Chinese New Year

It’s the first day of the three-day Chinese New Year celebrations so, once we got going, we headed over to Chinatown for the festivities. There were a number of children’s groups performing dances and playing music on two stages set up a block apart on Soi Chang Moi (the main drag through Chinatown). Other streets were lined with food vendors and we enjoyed a variety of delicious delicacies and visited a crowded Chinese temple. We returned in the evening to find the place packed with people there for the big celebration. The climax of the night was when a very long Chinese dragon - consisting of one person at the head and many more supporting the body - “climbed,” corkscrew-like, up a large 30 foot metal pole with the aid of a number of daring young men who were suspended up and down the sides of the pole; very impressive. Maya loved watching the Chinese girls perform and stage but given the crowd and her diminutive stature, she was unable to see without moving up to the front of the crowd. A row of large padded shares was directly in front of the stage. These were unoccupied and presumably reserved for festival VIPs but that didn’t stop Maya from plopping down and watching the show. No one seemed to mind until I could see an official go to speak to Maya, presumably asking her to move as the VIPs were en route. Maya just smiled up at him, clearly not understanding his Thai, and returned her attention to the performance, leaving the official flummoxed. I could see what was going on but I was thoroughly hemmed in by the crowd so I sent Zak up and we retrieved Maya just as the VIPs were entering.

The next morning we three all had varying degrees of upset tummies, probably from eating the food stall food that had been sitting out in the hot sun all day. We decided to get out of town for some fresh air so we hopped on our rented scooter and drove up to the Mae Sa Valley North of town and visited, first an insect zoo (the butterfly aviary (would that be a butterflaviary?) was pretty cool), and then the Maesa elephant camp show. The elephant show was of course touristy but not bad. We first got to see them bathing in the river which they really seemed to enjoy and spent a lot of time dunking their heads and spraying themselves (and the crowd) down. Downstream, three women stood with plastic baskets catching any elephant dung that floated their way (what’s brown and sounds like a bell?). The elephants then played soccer, kicking a big soccer ball into a net (with and without an elephant goalie), played harmonicas and other musical instruments, gave one of the trainers a massage (did you know the sex organs of an elephant are on the bottom of their feet?.....if they step on you, you're f*cked), threw darts, stacked logs, and painted surprisingly good pictures (most were of flowers).