Before leaving Chiang Mai, we took a “Jungle Trek,” which included a visit to an orchid farm and a “Karen long neck village,” where most of the women wear rings around their necks, to slowly stretch them. The guide said that they consider themselves descendants of fairies. Yes, I think he really meant little flying sprites, although sometimes things get lost in translation for us here. It was set up like a village gift shop for the tourists, with rows of little huts where women with long necks displayed their wares. Some were actually weaving with an interesting loom thing, which Jayden and I watched for a while. One young girl played a game, something like jacks. She tossed a rock up, picked one up, then caught the first one before it landed. She was quick, and could pick up four or five rocks or put them down before catching the first. Unfortunately, it felt a bit like the zoo, where you can go to watch interesting creatures in their “natural” habitat. There wasn’t much interaction with the villagers beyond a silent sales pitch for woven scarves. We did a little river rafting after that, which was the best part of the day, first in regular old rubber rafts, then on bamboo rafts for the more serene stretch. We resolved to take advantage of the amazing Rogue River, which we live around the corner from, when we return to Oregon. The next leg of our trek was a short stroll on the backs of elephants, but after all we learned at the Elephant Nature Park, we couldn’t help but notice the obvious mistreatment of the animals. The elephant Ani and I were on the back of didn’t really want to follow along on the path. She wanted to graze along the way, and wander a bit. The Mahout disciplined her with a metal hook behind her right ear, and we could see by the spots of blood there that this was not an uncommon event. Ben made a point to talk with the owner of the tour company about how this made us feel a bit sick, that we wish they would treat the elephants with more kindness. Our day ended after a pleasant hike through forest to a waterfall. By the time we got back to Chiang Mai, Jayden was feeling pretty ill, and he woke up the next morning with a fever, exhausted as we packed up our bags and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Phuket (pronounced Poo-ket.)