Lots of Poop

If there is one weird commodity that Chiang Mai, Thailand has more than many places in the world that I have been, it is elephant poop.  They have found a very unique way to take this rather crappy item, (see what I did there), and turn it into a money-maker.  Way to turn the brown into green!

Also, if you ever wanted to know how WiFi is made, it is literally from the farts of elephants.  

So, the whole process starts with... poop.

Which you then boil.  In true tourist fashion... we paid money to boil poop.  Yes, I actually paid cash to boil elephant poop.  

For those of you who have never worked in sewage reclamation, this is what boiling poop looks like.  Yes, now you know, you are so welcome for that image.  

We then got our hands... dirtier... and put the poop pulp onto a screen.  After the poop is boiled, a dye is added and then they put that over a screen like any other paper making process.  This then allows for the poop to settle over the thin mesh and make... poopy paper.  As my hands were a bit dirty at the time, I only took a few photos of the poop paper drying in the sun.   

Next time you are in Chiang Mai, and feel like getting your hands dirty, check out the Elephant Poopoopaper Park

The View from the North

Northern Thailand has to be one of the prettier places that I have been.  The scenery is dramatic and bold, and the atmosphere is quite different from the city-scape that I am used to living near Bangkok.  While I do live on the outskirts of Bangkok, it still has that suburban Thai feel - concrete, some greenery, and lots and lots of traffic.  While there is quite a bit of traffic in and around Chiang Mai, once you get outside of the city there is a huge emphasis on nature and greenery.  They know they have a great thing going with the eco-tourism.

The sky-walk was a very big thing for all of us, not only did we elect to walk up the mountain to get to it, (not one of our best ideas), but it was also quite a bit scary for a few people in our group.  The idea of walking out on a big glass and open steel bridge to take a look over the valley is quite cool for me, but apparently I have a much different view on what is fun and exciting.