A thai schoolkid collecting flowers. I just took this picture a few minutes ago, and these kids are still in school at 5pm?!

A giant tree, sitting in the middle of a housing complex. I thought it looked quite nice!

Silhouetted signpost. You can see a hint of the mountains surrounding Chiang Mai in the background.

Random pile of tires.

The top of a stone pagoda.

Monk robes hanging out to dry.

A nice plant within a temple.

Stone elephant sitting in a pagoda.

This shot was taken beside the recycling centre. I don't think the recyclying operations are up to ISO 9001 standards...

An old temple wall sitting smack in the centre of town.

Artsy fence shot. I call it "Voice of Fire".

The streets of Chiang Mai. This is right around the corner from our guesthouse.

ko chang, ko chang!

hello everybody!

this is going to be a fairly mundane entry, as i've been mostly just hanging around chiang mai since i went trekking. i told you all about my thai massage course, which i have officially graduated from. i got a certificate and everything, and i need people to practice on when i get home. the sign-up list will be sent to you shortly.

apart from that, tenna and i have met a few other groups of people around town. some canadians (from toronto!) and a dutch soccer ref! we've spent the evenings grabbing drinks around town, and doing some reading, etc.

however, we got around to booking a bus to ko chang, so we're now checking out of the "julie guest house" where we've been staying to head down there for a few days. it'll be nice to see a beach, as i've been spending the majority of my time hanging around in cities here. hopefully i can perfect my as-of-yet non-existent tan before i get to australia. that way, they won't think i'm a pasty canadian... i'm doomed.

i'll try to get you some nice pictures of ko chang, as i'm sure it'll be a purdy-lookin' place! who knows what sorts of adventures await?!

bye bye for now,

> ian

you wan massaaaage?

it's been a while since my last update, but rest assured this is not due to a lack of activity -- in fact quite the opposite! i'll give you a quick summary here:

shehz has now left me deserted in chiang mai, but i'm doing just fine :). i'm staying at the julie guest house, which is a really nice place, full of people who like hanging out with each other. that's what i'm all about.

the day before shehz and i went our separate ways, we decided to take part in a one-day excursion to see some of the northern tribal villages. the trip consisted of a pretty long drive north from chiang mai to begin with. we initially stopped at the "golden triangle", which is at the very northern tip of thailand, where the borders of thailand, myanmar (burma), and laos meet. shehz and i hopped on a longboat that drove us around and we got to do some border-hopping. when we stopped in laos, we were immediately offered snake whiskey. i think shehz's fear of snakes caused him to pass up the opportunity, but who am i to say no to whiskey at 12:30pm? i probably SHOULD have taken the same route as shehz, seeing as the damn stuff was pretty strong, and being the wussy that i am i'm pretty used to having a nice chaser to follow things up. not here. snake whiskey. then you get to sit and think about what you've just done.

after the golden triangle, we started driving up to the tribal villages. like every other mode of transportation in thailand, our van ended up stopping at a jewelry store. the excuse from the drivers was that it was raining and we could try to wait it out at the "jewelry factory" where we "would be shown how they make jade". you can probably figure out that they showed us how they make jewelry for a grand total of 5 minutes and promptly showed us to the jewelry showroom where we could conveniently purchase precious jewels. great. shehz and i waited outside.

finally we took off for the tribal villages. this was a bit of a bittersweet experience. it was super-amazing to be dropped off at this crazy-high altitude and wander around these tiny villages seeing all sorts of people dressed up in tribal gear. i had a chance to take a lot of great pictures, and the people were pretty cool. however, here are the downsides:

- most of the people are hell-bent on selling you souvenirs. unfortunately, the stuff they sell up here is exactly the same as the stuff they sell in the cities, because the same tribal people just come into town and try to give it to you there.

- the tribespeople aren't thai. turns out that these tribes (akha, long neck, big ear) are actually all burmese and/or chinese. however, they receive subsidies from the government for setting up shop in thailand and making the gig a tourist attraction.

- the three villages are set up within a 200m walk of each other. this is a bit too convenient, considering none of the tribespeople can communicate with anybody from the other tribes -- they speak totally different dialects!

