Day 309 - some inspiration from the Elephant Woman

Crossing the border from Laos into Thailand reminded me of stepping from Nicaragua to Costa Rica - literally a line in the ground, or in this case the Mekong River, marks a noticeable increase in wealth and prosperity.

My entry point in Thailand was Chiang Khong, a relatively unremarkable river-side border town in the north-east corner. I’d gotten up early to make sure I could catch the boat across the river and get myself to Chiang Mai (the main city in Thailand’s northern provinces) in time to meet up with Sarah who was, in a somewhat more glamorous fashion, jetting in from Ko Samui. I highlight the more glamorous aspect of Sarah’s travel style because, short of riding in on a mule, I pretty much managed to stoop to an extreme opposite that day by arriving at the bus station dusty, sweaty and on the back of an ancient but scarily speedy moped... with backpack and all strapped to my back and, slightly embarrassingly as it turned out, an audience waiting to watch me dismount.

I visited Thailand a little over a year ago for a holiday and took a sailing course off the Phuket peninsula. It proved to be an excellent way to see the beauty of Thailand’s beaches and bays whilst avoiding the package holiday resorts and daytrips that now cover much of the coasts of southern Thailand. But I did also get a bit of a feel for how developed and “un-Thai” some of the resort towns have become in recent years. This time I was happy to be shunning the coasts in favour of spending the majority of the time focussing on the northern section of Thailand and working my way down from the Golden Triangle (the intersection of Thailand, Laos and Burma - now Myanmar) to Bangkok.

But first off Sarah and I had planned a lazy few days in Chiang Mai - the self-styled cultural capital of Thailand - here we did our best to root out what is left of authentic Thai culture, something a lot of people would have you believe vanished the moment they started developing beach resorts in the south.

Chiang Mai is a nice city - compared to the chaos and hassle of Bangkok (which I also visited last year) it’s pleasant and laid back; and compared to the hedonistic and frankly pretty awful resort towns of Patong, Phuket and Pattaya it’s positively refined. Over a few days we spent time wandering the wats and historic centre of the town, took a fantastic and fun course in Thai cooking, visited the interesting Hill-tribe Museum on the outskirts of the town and then explored the Golden Triangle region.

Our venture out to the surrounding countryside in an attempt to actually see authentic hill-tribes proved relatively culturally unrewarding. Most of the tribes shift nomadically between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand and thus receive no form of government funding or land ownership until they have been self-sufficient and in place for years. As a result they now depend almost entirely on the income from selling souvenirs to tourists and so have created parking for the coaches and turned their homes into wall-to-wall souvenir stalls. Some have gone even further - one particular tribe, the Karen, ceremoniously used to place weighted bands around the necks of girls born on the night of the full moon resulting in the “long-neck” look. Today, although the ceremonial origins are long forgotten, they’ve cottoned-on to the interest of tourism and now turn almost all their females into “long-necks”, leaving them to live in village compounds where coach loads of tourists are charged high entry fees to gawp at them as if they were in a zoo. Suffice to say we didn’t venture to see this tribe but our visit to others was spent being aggressively pursued by calls of “hello, hello mr, miss, you want to buy?” wherever we wandered - clearly the coach loads had been there before. The hassle and evident desperation for money is completely understandable given their situation -they do it because they have to. But I rather wish there was another way for them to have enough to lead what is left of their traditional way of life with dignity and that that in turn would then encourage and permit non-intrusive tourism to visit them without the accompanying sideshow. It seems to be just about possible in so many of the other countries I’ve visited that have less of a developed tourist infrastructure than Thailand… and maybe therein lies the problem.

One thing I’d always wanted to do in Thailand was to learn a little more about the endangered Asian elephants. Whilst we were in Chiang Mai we took what turned out to be a really educational trip to a nearby elephant sanctuary. I’d heard about this through a friend who volunteered there last year - it’s called the Elephant Nature Park and it’s run by a woman called Sangduen “Lek” Chailert. Lek is perhaps one of the most inspiring people I’ve encountered on this trip so far - despite an upbringing in a local hill-tribe facing extreme poverty, she managed to achieve a university education and for the last 15 years she’s been tirelessly working to rescue orphaned, injured and badly treated elephants from around the country and to promote the need for their conservation globally

In 1900 there used to be 100,000 elephants in Thailand, however due to a reduction in their natural habitat from urbanisation and the fact that much of their other work can be done by machinery, the population has declined to some 3,500 today (only 30,000 remain worldwide). The ban on logging brought in in Thailand in 1989 made many domesticated elephants redundant and turned them from a source of income for their owners into a huge financial drain. Many of these 1,800 elephants have since been found other work in trekking camps providing rides for tourists - here they are at least in a semi-natural environment and most are treated well for the large part. Sadly though a large number of those remaining are suffering a terrible existence.

The worst treatment of elephants is found in the cities and other such tourist destinations where it is thought up to 500 “street elephants” are used by their owners to beg and parade for the tourists - enticing the public to buy bananas to feed to them whilst they pose for photographs. Sadly most people seem unaware that today’s congested and noisy cities are totally inappropriate places for elephants to live and work (indeed in Thailand it is illegal to have elephants in the city but the fines are so small that this proves unenforceable). The acute senses of the elephants are assaulted by the noise and pollution, their feet, designed for walking in jungle and grassland, are burnt on the hot concrete and cut on the broken bottles and cans found littering the areas they are kept in. They suffer from dehydration, sunstroke and both gastric and respiratory problems. Worse still, disorientated by such health problems, they are forced into the noisy entertainment areas with booming music and confusing neon lights where they can be difficult to control - to keep them in line the owners are often brutal with their discipline. All this suffering leads to a cycle of extreme fatigue which owners have been known to counter by drugging the elephants with amphetamines to keep them on the move.

Lek raised enough money to buy land and set up the Elephant Nature Park in 1996. Since then she has continued to rescue injured, mistreated and orphaned elephants (usually having to buy them outright from their owners) and now has over 35 elephants living happily in the park. She and her vets travel around the country providing medical care to elephants working in the field and advice to the mahouts on best handling practices. In addition she lobbies for increased legislation and better funding to protect the elephants and forests of Thailand and raises awareness of their plight both locally and internationally.

It’s possible to visit the Park for a day from Chiang Mai (maximum of 50 visitors a day) and take part in the daily feeding and bathing routines of the elephants. Or you can stay longer and live and work there as a volunteer, learning to look after the elephants and experiencing in detail the work that goes on there. If you’re in Thailand I can’t recommend a trip to experience this place highly enough - it was a great experience and far more rewarding to be able to learn about the elephants than just getting the standard tourist ride at a trekking camp. If you can’t visit, it’s also one place that could definitely do with a donation if you can spare the change - it’s a small but increasingly powerful outfit (thanks to Lek’s growing recognition in the local and global media) and certainly seems to be a cause where the money won’t get swallowed up by the administrative costs that dog so many larger charities. All details are here.

From Chiang Mai we progressed south to stiflingly hot Sukhothai - the original capital of the first Thai kingdom which lasted from 1238-1438. After a draining but culturally very worthwhile day visiting the various ruined temples and learning about the origins and history of Thailand’s formation we hopped on a bus… and touched down in Bangkok.

And where does a traveller traditionally head when they arrive in Bangkok - the seething melting pot of cultures and travel styles that is the original “backpacker ghetto” - the Khao San Road. For those that haven’t heard of it before it’s a relatively small street in the west of the city that 20+ years ago started to become the main hangout and base for backpackers in South East Asia (backpacker travel at that time being much more lowkey and largely focussing on Thailand). Over the years it’s developed into a pulsating mecca geared towards the budget traveller - cheap (and now of course not so cheap if you prefer) accommodation, bars, restaurants, clubs, coffee shops, money-changers and travel agencies line the streets, the space in between them crammed with stalls offering counterfeit watches, clothes, CDs, books, DVDs and countless souvenirs. You cannot move for people and the whole place seethes, flashes, smells and reverberates 24 hours a day. It is an assault on the senses and has become a tourist attraction in its own right - so much so that, even if not staying there, many visitors to Bangkok pop down for a look and a bit of people watching.

Normally it’s exactly the kind of place that I’d shy away from but I’d stayed there when I passed through Bangkok last year and found that actually it does have a real charm - if only for 10 minutes. This time we managed to stay near enough to be able to pop in as we wanted but on a much quieter out-of-the-way street.

Our few days in Bangkok were spent exploring the city - for me another trip to the Grand Palace proved much more rewarding than the one I made last year (something to do with too many beers the night before was the problem last time). We played dress-up at the tailors and explored a few of the other areas of Bangkok. It’s a polluted, chaotic, spread-out and to be honest pretty hard work city (and the numerous “try-it-on” taxi and tuk-tuk drivers were almost single handedly responsible for me deciding I hated it) but there are a few charming areas to visit and I enjoyed our the time there even if I won’t be devastated to never make it back!

From Bangkok we took a trip down to the Floating Market at Damnoen Saduak - although I’d read that it can get incredibly touristy unless you get there for 5am we of course didn’t manage to (ahem 10am!) and the real surprise was that it actually wasn’t too bad… in actual fact I think we were both expecting to be so unimpressed that, having found a relatively authentic-feeling stretch and sat ourselves on the canal edge with some mango and sticky rice handed to us from a lady passing by in her boat, we both were quite taken with spending a while gazing out over it all and thinking it was one of the most genuinely nice parts of our time in Thailand.

From there we headed up to Kanchanaburi to have a look at the Kwai River Bridge… better known to cinema buffs as the Bridge on the River Kwai. The bridge was a key strategic part of the railway the Japanese built between Burma and Thailand during their occupation in World War 2. The railway was supposed to take 5 years to build but the Japanese undertook to complete it in 16 months using mostly labour undertaken by Allied Prisoners of War. The awful conditions and hard work the prisoners were subjected to meant that over 16,000 died during its construction, leading to it becoming known as the Death Railway. Annoyingly I hadn’t been able to get a copy of the film to watch (and it had been years since I’d last seen it) but we spent some time at one of the museums reading about the awful conditions the POWs faced and went out to visit the war cemetery which, despite the constant hassle from the souvenir sellers, still managed to produce a relatively suitable sombre and respectful atmosphere. Although I’d been prepared for it not to be, I actually thought the Bridge itself is actually relatively impressive (if you ignore the huge expanse of souvenir stalls and dozens of other tourists) and it was, eventually, pretty humbling to get a moment there to contemplate the brutality of it all.

One thing I’d been recommended by several different sources as a must do in Thailand was to visit the Tiger Temple - it wasn’t in the guidebook and had been mentioned so many times and billed as “the amazing new experience” that I suppose, especially after the spectacularly run Elephant Nature Park, inevitably I’d built it up a bit. I know I do that and have got used to taming my expectations a bit at the last minute. But personally to enjoy the Tiger Temple I’d have had to lower them to the floor… never have I seen such a potentially lovely experience completely ruined by mass tourism or, if I got the message correctly, western meddling.

The concept sounds lovely: Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampanno - a rustic, out of the way temple where meditative, orange-robed Buddhist monks wander quietly as the hand-raised, tame and placid tigers they have adopted and reared over the years roam and play around them. Both in calm and serene harmony together. Okay that was always going to be idyllic but the reality was very different: not a temple in sight, only 2 monks seen all afternoon and hundreds of other tourists being barked at and herded around by power-happy, unfriendly, western “volunteers” in bright green “Tiger Temple” T-shirts. And that was before we even got to see a tiger. When it actually came time to go and view them you find the 5 or so tigers chained up and panting in a stiflingly hot little canyon where you line up (of course being shouted at by a “volunteer) and are then, 10 people at a time, individually led by the hand by aforementioned, green t-shirted, “volunteers” around the various tigers. Stopping at each one for a carefully posed photo.

Obviously safety has to be a paramount concern and I was never expecting coach loads of tourists to roam free with the tigers but the sheer un-spiritual and certainly un-Thai-like feel to the place, colour co-ordinated and un-welcoming volunteers, awful conditions for the animals and constant money grabbing (lots of donation boxes and pay-per-photo opportunities) made it the most depressing example of the negative effect of tourism I’ve seen for a long time… even more depressing is that I heard from one local that it’s largely western backpackers who have muscled in and taken over the administrative running of the tourism side from the monks. Disney couldn’t make it feel more soulless.

So Thailand: the original backpacker country where intrepid, adventurous, culturally rewarding budget travel pretty much came of age. Today travel here is neither particularly intrepid or particularly adventurous - Thailand has such a well established tourist trail and infrastructure now that you’d find it more of a challenge to get from London to northern Scotland, than Bangkok to northern Thailand (believe me I know). If I’m honest I think most backpackers only come now to tick the box and say they’ve been (and, like the holidaymakers, they come for a nice sun tan and a good party too of course).

Culture wise I can’t truly say whether I think it’s worth exploring Thailand for that alone... Traditional authentic culture in the main holiday-maker and traveller hotspots of Thailand (i.e. Bangkok and the beaches) is near impossible to come by these days unless you’re lucky enough to befriend some locals who aren’t involved in or bothered by tourism. Of course there are ancient wats and cities to be visitied if you make the effort to seek them out but by and large anything else usually involves a display of some kind tailored to the tourist and designed to part them from their cash. The Thais have mastered that skill and it comes in various forms from Traditional Dance shows (with expensive buffets and drinks), tours to visit local villages (where the villagers are now so reliant on income from tourists buying the cheap trinkets they sell that the hassle you get from them makes it feel anything but authentic), ladyboy cabaret (which although questionably a Thai invention may not qualify as culture quite yet) and pingpong shows (which although some guidebooks feature it high on their “sites to see in Bangkok” section still smacks somewhat of freakshow and is the beginning of the sleazy and seedy side of Thailand which none of us should support).

But having (I hope for the first and only time this trip) been so negative, I have to say I have really enjoyed trying to find “real” Thailand - even if I don’t feel like I’ve totally succeeded (Chiang Mai, the temples, the floating market and the Elephant Park are as close as I ever felt). But it must be there somewhere so it may be my own fault - I guess if you really want to find it you just have to either get lucky or work exceptionally hard, get off the beaten track and find an area of the country genuinely untouched by tourism or even modern life. If you drift with the crowds of tourists around the main tourist-trail you inevitably end up seeing a sanitised version that, ironically I suppose, has been spoiled rather than enhanced by tourism. And you end up being made to feel like a tourist - which is definitely not what I’m looking for.

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