Another day, and a pattern has emerged of hit the breakfast buffet, video chat with kids back home, and head out the door for a day trip. This time around, Riam is taking us up to the temple on Doi Suthep. This is one of the most revered temples in northern Thailand, and provides a great view over all of Chiang Mai.

Riam explains all of the various rituals taking place to us, and we take our turn at a few. There is one where you shake a cup full of plastic sticks until one falls out, and then using the number of the stick, find a paper with your fortune on it. Knowing what we know now about Nick’s fortune, kissing a crocodile might not have been the best call.

Nick seems a little nervous (and I’m not that comfortable standing too close to him), but after a quick blessing by the temple monks, Nick shakes the sticks again and his luck has much improved.

From the temple, we head down to another jade factory. Angela has the shopping bug, and after spending the whole day yesterday doing fun things, it looks like the bill is coming due for Nick and I. It will be three stops and several hours of wandering aimlessly through different stores before we finally make our way back to the hotel. Massages are again in order, and despite the cajoling of many of the ladies working there, Nick is still not sold on the idea. If he only knew….

Wow, what a day this was. Looking at the ground I need to cover, the task is almost too daunting, but like eating an elephant, I’ll take it one bite at a time. So without further ado, here goes what should be the greatest day in an 11 year old boy’s life.

Our day begins with a local tour guide meeting us in the lobby of the hotel. Riam was recommended to us by my brother and his wife who have used her to arrange excursions a few times in the past. After talking through some options, we decide that today we will start with the elephant park. This is something that has been on Nick’s list since he decided to come to Thailand, as there is an elephant named Suda there that paints pictures, and when his cousin was here, she brought one back with her. Buying the trip through Riam is about half again as expensive as some of the places we saw on the street, but we get taken in a private car and aren’t stuck to someone else’s schedule, so the difference seems well worth it.

The park is about 40 minutes outside of Chiang Mai, but along the way, Riam tells us about her family and the town where she lives which makes the time go by quickly. Her husband is also with us as the driver, but he doesn’t speak any English, so like all good husbands, sits quietly and just goes wherever he is told.

The elephant park excursion consists of four parts. The first is a trip in an ox cart from the ticket counter to where the elephants are gathered. It’s a little underwhelming, but included in the price (less the shake down for a tip), so worth pretty much what we paid for it. By the time we arrive at the transfer point however, we’re just as happy trading in the keys for something a little bigger.

While they may be big, elephants only seat two, so we split up with Angela going on her own, and Nick and I together. For the next 30 minutes or so, we plod slowly along a well worn jungle trail that will take us back to the main camp. Along the way a baby elephant blows by us in search of it’s mother and mid-morning snack. Feeding elephants stop pretty much wherever they like, and Nick and I are soon stuck in a six elephant pile up (Angela is on a racing elephant so is far enough ahead that she misses it).

When we get to the end of the trek, the elephant show is just getting started. This is the part where the elephants do things like kick soccer balls, move logs, and of course, paint pictures. All goes well until they offer the picture Suda paints for sale. Our seats are far off to one side and Nick is a little reserved by nature, so by the time he gets his hand in the air to say he wants it, someone else has already claimed it. This is not good, and no amount of prodding can get Nick out of his funk.

This is where Riam shines. After looking in the gift shop to see if there are any other similar pictures that Suda has painted (there are not), she is able to talk with the staff and have Suda paint another. What started out as a very sad 11 year old boy, quickly turns into a custom show for one, as we are the only ones there when Suda paints this second picture. Nick is now very happy, as is Suda, who gets the entire basket of bananas.

The final piece of this tour is floating down the river on a bamboo raft. Despite being nothing more than a bunch of sticks tied together that sit barely above the water, it is very peaceful, and a nice break after a busy morning.

On any normal day, this might be the end of the story, but on Nick’s Thai Adventure, we like to turn it up to eleven, so next stop – the tiger park. Here, you choose from four different sizes of tiger, which they club on the head and make into a hat.

OK, that’s just not true. What you do get, is to spend 15 minutes in the cage with the size of tiger you picked (we went with small). The tigers are all domesticated, and like most cats, don’t do much but lay around, so we are able to get right up close and pet them. It’s a pretty cool experience, but the time goes by quickly and we are soon headed off to get lunch.

