Ingrid and I are currenty sitting in such a cafe across from the Chaing Mai bus station, killing an hour before the bus to Chaing Rai.

Although Chiang Mai has "developed" a great deal as a tourist destination since we were last here (it's starting to look like a buddhist Peurto Vallarta), it is still pretty magical in many ways.

Yesterday, for instance, we visited the Elephant Training Centre. Since the demise of elephant logging and popularity of tourism, many Thai elephants have found themselves crowded into small quarters in Bangkok, doing street trick for tourists -- that is, the few beasts who have survived.

The training camp in Chaing Mai tries to keep the elephants alive and well. It is spacious and forested with a stream running through it and many elephants -- even some great big tuskers with tusks as long as a man is tall.

The magic, though, came in the performance. These are very very trainable beasts and can exhibit personality in wonderful ways: every thime one would earn the approbation of the crowd he or she would do a huge but delicate curtsey. You have to imagine an elephant curtsey! The elephants clowned, tried to steal each others' thunder, acted silly, obeyed complex commands, beat a crowd volunteer at an oversized game of darts, played soccer and made penalty kicks-- but the most amazing was when these massive but delicate animals painted.

They painted pictures for us on big easels in the compound -- taking their time, handling a range of brushes and colours with astounding dexterity. Of course the mahouts were right there, touching the elephants, handing them brushes. But the results were amazing -- clearly representational but executed in an oriental style -- think of a stylized painting of a bonzai tree. Of the four artists, one did a mountain landscape with an aerial perspective -- one range fading into another.

It was 24 hours ago and I have still not entirely digested what I saw.

We also visited a "ring neck" village where the women were universally pretty and all adorned with brass rings making their necks seem very tall. We hoisted a set of rings and they were very heavy.