk on a cellphone:




Incomprehensible Thai Political Cartoon: