Baying dogs and the grinning monkey man

Night of the Baying Street Dogs and the Grinning Monkey Man.

 Our guest house in Chiang Mai is everything you could hope for in a small, inexpensive, old fashioned small hotel--at least that's what we agreed as we sat having beers and tea overlooking the Ping River when we arrived in this smaller, friendlier, less smelly, and certainly less polluted version of Bangkok. Mathematically speaking Chiang Mai is to Bangkok as Boston is to New York. The Galare guest house was a kilometer from the old town , tucked away down a tiny alley. Charming , despite a clientele that appeared to be slight older and Teutonic. Later,we wandered into the old town and knocked about looking at restaurants and two of us, ( not me) buying stuff and planning to come back and buy more stuff when we return to the city after planned adventures into elephant rescues and the hill people outside the city. More on both of those later.

 Our first night at the in started, well, badly when there appeared to be a vicious fight among the numerous street mutts outside the garden walls. Luckily the fight ended and peace finally was declared. The next night began well as we knocked off around 9:30 to rest up for our two days of trekking (hiking to the pretentious and to the manufacturers of nylon clothing devoted to it) in gorgeous mountain region a surrounding the city. At 12 midnight the horror began. The snarling , barking, baying,squealing continued periodically throughout the night...at intervals seemingly planned to allow us almost to fall asleep before ratcheting up the bedlam again. Imagine if the works of Hieronymous Bosch had soundtracks and you come close to what the noise was like.  In desperation I dressed and went down to the office.

God, I wish I hadn't.

 Perched on a stool like a bird, the night manager appeared to be a monkey who spoke no English. It was like trying to reason with one of the Wicked Witch of the West's flying army except that this one didn't speak English and was, well, developmentally disabled. Apparently what he thought I was asking was "Where is this delightful dogfight happening? I'd like to participate." He kept nodding agreement, grinning maniacally and pointing in the direction of the brouhaha. I gave up, lost sleep, and we pledged to find a new place when we returned to the city in three days. Iris saved the day once more with a new inn called the Nice Mom guest house. Sounds homey but I envision cockfights in the yard.