Chiang Mai cont...

We had 2 days left in Chiang Mai. We spent one of these days exploring the "Old City". Where we found more temples, more signs telling us we were dressed "impolitely" and more mummified monks.

Modesty robes that we were forced to wear in 100 degree weather

I hope our impolite attire didn't offend the monks..

Temple Ruins

Mummified Monk

Sometimes in Thailand there are random buckets of snakes.

Lucila had to get back to the real world why Danielle and I stayed. We booked another adventure tour that went to a butterfly and orchid farm as well as to the Long Neck Hill Tribes. We thought Danielle had a long neck...The women in this hill tribe of Northern Thailand begin to wear these rings around their neck at age 5, and have them on for the rest of their lives! They had prop rings for us to wear for photo ops, and they are heavy! I could not imagine sleeping with that thing on. They only take off the rings every 2 years to wash their necks and the rings, and to add on more rings. They also had cuffs around their calves that seemed to completely deform this one ladies legs. The rings are thought to be beautiful by the tribe. I wonder if the added tourism attracted by this custom keeps it going...

The newest member of the long neck hill tribe.

This woman had the most rings of all the tribe members, 27!! 

Danielle sat out for the elephant ride, as mentioned in the previous blog, and took pictures on the long rickety bridge instead. After everyone returned from the elephant ride, we enjoyed ourselves at yet another waterfall. Our tour guide gave us an option: you can hike an hour to the fall and enjoy 20 minutes at the waterfall or ride in the van for 20 minutes for an hour at the waterfall. Everyone decided to drive there. We got in the van, and literally 2 minutes later we pulled to the stop and were at the fall. That was it??? This was not the first time people in Thailand were way off in their time estimates. I just don't even understand. Either way, we enjoyed the very pretty waterfall and jumped in for a dip.

Look  closely and you will find me on the bridge!

The next part of this adventure was rafting. We did both white water rafting and bamboo rafting. For white water rafting we joined a raft with 2 guys from Singapore. Since Singapore was our next stop, we asked them what we should do while there. They recommended a club on Sundays for gay night "so we can touch all of the boys". Once rafting started and Danielle noticed the rainbow bracelet, it all made sense. One of the Singaporians couldn't figure out how to hold his paddle. His arms were crossed with his right arm on the left end of the paddle and vice versa. Our guide was yelling, "Men!! Hold your paddle right!!" It took several more minutes for him to figure out. Once they got the grip right, they daintily paddled along as Danielle and I were the default muscle of the boat. We are pretty good paddlers, as we proved before on the kayaks, but come on....

Bamboo rafting was much more relaxing, since we had someone else to do the work for us. Danielle took a turn as the captain and lost the bamboo stick shortly after. Luckily, she also recovered it!

Thirsty for some Chang, Danielle and I tried to find some bars in Chiang Mai that night. We went to a strip of bars that we had noticed a day or 2 before that looked like a fun area. We got there and were disappointed that there were only a few people in each bar. Even more disappointing, the few people consisted of Thai women in high heels and short skirt, and old men wrapping their arms around the ladies' waists. Great, we are at "prosti-row". This is the second strip of bars in Chiang Mai we've noticed like that. I find it very interesting to see, but don't want to watch it for more than just passing by, so we found a small hut instead (The Lost Hut) where we played card drinking games, learned how to say cheers "chok de ka!" and each tried to get the other one to invite the Thai policeman to drink with us. We were both chicken.