Not far from the tiger park is a place they call Monkey School. I recall reading about it in the guide book and how people train monkeys to help harvest coconuts, so it seems like something worthwhile when our guide suggests it. Of all the stops today, this one is probably the most disappointing as it looks more like monkey prison than monkey school. There is a show where they have the monkeys do tricks like ride a bicycle and shoot free throws (let the record show that Nick was 1 for 3 while the money drained 2), but you definitely get the sense that if not for the leashes, the monkeys would be out of there in a heartbeat.

We did get to hold some baby monkeys on the way out to door, and for a few moments you forgot about their older brothers and sisters chain up inside. As an added bonus, Angela’s peed on her, which Nick and I though was pretty funny (boys with their juvenile humor and all).

So how do you follow up oxen, elephants, tigers, and monkeys? With crocodiles of course. At the crocodile farm, you start off “fishing” for freshies, using pieces of raw chicken for bait. The chicken is held to the line with pieces of wire, so the crocodiles are able to wrestle it free but it does take a bit of fight.

All this is a warm up for the main show with the salt water crocs. The whole thing is done in Thai, so we have no idea what they saying, but the people sticking their arms and heads in the open jaws of 8 foot long crocodiles says it all.

The best is saved for last, when after the show they offer to let people in to take pictures with the crocs for 100 baht (about $3). I volunteer Nick, figuring there is not much meat on his bones, so not that interesting to a hungry salty. He gets a few pictures standing up with his foot on the crocodile’s tail, and then a few more sitting on its back.

Finally they have him kneel down in front of the crocodile – who is sitting there with its jaws wide open – to kiss it. Cue the mom freaking out.

Nick still in one piece, and mom once again breathing normally, we decide to head back to town. I need some new suits, so Riam takes us to a place she knows of near the hotel. Tonight is also the Sunday market, which is even bigger than Saturday’s, so we have a night full of shopping and street snacks to get through before turning in and bringing the day of all days to an end.

Up again early (if we’re not careful this could become an unexpected habit that would rank up there with pigs flying and hell freezing over) as today we are leaving Chiang Rai and headed to Chiang Mai. Saturday is a big market day there, and we hope to arrive in plenty of time to see that, so hit the breakfast buffet hard one last time and head out to the lobby to meet our driver. We debated for a while yesterday whether to take the chicken bus so that Nick could experience it in all its glory, but we got a price that was hard to beat from the same person who has been shuttling us around for two days now so took the easy road once again.

On the way, we make one stop at the White Temple, just a few miles out of Chiang Rai. Now anyone that has been to Thailand can tell you that after a while, one temple starts to blend into the next. This one however will never be confused with any other. Built fairly recently (started in 1997), its construction was supervised and paid for one man as an offering to Buddha. Unlike typical temples, this one is entirely white (well, excluding the tree with the disembodied heads and the demon-headed statue dedicated to smoking cessation, but including the souls reaching out from the pits of hell), with tens of thousands of tiny glass tiles embedded in the concrete. And if that’s not unusual enough, inside the main hall, the walls are covered with murals that include all kinds of popular culture images ranging from Batman, to Darth Vader, to Neo from the Matrix.

Years ago, I remember watching a news story about a guy that built a house out of used pop bottles and thought that was a little strange, but clearly America hasn’t cornered the market on crazy people, and I have to tip my hat to them for seeing their eccentric creations through and giving us something to break the monotony of those long drives.

The road to Chiang Mai winds through a number of mountains, so even though it is only about 200km, it takes about an hour longer than we figured it would. Arriving at the hotel, we find that our room is not quite ready, so decide to head over to the local market (not the be confused with the Saturday market which we will visit later) to find some lunch.

We get no more than 10 steps outside the front door when a tour guide cuts us off asking where we’re headed. Mr. Jeed is pretty persistent, but we finally convince him that we aren’t going very far so have no need for a driver right now. Fortunately he has some business cards handy just in case we change our minds.

Our first impression of Chiang Mai is a bit on the negative side. All the people we know that have been here highly recommend it, but so far it seems like a small scale version of Bangkok. It is a much bigger city than Chiang Rai, and there is a lot more traffic to deal with. Our plans call for us to spend 5 days here, but that may be something we shorten up depending on how the next few days go. Many of the things that have been suggested to us are day trips outside city, so I guess until we do a few of those, we’ll reserve judgement.

