Chiang Mai My Birthday - DAY 2

On day 2 of my running adventure in Chiang Mai, I decided to head into the jungle from the back door of my hotel to find a local waterfall before heading out for approximately 14 miles to a high point overlooking rice paddies with a restaurant seated at the top.  My plan was run to the waterfall, up the paved highway to a dirt road (and maybe some single track through a Hmong village or two) to a lovely lunch and (hopefully) a taxi ride home.  Didn't quite turn out that way...

Bridge to the waterfall and the start of today's run.

Didn't look too promising at first but it got better...

These leaves make quite the ruckus when you are out all alone.  I kept thinking a monkey was about to attack and steal my sunglasses (to be fair this has happened twice since I moved to Southeast Asia so the fear is not unfounded). 

Growing up, my dad always told me to look for unique things on the trail so I wouldn't get lost.  Then he would say to turn around and see what they will look like on your way back.

I never would have noticed this amazing vine if I hadn't been looking back over my shoulder for landmarks.  Thanks Dad!

This baby looked the same coming and going.  It was huge.  I didn't see too many of these in Colorado as a kid.

The trail description said it was a 2-hour, 3-mile hike to the nearest waterfall.  More like 1 mile and 15 minutes - but the trail was really cool.  Steep, rolling, thick with trees.  And no one out there but me.

I have no idea what the Burmese or Chinese parts say, but good thing I can read English.

View from the top of the waterfall (don't worry mom, I took the stairs and went around).  I think if I was a smoker, I would have had a cigarette here too.

Not a soul to be found.

I was going to do a loop from my hotel to the waterfall and out to the highway/parking lot.  This was start of the "1-mile" trail back to the parking lot.

More like 100 meters.  But a nice 100 meters.

So the plan was to run from my hotel to the waterfall, then up the highway for "4KM" to a road that cut off and climbed steeply to a restaurant with a view.  Since the first part of my run was so much shorter than described, I just assumed the next "4KM" would be as well.  But after 10KM of paved, STEEP uphill running on a narrow, 2-lane road, I lost all hope of finding the cut-off or the restaurant. (I was not looking forward to 6 paved miles downhill either.)

I know it's so cliche, but this really was steeper than it looks.  And notice the lack of a running-worthy shoulder.

There was a lot of rustling in the leaves by the road and I kept thinking it was just lizards...until I came across this baby.  After that, I stopped stepping off the side of the road for every car/truck that went by.

Cool fence made out of rope.

So THIS is where Crocs come from!

Flip-flops too?

At least they didn't lose their socks too.  Or is that just Innes?

Fun things to look at during roadside pee breaks.  No snakes that I could see.

Marjorie, do these look edible to you?

I just don't get the lady on the banjo in the middle.  At least the other two are wearing seatbelts.

Every KM is marked with an elaborate marker.  Only 2KM to go!

2KM to the top of the hill, then 7KM to go.  What?  I quit.  And I did.  I turned around and went home, but not before stopping at a local convenience store for a snack.

The nice shop owner gave me an extra banana as a gift. Nothing like two green bananas before 6 miles of downhill.  Everything came out ok in the end.  ha..ha..ha..

The red dirt and the tiny church reminded me of growing up on the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona.  I thought of my parents, my sisters, and my brothers as I ran through these Hmong villages. So similar to the small towns on the Navajo Nation - apart from the bananas.

Not sure if these are fruit...or pooh.  I couldn't find the tree they were falling from - or the animal - but they were big.

Flowers grow out of EVERYTHING.  I love the little surprising shocks of color.

The flowering hairnet tree.  So THAT's where these come from.

OK, so I was just running along when suddenly from out of nowhere....OK, not really.  I actually paid someone to show me these guys.  But I tried to find an "ethical" company that had "rescued" these lovely beasts.  They were still working for tourist dollars every day but the rescue center doesn't hit them or let tourists ride on them.  They were like giant dogs!  So smart and so well trained.  

I felt kind of badly for encouraging this kind of eco-tourism on one hand, but I am hopeful these elephants really do have a better life then they did before.  One of these ladies was nearly 50 years old (just like me) and had different calls she could make for food or water (just like me).  She used to be in the circus where she was taught to speak.  When we got her back to the corral she started making this amazing trumpeting sound like nothing I had ever heard before.  One of the workers went out with a 5-gallon bucket of water and she drank it down.  He said she always asks for water when she gets back home.

 I really do love elephants and to get to be up close with them for a couple of hours was amazing.

We did get to feed them LOTS of sugarcane, wash their feet with sponges, and take baths with them in the river.  But they seemed ready to go back to the barn - and so was I.

Back to where I started.

And after my dream of a dirt road, some singletrack, a high point, and a restaurant with a view didn't exactly surface, a roller and a stretch (and a glass of wine) were in order.  It was still an amazing day.  Time to go back to the streets of Yangon.