Kae ended up inviting us up to visit the ‘Golden Triangle’, which is where the counties of Thailand, Burma/Myanmar and Lao meet up at the Mekong river.  Kae is the marketing manager at the faboulous Anantara Golden Triangle Resort next to the Opium Hall (museum) and Chiang Saen.  In addition to a couple of world-class restaurants, the Anantara is apparently the only 5 star resort to have their own Elephant camps.  Initially this seems like an odd amenity for a resort, but it makes sense when you learn that one of her primary duties of late has been to organize–get a load of this–the Annual King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament.   They actually have two elephants camps: one for adult elephants and one for babies and adolescents… roughly 30 elephants in total.

It was a lot of fun to play with the adult and child elephants, even got to ride one of them bareback which was pretty cool.  Anantara’s mahouts take really great care of the elephants, which are quite a bit cleaner than the other ones we had met.  Every day they take them all down to bathe in the river that divides Thailand from Burma.  Like I said earlier, elephants love to play in the water, and this time we actually got to play with them.  Was a lot of fun, had to just strip down to your skivvies and jump in the river with the elephants and the mahouts.  Lots of splashing.  Was a real highlight of the trip so far.

Kae actually said we could play Elephant Polo in the practice match this weekend!  Can you imagine how awesome that would be?  Truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I could not work the schedule.  Mike is going to go to Laos for a couple of days and come back to play on Sunday.  Lucky bastard!

As we were leaving the resort, we see one of the employees sitting on a buffalo.  Got a few snaps of us and the buffalo before we left!

We caught a long-tail boat (powered by a Toyota 4AGE 1600) over to a “no man’s land” island that is technically Laos.  It ended up being a fairly depressing little market–I nicknamed it Laos’s answer to Tijuana.  But I can say I’ve been to Laos I guess.

I had been thinking of making a visa run up into Myanmar/Burma, but got to the border and decided against it.  Burma has been under the control of an brutal and illegal military dictatorship for the past 20 years or so, and I did not want to support them by paying the 500 baht entry fee just to get a stamp and to be able to say I’ve been.  I can say I’ve stood in the shadow of Burma, which is good enough.

By this time I needed to start heading back to Chiang Mai to return the bike and catch a flight to Phuket.  I left the Thai-Burmese border around 3:00pm, and as timing had it, wasn’t able to get back before sunset.  We’d put about 1000km on the bikes, and I was shocked that we hadn’t had problems with bugs in our faces/clothing like I’d normally have to deal with in the states.  I guess the trick is that the bugs are still there, they are just hiding until darkness.  I had ridden all week without cleaning my visor, but once the sun started to set I couldn’t go 20 miles without getting a near-total bug coverage on my helmet visor.  I learned the hard way that wiping them with the glove makes it much worse.   The only real solution is to pull over, wash away the bugs and guts, wipe and dry.  Repeat every 20 miles until you’re home.  I had to stop 4 times for the last hour of the trip.  Even a second of the visor up when leaving a stop light would reward the wearer with a face full of gnats/mosquitoes.  I was curious how the bare-headed locals could deal with it.  Upon more careful examination I saw that they were able to drape a sleeve or the neck of their shirts around their faces.  Some even just rode with a hand in front of their faces.  I thought it was hilarious.

The one thing that really sucks about riding through the countryside is the fact that the whole area is on fire.  I’m not talking about massive forest fires, but hundreds and thousands of brush fires (some which can be quite large).  I haven’t been able to tell if they are natural or set on purpose–but I’m positive they make no attempt to put them out.  Smoke is everywhere.  It does make for some spectacular scenery when the sun goes down.

Got back to Chiang Mai in once piece, returned the bike, packed my gear and caught the flight to Phuket where I write this now.  Tomorrow going to Ko Phi Phi Don, a small island, where I plan to waste away my days on the beach with a cold margarita in my hand, or exploring the small islands by boat.