Following a quick bite in the market food court, and a few dessert items from stalls on the main floor (two thumbs up for the mango and stick rice, two thumbs down for the gelatinous purple substance wrapped in a banana leaf) we get our bags stowed away in our room, take a quick dip in the pool (the quick part not being our intention, but when it’s 90 degrees outside, how can the pool possibly be in the 60s?), and head back out to find our way to the Saturday market. Walking outside, I swear there’s no one around for at least 10 yards, but as soon as I turn my head, there’s Mr. Jeed standing right next to us. It’s the Sidler episode from Seinfeld playing out in real life, and it takes some effort to finally shake him loose.

If I could describe my image of paradise, I think it would look a lot like a weekend market in Asia. With all of the noise, wall-to-wall people bumping into you and making it impossible to get anywhere, and acres of crappy items for sale, it really doesn’t get any better than this. The one saving grace is plenty of street food. Nothing particularly memorable, but more than enough to tide us over for another evening. Both Nick and Angela find small souvenirs to buy, so there is some reward for the effort, but by 9 pm, the long days are starting to wear on us and we are happy to call it a night.

Oh, and before I forget, for anyone planning a trip to Chiang Mai, I think Mr. Jeed would want me to pass this along. What do you think Tasha, is he as cute as the pilot?

We have a full day planned for today, with the driver that took us from the airport picking us up at the hotel and heading out of the city and up north. Fueled up from the breakfast buffet (is there a limit on how many croissants an 11 year old boy should eat?), we are on the road by 9 am, which seems pretty good since are still getting used to the time zone. Even my trusty traveling companion, who has mastered the art of the late start, is in good spirits.

Our first stop is a Karen village about 30 miles north of town. The Karen (or more specifically, a subgroup called the Padaung) are probably the best known of the hill tribes in Thailand due to their tradition of elongating their necks with metal rings (in the tour packages they refer to them simply as Long Neck Villages). Despite my initial reservations about paying to visit what is essentially a people zoo, I have to admit that I found it quite interesting. The villagers have mostly set up stalls to try and sell handmade crafts (that look suspiciously consistent from stall to stall), but seem content and are happy to allow pictures. We even find a Karen version of Grandma Katie, who despite not speaking a word of english (and us not speaking a work of whatever her native language is) chats us up like we were friends from high school. She has been affectionately dubbed Corky Longneck.

Continuing north, our next destination is Doi Tung, atop which sits a mountain retreat built for the royal family is the style of a Swiss chalet. It is still in use from time to time, but in large part it has become almost a shrine to the king’s mother (who used it as a summer residence). As Nick and I aren’t appropriately dressed for such a meaningful place (knees showing, yikes!), the staff fix us up with some elegant one size fits all jeans (which I predict will be the next great jeans craze after Pajama Jeans). I feel a bit sorry for Nick, as he can’t really pull off such a wide range of outfits as I can, but he’s a trooper nonetheless.

The chalet itself is interesting, with spectacular views across the border into Burma, and at it’s simplest, reinforces that it is good to be the king. The context in which it was built though is what makes it particularly compelling. Doi Tung is located within the Golden Triangle, which was not always such a happy place. Extreme poverty, rampant drug use amongst the hill tribes, lawlessness, and massive clear cutting to make room for opium poppies, were the order of the day as recently as the 1990s. The king’s mother took a particular interest in this region, helping establish health care and education programs in the region that have helped wean the local people from opium production and into more sustainable efforts such as coffee growing.

From Doi Tung, we head back down the mountain and into Mae Sai – a border city next to Myanmar (Burma). Here we make the obligatory “factory tour” stop at a place making carvings out of jade. The claim is that all of the jade (and most of the precious stones for sale in the adjacent store) are brought in from Myanmar, and that, or course, they are much cheaper here than anywhere else in Thailand. For whatever reason, I haven’t gotten comfortable with the idea of buying gem stones from sketchy vendors, so while Angela satisfies her need to try on one of everything, Nick and I head out onto the street to find some lunch.

