I can’t tell you how many times I’ve traveled to Thailand with my friend Dave, who (if you’ve been following this blog you know) has more recently had that all important ‘boy’ designation added to the almost as important ‘friend’. My fist visit to the kingdom was with Dave, as were the next several in fact. We never made it out of Bangkok back then, and seldom made it out of Patpong either. There was no reason to. We were there for the nightlife, and in those days Patpong offered all the nightlife your system could handle.

Patpong’s night market was part of the scene in those days, but not the main focus as it has become over the years. Outside of the stalls crammed cheek to jowl down the middle of the street, shopping options revolved around booze and sex. Even then Patpong wasn’t the red light district it had once been, but then neither was it the blue light special it has since become. The naughty bars were primarily upstairs venues; street side beer bars were the name of the game and we spent most nights making the rounds up Patpong 1, down Patpong 2, and back again, drinking our way along the route. We never took the time to visit a wat. Or a museum. Or any of the myriad attractions that visitors to Thailand should. Our biggest adventure outside of Patpong was a night spent on Soi Cowboy. And even that excursion waited until our third or fourth trip to The Land of Smiles.

Over the years our visits together became less frequent. By the time we hit the Big Mango together again I’d developed my obsession with checking out every wat that crossed my path, and the only time I bothered to spend in Patpong proper was in cutting through it when moving from Soi 4 to Soi Twilight. When we did finally land in Thailand together again, Dave only agreed to visiting his first wat because I lied and told him he could get a beer there. But because my horizons had broadened, his did too. Or maybe it was just that as he aged his liver demanded an occasional time-out.

We just visited the kingdom again, this time as a couple, and spent a few days in Chiang Mai for the Yee Peng celebrations. Dave, as I had expected him to, had a list of bars he wanted to visit. He also had a non-alcoholic excursion planned, which I hadn’t expected. We’d barely checked into our hotel before he announced, “I wanna ride an elephant.”

Huh. And he wasn’t even drunk yet.

Visiting one of the elephant camps and taking your turn on one of the beasts’ backs is something I’d assume every visitor to Chiang Mai does. It sounds like a lot of fun. It’s not. Kinda like spending the night with a ladyboy, the reality is just never gonna live up to the expectation. It would be different if it was riding an elephant as opposed to riding on an elephant (and I don’t mean a fat ladyboy although that too probably works out the same). But the reality of riding on an elephant in Chiang Mai is an uncomfortable wood bench strapped onto the back of a bored beast who slowly plods along a well-beaten path following too closely behind another bored beast with another bored farang strapped to its back. It’s good for about five minutes of the 15 minute minimum ride option, and the most memorable thing about your excursion is when the elephant in front of your takes a dump.

Noom, my bar boy friend (who, if you’ve been following this blog you know has always had that all important white space between his designation of ‘boy’ and ‘friend’) was with us in Chiang Mai and was just as quick to change the subject when Dave brought up riding an elephant as was I. He too had been there and done that. On our first visit to Chiang Mai, he too wanted to ride an elephant. And agreed afterwards that riding on a elephant wasn’t all that. He’d also been along for the ride when accompanying other friends to Chiang Mai, who also felt their lives would not be complete without taking a turn on an elephant’s back. So it took longer for me to explain my plan on dealing with Dave’s elephant desires than it did for him to agree to being a co-conspirator in making sure that dream never came true.

Elephants are an integral part of Thailand’s history. And even if you never get near an elephant camp (which was Noom’s and my intention) elephants are an integral part of any visitor’s trip to the kingdom. They are everywhere. Even on the ‘look I went to Thailand’ t-shirt you buy as a souvenir. In fact, someone has glued an elephant on pretty much any souvenir you buy in Thailand. Even back when Dave and I never made it outside of Patpong, the elephant experience was part of your visit. Back then, before it became illegal to do so (wink, wink) some enterprising elephant owner would stroll through the area with an elephant, selling bananas for tourists to buy to feed the poor beast. We’d learned your best interaction with an elephant on the streets of Bangkok was to not to – when those suckers decide to urinate, the entire block gets drenched.

Generally, I think the Thai insistence that whenever anyone thinks of Thailand they think of elephants to be over-kill. But when you are trying to avoid the actual experience of a face-to-face encounter with one, that’s a good thing. Noom decided his contribution to that goal would be to pretend Dave’s desire to ride one meant that Dave loved elephants And the best way to do that was to point out every elephant we encountered. “Look! Elephant!” became his rallying cry every time an elephant appeared, none of which were living examples of the ubiquitous beast.