- it's a bit of a sad state of affairs in the villages. it is legal for tribespeople to use opium, and therefore many of the akha women we saw were pretty high. add to that the fact that dental hygiene is noticeably lacking, and you end up with images like the one i took of a women whose teeth are completely reddish-black from chewing opium, and also just plain rotted away from eating all these sweets. it's hard seeing kids who are barely 7 or 8 and already have noticeable tooth decay.

in summary, the whole thing is fairly set up as a tourist attraction. however, it was still a rewarding experience, and is as genuine as these things can probably get without actually hiring some personal guide to trek into remote mountains.

the next day shehz and i went on our respective trekking excursions. he didn't have much time, so he did a one day trek, whereas i opted for the full-on three day trek. tenna (the danish girl we met, whose now hanging out with me here), joined me on the trek. we picked up a group totalling 9, i believe, and headed north once again for our excursion.

i was given a backpack for the trek, which i quickly found was god-awful for carrying on your back. it was basically shaped like a giant sphere, and thus was absolutely horrid to carry around. make sure you bring a good pack for these things: i learned my lesson!

anyhoo, we did introductions around the whole group. there were two guys from our hostel there: joe (from alberta) and chris (from the us). there were two french people who were only doing a two-day trek, and then a group of 5 guys and girls who just recently graduated from an mba program at wharton in pennsylvannia. as it turns out, we had a really great trekking group!

the first day consisted of a really big climb uphill for a few hours. the villages we were staying in were all at a fairly high altitude, so all of the major uphill climbing was done on the first day. we ended up staying in a lahu village up in the mountains. the view up there was absolutely gorgeous! we ate a bunch of rice for dinner, and after dinner, the local tribeskids (my new word) did a big song and dance for us. after which, of course, we were asked to "chip in money for the children of the tribe". i did, although people asking you for money at every turn here in thailand really starts to get on your nerves: we've already PAID for this trek -- why are you asking us to pay more?!

they proceeded to ask US to sing a song for them in return. you can only imagine how much trouble we had trying to give them a show -- especially when it's americans AND canadians. row row row your boat anybody? nobody knows all the lyrics to a song, and if they do, then the chances are pretty low that anybody ELSE in the group does. we got away with a few classics, but i don't think they were overly impressed.

chad, one of the wharton guys, doled out some good logic problems. here they are:

- the spurs and the lakers are playing a 7 game series. you are involved in a betting scheme such that if you bet on a game and win, you win the amount you bet, and if you lose, you lose that amount. you are betting on the spurs, and your goal in betting is to be up $100 if the spurs win the entire series, and down $100 if they lose the entire series. how much money do you have to bet on the very first game in order for this to be possible? (it's tougher than it sounds)

- you have a 40 pound stone. you also have a balance. how can you cut the 40lb stone into 4 separate stones (whose masses must sum to 40) such that you can measure every integer-valued weight between 1 and 40? (another good one!)

we slept directly on a bamboo floor that night. it actually wasn't too bad! we got some serious mosquito nets too, so the bites weren't excessive either. the next day we did more walking and walking, and finally came to a nice waterfall where we got to clean ourselves off and have a nice swim. it was a great time! it's hard to express how nice it feels to get yourself washed off after a sweaty, sweaty bunch of hiking in the thai countryside. we finally arrived at another village, where there was just one man and women who were to keep us fed. luckily, they had these thai chocolate bars called "beng beng", which were amazing. also, they had nori seaweed-flavoured chips, but i made sure to avoid those. got another chance to swim here, in a place separated by two sets of rapids. the water was super-fast, so i was a bit nervous, but our guide assured us i'd be fine :). he also instructed us to jump off a big rock into the water, and that the water was surely deep enough. they made me go first, and i'm still alive, so i guess he was right.

they scored us some nice mattresses to lay on top of the bamboo this time, so things were a little less crazy. the next morning we hiked straight to the elephant camp -- what a treat! these beasts are awesome. i got to hop right on the head of one, and of course, the guides took us straight to a set of rapids once we were on the elephants. nah, don't let us get used to them, just send us right into the fray! it worked out ok though. you can see from the pictures that we also got to feed them some bananas. it was great, because if you held the banana near their trunk for long enough, they'd get pissed off and blow hot elephant air in your face. i loved it! after the elephant trek, we headed in our little two-bench thingy to the bamboo rafting.

it was a pleasant sight to see the bamboo rafts being COMPLETED as we arrived. they actually just seem to build them and use them once, and then toss the things out. it was obvious why this was the case once we finished! i won't be able to show you any pictures of this until i get some images from the other people in the group -- my camera was safely stowed away. however, the bamboo rafts were about 5 feet wide and 20 feet long. our two groups were split across two rafts -- one with 4 and one with 5. initially, we sat down on them. the darn things are barely dense enough to support such a large group, so they sort of hover in the water about an inch below the surface while your ass gets soaked. it was great fun though!