We pick up a piece of fried chicken from a street cart, but hit the jackpot when we come across a Thai food court. No one there really speaks english, so we point to a picture of something that looks good and sit down to eat. When it arrives, the meat resembles pork, and has some bones so we know it came from some kind of animal with an internal skeleton, but beyond that, it’s hard to say. Complimented with a bowl of dishwater soup, it actually eats pretty well, and I have to give Nick his due props for not even batting an eye.

Economically unscathed, we leave Mai Sae (with a few quick photos of the Myanmar border to show we were there) and head to Sop Ruak, which is the point where Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos all meet. The is an official museum located here focused on the history of opium (not surprisingly named the Hall of Opium). We debate a bit whether it is appropriate for an 11 year old, but probably better to learn about it here than at Timbercrest, so we head in. Given the topic, it is very well done, covering the history of opium from the Egyptians, and its evolution from a medicinal substance to a highly addictive drug, and the far reaching impact it has had ranging from events like the Opium Wars to the death of John Belushi. Not the most upbeat of destinations, but worthwhile.

The real reason people come to Sop Ruak is to take a long-tail boat to what is purportedly Laos (although what could just as easily be an island in the Mekong River that an enterprising group of boat owners and knick-knack sellers decided to tell tourists was Laos to drive more business). It has already been a long day and we waver a bit as to whether we are up for another hour long excursion, but ultimately decide to suck it up since we have come all this way.

By the time we are finished, it is starting to get dark, and even though we do make one more stop in Chiang Saen to see an old temple, it is hard to make much out. Pretty beat from a long day, we start the hour long drive back to Chiang Rai and turn in for our last night.

After a pretty uncomfortable night, and a valuable lesson learned too late (the seats in the main areas at Bangkok airport are bare metal, but at the gates, they are padded and look much more comfortable for sleeping), the sense of relief that comes with finally arriving in Chiang Rai overwhelms the exhaustion and we are surprisingly upbeat on the drive to the hotel. We are here at what is normally the start of the high season, but things still seem pretty quiet. We have no problem checking in early, and head directly for much needed hot showers and a change of clothes. The hotel beds call to us like sirens, but with a final effort, we leave the room and head off for breakfast.

Today is the Loi Krathong festival in Thailand (which we also come to learn coincides with the Yi Peng festival in the north), so other than making our way to town for that, we have absolutely no definitive plans for the day, other than to try and stay awake to force our bodies to adjust to local time. We try a little time at the pool (which doesn’t work that well for me as I promptly fall asleep on a deck chair), followed by a little time back in the room catching up on email (which doesn’t work well for Angela who crashes hard on the bed), before finally putting the rally caps on and getting a ride into town.

Chiang Rai doesn’t seem a whole lot different than any other Thai city we have been to, with a mix of shops, market stalls, restaurants and massage parlors (not the sketchy kind) all jumbled together. It’s a completely new experience for Nick though, and he finds the chaos interesting. We try a few street snacks here and there, but he wants to keep an empty stomach for the food stalls at the festival. We also try to tempt him with a $6 foot massage, but he seems a little wigged out by the idea of strange people oiling him up, so he occupies himself watching Thai TV for an hour while Angela and I partake in one of our fondest Thai memories (which I guarantee will be repeated many times in the days to come).

As night starts to fall, we buy a few krathongs (small rafts made out of banana leaves that are filled with flowers and candles) and head to the main park where thousands of locals have already gathered. As there are actually two festivals in one, two separate traditions are happening at the same time. For Loi Krathong, people are walking down to the river, and once the candles are lit, launching their krathongs to float down the current. This symbolizes letting go of ones negative feelings so that life can start the new year with a clear mind. There are also plenty of fireworks being set off (without a whole lot of analysis as to the merits of holding a roman candle vertically versus horizontally), which combined with all the people and lights make for quite a show.

At the same time, people are also launching giant paper lanterns to celebrate Yi Peng. We buy a few of these for $1 and join in, lighting the candle in the bottom and waiting for it to heat the air inside the paper envelope until it has enough lift to take off. There are literally hundreds of these in the air at any given time, and are amazingly tranquil to watch slowly float away.

