The Battle of Chiang Mai

Almost as if it sensed Don and I tip-toeing around the thought "maybe coming to Chiang Mai was a mistake..." the old girl stepped up and redeemed herself in grand fashion over the past 48 hours.

Saturday was Trek Day, a smorgasboard of pre-packaged, extra-homogenized touristy adventure (zero trans fat!) that pinned us up against several opponents, which, like my main man Bill Simmons, I will now break down "Dr. Jack Style."


#1: Dan and Don VS. The Dukes of Chiang Mai - Our tour guides for the day were two brothers, Noi and Mr. An, the resident BMOCs, who drove us around all day in their silver truck, mastering a flawless "beep the horn at girls" technique not seen since the days of Greased Lightning. The battle between us raged from the very first instant, when Noi informed us that we could stay out as late as we wanted because "we are all men." Fair enough, but it soon became apparent our 3,000 baht payment for the day did not seem to suffice those Duke boys, and as soon as we hopped in the truck they began the barrage of extra options including Monkey Shows, Snake Shows and Elephant Shows. We turned all of them down successfully, mainly for fear that the shows would involve a ping pong, and by late afternoon the artillery backed down and we talked to each other as the men we truly were. Advantage: Dan and Don

#2: Dan and Don VS. The Elephant - After a long conversation with a Australian couple who spent a day at an elephant sanctuary (http://www.elephants-friends.com/), I'm going to refrain from any politics or elephant jokes here and move on. Advantage: The Elephant.

#3: Dan and Don VS. The White Water and The 11-Year-Old: The Dukes drove us upriver and tossed us in a raft, leaving us to the mercy of a not-so-raging river and this pipsqueak kid who took us through a crash course in white water rafting, forcing Don and I into a troubling back-to-back rubbing motion in order to shimmy ourselves off a rock, and demanding several times that we toss ourselves overboard. But we got a kick-ass video out of it (see below). Advantage: Push

#4: Dan and Don VS. The Bamboo Raft Driver: Thinking we'd take a relaxing bamboo raft ride as some welcomed time to dry off in the sun, our captain (seen here in an introspective moment)commanded us onto the only raft that was already half submerged underwater. Miffed, I staged a valiant coup d'etat, taking the reigns and pointing the ship toward the bank of the Hudson (video below). My mutinous efforts failed, but his girly-run makes it all worthwhile. Advantage: Dan and Don

#5: Dan and Don VS. The Longnecks: The last leg of our day's journey took deep into the "jungle" to visit the Longneck Tribe (an ancient hill tribe originally from the mountain regions of nearby Burma). We basked in the long-celebrated tourist tradition of "feeling horribly awkward and obnoxious while sitting around staring at people because they're different than you," bought some of their crafts, and moved along. Advtange: The Longnecks.

Final Count: Dan and Don - 2; Chiang Mai Challengers: 2; with 1 Push. A fair result, and considering the fact that we scored a $5/night hotel room, caught hours of top-notch live reggae and jazz, rocked a Thai cooking class (their motto "our food is guaranteed to make you look pregnant"), and convinced a whole bunch of non-Americans that real Americans really aren't all that bad, I'd say that puts us over the top.

I won't get into the fact that our toilet reverse flushes and I've been wearing the same shirt for three days.