We only made it through half of the Sunday Night Market thanks to Noom having to point out every elephant painting, sculpture, carving, decal, plush toy, and tchotchke he spotted. The Yee Peng lanterns we set afloat into the sky had to be sent flying while we stood next to one of the elephant statues at the moat by Tha Pae Gate. Dave (and by Dave I mean Noom and Dave, of course) got their picture taken standing in front of an elephant float during one of the Yee Peng parades. And Noom was crushed that he couldn’t find an elephant themed Krathong to float down the Ping river. Even though Dave offered to donate the small elephant statue Noom had bought for him with my wallet to the cause.

Dave is a big guy, standing well over six feet. Now in his late 40s, he’s packed on a bit of weight. So it was only my stern look at Noom that prevented a disaster and kept him from singing out, “Look! Elephant!” again on our first morning in Chiang Mai when Dave came strolling out of the shower naked. No problemo. The thought alone was enough to send Noom into a fit of giggles.

My efforts took the much more non-Thai (meaning subtle) approach of using Google to find elephant experience options in Chiang Mai that didn’t include encountering a real, live elephant. And as trip-planning ideas go, it wasn’t a bad move. Instead of hitting the attractions Noom and I had relied on in showing off Chiang Mai in the past, I found several new attractions worthy of the tourist experience in Chiang Mai. Art In Paradise, which I posted about last week, was one of them (they had a 3D, interactive Elephant painting, which was the initial must do elephants draw). And Dave (and by Dave I mean Noom and Dave, of course) got their picture taken standing in front it. Which was still cheaper and vastly more entertaining than riding on one.

Dave’s no slouch in the brains department, so by our second day in town he figured out what Noom and I were up to and put his foot down. “I don’t want to see an elephant. I don’t want to buy elephant souvenirs. I don’t want to spend the rest of this trip listening to Noom yelling, ‘Look! Elephant!’ I want to be with an elephant, one-on-one. Me. The elephant. Together. Get it?”

Got it. Dave wanted the interactive experience of communing with a pachyderm. And since the lucky man has the world’s best boyfriend, that’s exactly what he got. Our next stop on the Chiang Mai Elephant Tour was the Elephant Parade House, a small venue tucked away in Chiang Mai Land just south of the Night Bazaar off Chang Klan Road. Part boutique, part workshop, part learning center, it’s the permanent home cum money maker for Elephant Parade, an artistic globe-spanning non-profit dedicated to raising awareness for the cause of elephant conservation and the main benefactor for The Asian Elephant Foundation.

Even if you are not familiar with Chiang Mai’s Elephant Parade House, you probably are with Elephant Parade, which has deployed some 1,000 life-size elephant statues created by over 100 Thai and international artists around the world, including on the streets of Amsterdam, London, Singapore, Milan, and Copenhagen, among others. It’s massive art for the masses that delights the citizens of every city where one of their open-air exhibitions have been held, and each concludes with an auction of the fanciful painted statues, some of which find a permanent home in the city where they were paraded.

Located in a modern, three-story shop house, Elephant Parade House features some full-size replicas of the elephant statues that have been part of one of the parades, along with smaller replicas that you can (of course) purchase. The second floor is a learning center that does a good job of explaining why elephant conservation is important, without getting preachy. But the real draw of the place is upstairs where for a mere 600 to 1,000 baht you can paint your very own elephant statue. Dave, who was still holding out for riding one, was not impressed. Until Noom began letting his inner artist flow free. And then, being the competitive bastard that he is, got busy painting his own.

Helpful staff circulates freely among the budding artists, ready to lend a helping hand so that your work of art doesn’t end up being something only your mother could love. That’s probably a great boon to the kids who give a new meaning to the art of finger painting. For adults acting like children, not so much. Dave, working on his ode to Wolverine (seriously, don’t ask) offered a deep-throated growl in response to the first helpful hint a staff member suggested to him. Which put a quick end to any further assistance being sent his way. Noom made up for that by constantly asking for more gold for his Ganesha-inspired work of art, which may have helped explain the staff’s willingness to keep supplying us with yet another round of Chang Beer (which Noom insisted on Dave ordering instead of his usual, Singha, so Noom could point out the elephant on the label).

Two hours and 3,000 baht later (because size always matters) we had a trio of artistic, half-foot tall laughably painted pachyderms. Noom, being the great guy that he is, promptly presented the one he’d painted to Dave as a gift. Which I’m sure had nothing to do with the coveted free space in his luggage, reserved for hauling stuff he really wanted back home to Bangkok. But that still left the elephant in the room – Dave’s desire to ride one – unresolved, with a mere two days of our time in Chiang Mai left. Huh. You’ll be surprised at how many non-riding elephant experiences there are in Chiang Mai. As was Dave.

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