Spirits unburdened, we hit the food stalls, trying an array of different things. We find a place selling tiny grasshoppers (Nick has said he will eat one if I do), but they are sold by the shot glass full, which seems a bit more than we need (although the lady next to us loading up a plate with 4 servings might disagree), so decide to pass for now. Later in the evening, we come across the bigger ones that are sold as singles (right next to the giant cockroaches), but can’t muster the courage to try those ones either, so agree to put off the grasshopper challenge to another day.

By 9:00, after Nick’s first ride in the obligatory tuk-tuk, we finally make it back to the hotel, there are still celebrations going on there as well. Nick and Angela decide to stay up a bit longer to watch more fireworks, but I’ve hit the wall, and fall asleep somewhere between leaning over to get into bed and when my body actually hits the mattress.

There is just something about getting up at 4:00 in the morning that seems wrong no matter what the reason. Nevertheless, that is how our day starts, to make a 6:00 am flight to Chicago. It’s 180 degrees in the wrong direction of course, but at the time we booked out tickets, it all made sense given that our connections in both Chicago and Hong Kong were very short, meaning we’d get to Bangkok at about the same time as we would flying through San Francisco, but without the long layover. The Chicago to Hong Kong leg is scheduled for 16 hours, but we’ve flown some pretty long flights over the years so don’t really think much of it. Besides, it will be all novel for Nick, who is joining us on this trip.

During the course of the year, I spend a lot of time with my butt in a coach seat, so these overseas flights are the one place we tend to splurge and use our frequent flier miles to book business class. This trip is no exception, but through a “death by papercut” sequence of events, we’ve ended up upgrading our tickets from business to first so we can stay together. It’s an over the top splurge, but since the theory behind this trip is to provide Nick with a once in a lifetime experience, I manage to make peace with the extra cost (while I bust Angela’s chops a fair amount for her affinity to Sheratons, my addiction is sign up bonuses for credit cards, which definitely come in handy here).

As with any domestic first class travel, the Seattle to Chicago leg is nothing spectacular, but that quickly changes as we find our seats for the flight to Hong Kong. With our knock off North Face backpacks, we once again channel the Clampetts, a role reinforced by the number of pictures that we take of the cabin. There are only two other people in first class, and although they are a few nice older couple on their way India, the gobstopper sized ring on her finger makes it pretty clear that there are indeed people (other than investment bankers and politicians) willing to pay the rack rate for first class (makes me wonder how that bill tastes when the backpackers roll in).

The crew is amazingly friendly, and soon has Nick on his way to the cockpit for a tour. They also show us the little apartment that is reserved for the crew when they change shifts (on this flight they say they rotate every 4 hours) which is kind of cool and something I haven’t seen before. The plane is a Boeing 777, and the pilot tells us it is only a month old.

While it would be hard not to admit that flying in the front of the plane isn’t a whole lot more enjoyable than flying in the back (whoever invented the lie-flat airplane plane deserves a Nobel Prize), 16 hours is WAAAAY too long. Even though we have plenty of room to move around and options galore on the entertainment system, being confined to one space for so much time has us going a little stir crazy. On top of that, Nick has developed a nasty sounding cough, which the dry air inside the plane only makes worse. Suffice to say, that when we touch down in Hong Kong we are more than ready to get off.

So 20 hours in, Nick sporting a look that is a combination of shell shock (from the amount of flying), exhaustion (what 11 year old sleeps when they have their own entertainment system with 100 movies?), and a sickness, we head off to yet another plane. By the time it lands in Bangkok, he says he is ready to live here, not because he likes what he sees, but because he isn’t looking forward to doing this all in reverse.

I am writing this in the Bangkok airport, where we have spent the night on some hard metal benches, trying to catch a few hours of sleep and adjust to the time zone. Originally, we were going to spend a few days in Bangkok, and would have welcomed the nice, warm hotel bed, but with the flooding, we made the choice to continue straight through to Chiang Rai. That flight leaves at 6:50 in the morning, so rather than hump our stuff over to a hotel only to have to check out 4 hours later, we have become squatters.

90 minutes more airtime to go and finally we’ll be done. The unknown now is whether we will actually make it out to see Chiang Rai today, or if Day 1 of Nick’s Great Thailand Trip will be spent with the covers pulled over our heads almost comatose.