Elephant Nature Park on the outskirts of Chiang Mai proved to be a great experience. The day after, Cathy and I treated ourselves to a really nice spa and went around the area near Chiang Mai University before flying to Phuket. More on all of this later. Unfortunately, no ziplining or Muay Thai lesson. Cathy was too scared to do zip lining (but claimed one day she will try it), and I realized that if I actually do a Muay Thai lesson, it would leave her sitting on a bench doing nothing for about 8 hours.
I figure I'll be down here next year on the way to India. Hopefully others including Cathy will be traveling with me so I can go off and do my obscure interest of studying martial arts without feeling like I'm stealing other peoples' vacation time. Also, I resolve to be a lot more physically and skillfully prepared for a formal lesson next time I come down here.
At the airport, I found some good Muay Thai literature. One is about traditional Muay Thai (which focuses more on the self-defense aspects instead of the ever more popular sport-based boxing elements). The other one is a "Muay Thai self stadty" book. On the whole, both are understandable, although it is clear that both have been translated from Thai to English. The author of the first book is an old master. The second is a guidebook in translation with drawn diagrams.
Right now we are in Patong, Phuket. Party town. We got to the hotel at 1:30AM and there were still small (but extremely loud) groups of foreigners drinking up a storm. I even saw a guy trying to pee in the Family Mart until his friend stopped him. Today we are going to hit up the beach and then go to Phuket town.
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