once again, the thai people decide the best idea is to send the group immediately into the rapids. thank you, thailand. so we're sitting on this open raft flying down the river with absolutely nothing to hold to! crazy! steering is accomplished by one guy at the front and another at the rear: each one has a large bamboo stick that they dig into the river bed to turn the raft. trust me, it doesn't work very well at all. the creepiest part is certainly driving over submerged rocks. since you're sitting on the bamboo, you start to hear a crunching sound emanating from the front of the raft. as it moves towards the back, scraping the bamboo and making the entire raft sounds like it's cracking apart, you can feel the rock pass by your butt -- sheesh!

there were some hairy situations, like when our raft got jammed and our guides had to hop into the water to redirect us. and then there was the time when the raft in FRONT of us got jammed on some SERIOUS rapids, so we had to let our raft go through solo. the group was supposed to catch it on the other side, but of course the raft sped by and two of us had to hop in the drink and follow it downstream! we caught up just fine though. i even got to steer the raft for the second half of the trip! yay! highlight was when the guide said halfway through the trip, "many people die each year bamboo rafting. it's only the start of the rainy season though, so we should be fine."

white water rafting followed that. a very similar experience, however our guide had even less idea of what was going on. instructions? nah. "paddle!" "...ok!" we got stuck on a huge rock 10 seconds into the journey. it took us about 10 minutes to get off of the darn thing, and once again it involved our guide getting out into the rapids and pulling our boat free. it was comforting when he confessed, "it's never been like this!", and he couldn't stop laughing. the highlight here was when we had to throw the boat back on top of his truck as a team. what do they say in thai, instead of 1,2,3? "1, 2, POON!" now it was my turn to laugh.

anyways, i've spent a long time trying to write this all down. the summary on the past two days has consisted of myself signing up for a 3-day thai massage course. it's going pretty well, although at this point i'm realizing that i've paid 2000 baht to massage old ladies for 6 hours a day.

i'll let you know where i'm headed from now on.

bye!

Ian, circa this morning. If I look a bit haggard, it's probably due to the no-showing-in-three-days factor, the sweat factor, the on-top-of-an-elephant factor, the self-portrait factor... enough excuses.

He's either about to kill me, or he's really happy!

... I'll let you decide about this one ...

Feeding the elephants ba-nay-nays.

They get deep!

Me going through the river! Rapids! On an elephant! Who knew?!

The view from an elephant's head. Precarious!

Elephant with the equivalent of its finger in its mouth. Or its nose in its mouth...

A typical Thai toilet. If you zoom in closely on the left, you'll see the biggest Daddy Long-Legs spider I've ever encountered in the cement wall.

Our trekking dog, John-dog.

Waterfall that we swam in. Our trekking guide Dan taught me to climb that tree branch you see sitting in the middle!

A kid living alone with his mother in a remote area of the jungle near a big waterfall. We stopped here for a snack and I took a few pictures.

Our trekking group, minus me.

Sunset from the Lahu village.

Lahu hut under construction.

I helped this girl pick fruits off a tree. She wasn't quite tall enough to grab them so she sign-languaged my help!

I dig the kids. These were Lahu Tribe children.

Up high with our trekking group!

Our trekking guide, Kim-kim. He was a man's man.

Bamboo chute. Shoot? I can't remember.

Opium is legal for tribespeople. Thus, they chew it often. Combined with poor dental hygiene, you get the following effect, which is really unfortunate.

The Akha people. They often wear big beaded hats, like the one you'll see in the next picture.

He's really movin'!

This kid made a nice race car right in the middle of his village.

Long Neck family. The husbands are usually away in Bangkok selling handicrafts while the women stay at home and take care of the children.

More stray dogs, but they're all puppies!

Long Neck Karen.

Party Time!

What the hell is this guy pointing at me?!

A Long Neck Karen Tribe girl. I have a bunch of shots of Thai children, and let me just say I need some of my own. These kids are incredible! Jay, you've seen "Junior", right?

A monk umbrella party. I tell you, I can't get enough of these guys. I love 'em!

A Thai glamour shot. I figure it kinda looks like a skewed heart.

Shehz got torn apart by mosquitos. This picture doesn't do his poor legs justice.

A Lao monkey. I fed him grass. He seemed to like it, until the point that he tried to steal my camera! Bastard!

Laos' post office box. Mail, anybody?

The snake whiskey that I drank. They give you a free shot when you get to Laos -- thanks for the welcome party boys! I drank it at about 12:30pm. Needless to say, it hurt.

Shehz has officially made it to the Lao People's Democratic Republic. That's what I assume the acronym is, anyway.

Our longboat. It was fast.