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We end up renting a room above the best Thai restaurant in all the land, Krua Sabai. Binh is our wonderful host and chef who doesn't speak much English but we found a common language in food and laughter. It was love at first green curry for Binh and Ryan. When she came out of the kitchen to see Ryan wearing a bandana Rambo style to soak up his sweat from this spicy dish, she nearly fell over laughing at him. Pretty sure we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner here for three days straight, working our way through her menu and all of it was aroy mak (very delicious)! Khao Soi is the dish Chiang Mai is most known for. Binh doesn't make it so she took us out to try some. After properly spicing up Ryan's bowl, we take our first bites and Binh is not happy. She makes awful faces and it's obvious this meal is not living up to her standards. She heads back to the food stand and gives them her opinion which included a lot of finger wagging. We then head to her friend's shop who speaks English so she can translate to us exactly what was wrong with it and promises to find a real bowl of Khao Soi for us.
Dani and Alex came into town first and aside from the didgeridoo band that never showed, my cheeks hurt which means it was good times at the jazz bar and I love them. 
But let's get to the important stuff, it's my birthday and Ryan gave me elephants and I'm swooning! We went to the world renowned Elephant Nature Park, a true sanctuary for elephants rescued from tourism and logging industries (many elephant camps call themselves sanctuaries to appeal to kind-hearted tourists but don't actually change their practices). So yes, there's a very serious side to this gift that you need to know about. Please please please read this article on the domestication of elephants as it puts words and video to my feelings of extreme heartbreak for these animals enslaved for Facebook profile pics. The treatment is so extreme that some elephants commit suicide by stepping on their trunks.
Ok now that you know the real deal about elephant tourism and will never ever give your money to anywhere but a true sanctuary, let's get on with our day at Elephant Nature Park. We fed them, we rubbed them, we bathed them, we watched them play and they're just the coolest and I want them all to be my best friend. I can't stop smiling and to make it even better Alex and Dani are there too! Great minds.
Girlfriend did not go out and pierce her ears for fashion's sake but she is stunning!
Washing the biggest female at 4.5 tons aka practicing for Songkran water fights.
Lek, founder of ENP, seeing the elephants love her is magical.
After ENP opened, other elephant camps opened up in the area offering all of the no-no elephant tourism activities. We watched as elephant rides passed with heavy metal cages and heavy tourists and a mahout on their backs. It's hard not to throw rocks at them (inappropriate childish violent reaction) when we just visited with elephants whose backs are no longer curved as they should be from that exact practice.
We made friends of Americans Kevin and Kara at ENP and joined forces with Alex and Dani, and Peter and Lauren for a birthday dinner of street food at the insanely packed and huge Sunday Night Market. With lightening bolt face tattoos, buckets of mojitos and an awesome reggae band, it was a great birthday night with new friends on the other side of the world. Even got to blow out my candle!
While Ryan's busy studying, I head to the "Grand Canyon" of Chiang Mai which is really just a large quarry swimming hole. The cliff jumping becomes the main spectacle with cheering crowds gathered below on bamboo rafts. One jumper in particular was having a tough time gathering his nerve. His bathing suit spelled PYREX in huge white letters across the front, thus becoming his name to us in the crowd. We watched and chanted for him, never wanting to look away so we wouldn't miss his jump. After two hours it finally happened and crowd went WILD!! #isawpyrexjump
Finally, it's Songkran time and we're amped up as we try to make water balloons with lame kits from "Toys R Us". Equipped with matching "Frozen" guns and loads of sunscreen, we're ready, let's do this!
Yes that's Ryan aiming right for me... and yes I dance with my water more than I shoot anyone. But this is the most fun party I've ever been to! Everyone becomes a little kid full of mischief and joy. Smiles are everywhere. Even the buckets of ice water are shocking but wonderful in the heat. You start to not even care about people throwing the dirty water from the city's moat. The electronic music is blaring and everyone is dancing in the street all day long. I'm convinced, we all need water fights in our lives on a regular basis. Post Round One:
And yet we find the energy to keep going!
After months of teasing us with the possibility, our back home bud Marc has arrived and will hang with us for a bit before heading to a teaching job in Hanoi.
Three days of water fights later, we're exhausted. So fun! So tired. And walking around the city we're happy to finally not be constantly soaking wet but simultaneously wishing someone would throw a bucket of water on us because this heat is just too much. We seek solace at the Sticky Waterfalls. These falls contain a mineral that has soaked the ground, as if someone poured concrete down the slope. This mineral makes the rocks feel dry so you can literally walk right up the falls!
Chiang Mai is really great. There's so much to do, so much art and healthy food, so many temples and yoga so difficult you can't raise your arms for three days or maybe that's just me. It's really hard to leave this place, which is why we keep extending our stay...
The best seats for the Jazz club, the grass across the street. It's sweaty in there.
Ryan and Binh continue to bond over his love for her food and now instead of him ordering from the menu, she chooses what she wants to make for him. Binh believes that Ryan was Thai in a former life and she calls him her son. She just gets him. And they cool off together under the fan.
She really is our Thai mother and often reminds us of Ryan's mom (hi Donna!). One night after turning off the shower and toweling off, I accidentally turned the shower back on. The leftover water had sat in the little wall mounted water heater and turned into lava and I screamed as it hit me burning the pattern of the water spray into my stomach and upper thigh. I hear Bihn hurry up the stairs, Ryan slowly comes out of our room and tells her, "it's probably just a spider." We don't have any ice so I stand in a cold misty shower till my skin cools down, it's nothing serious, just temporary. Bihn gives me tiger balm oil spray and as I'm laying down in front of the air conditioner, Ryan sprays my burns, the oil catches in the A/C breeze and lands right into my eye!! My whole eye and all of that sensitive skin surrounding it is on fire with tiger balm as I run to the sink to flush it out. Bihn finds me at the sink and I pantomime what happened and she bellies over laughing at me, calling me, "Ba Ba!!" which means crazy.
- 6:56 AM
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