Chiang Mai 2

It was quite late when we went to bed on Thursday night after our nice dinner at The Whole Earth on Thursday night and at 2.00am we were woken by the sound of a light waterfall. We turned on the light to see water pouring from the ceiling in the entry area close to the aircon vent. After placing the bathroom bin under it Len rang for help and 2 Thai men came with their ladder to fix it which took about half an hour. It seemed that we had just got back to sleep before we were woken again about 4.00am by the same noise so the whole process was repeated. We didn't manage to sleep again after this so were pretty tired going to breakfast the next morning which was again an early rise as we had booked in to do the elephant trekking and bamboo rafting. Plenty of choice at the continental and cooked breakfast which I think I will now call the 'new dinner'! At our Bangkok Hotel we could only have Continental unless we paid extra and of course this was much better for our waistlines!

We were picked up from our hotel for our excursion by a minibus which already had 9 mostly English speaking friendly Chinese tourists on board -lots of Chinese on holiday here at the moment as it is holiday week in China.We were driven out to the Mae Taeng Elephant Park where we were just in time to see the Elephant Show which was packed with tourists - standing room only for us in the seated viewing stands. The show was actually very impressive with the elephants displaying their dancing skills, strength, and football goaling techniques. What had us totally awed though was watching 3 of the elephants painting - it really does have to be seen to be believed! I thought they did very well to get a couple of painted lines down the sheet of paper but then these lines were added to to make tree trunks and then green bushy branches topped by red flowers and then the older elephant drew in the behinds of 2 elephants and a couple of them even signed their names! Absolutely astounding - they can paint better than me!! All their mahouts (keepers) did in the whole process was put fresh paint on the brush and then put the brush back into the elephant's trunk.

Painted & signed by Suda, the elephant!

The paintings were up for sale in the souvenir shop afterwards and there was one I would dearly have loved. They were priced at 1000 baht which is only about $40 but it was then that I discovered that the money manager had only taken about 500 baht, the trip theoretically being all inclusive and he didn't want money or cards being "lost overboard" when we did the bamboo rafting. We can't believe that the paintings hadn't already been sold when we walked through the shop so we have the feeling that they may photocopy them so you're not actually buying the original. Even so a photocopied one would have done but never mind!