Ram's Elephants 11/1/2550-12/1/2550

We arrived in Chiang Mei before dark and booked rooms at Galare Guesthouse (Rams = 500 B, ours = 1,150 B). It was a nice place with a restaurant overlooking the river and a 5 minute walk to Chiang Mei's daily night bazaar. We got food at a cute restaurant with amazing cocktails and then headed to the night bazaar in search of Ram's wood-carved elphants.

The night bazaar was crazy -- teeming with vendors hawking various handmade shirts, jewelry, trinkets and thai dishes. This bazaar seems to be the major draw for tourists to Chiang Mei, evidently even Thai tourists :).



We walked for about an hour through the main outdoor market area with no luck. There were carved elephants, but none were of suitable size for Ram. We'd given up and were making our final purchases, when a guy told us about a bamboo saxophone shop that was in the warehouse section of the bazaar. We were excited at the news of indoor shops because that's where Ram remembered seeing the elephants. Following the guy's directions, Ram was able to acquire his prize.

We had to separate for the elephant purchase, so that Ram could fetch a better price (pretending to be local). Ken and I left the market shortly after, planning to meet up with Ram again in Krabi (he was taking an early flight the next day). At about 5:30 am there was a knock on our door.

Ram had bought two elephants (or rhinos?) and each was packed into an approximately 1.5 x 1.5 x 3 foot crate. Upon seeing this and realizing Ram was travelling alone, the front desk manager arranged a super-sketch 'taxi'. The cab was black and pretty beaten up, with no sign of being part of a taxi service. The driver was even more sketch because he wouldn't talk to Ram while he loaded Ram's stuff into the car. Fortunately, Ram came and got us, and when he asked the driver if Ken and I could ride with him to the airport the driver freaked. He said no, quickly unloaded Ram's stuff and split. Sketchy!! Ken flagged a red truck (great way to travel around Chiang Mei), and we rode with Ram to the airport. Ram was able to store the goods at the Bangkok airport for 100B/day, and made it safely to the dream valley resort in Krabi.

After that adventurous morning, we hired a private driver for the day (1,200B) to take us climbing. Crazy horse is amazing!!!



Climbing in Thailand is everything I'd imagined it to be -- super steep, interestingly-featured, over-bolted limestone!! I love this creative, strenuous climbing :)! Also, the driver fee includes a thai food lunch service, so we've also been enjoying the best crag food along with the best climbing.