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Published: November 16th 2006
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Another trip today, on elephants!!!!!!!!!!!! Quite scared, which is silly as I’m supposed to be going to work in an elephant camp! The first place we stop at is an orchid and butterfly farm. The butterflies are amazing, and some of them are huge. Then we stop at a local market. Very different to chiang mai. On sale to buy for dinner today were bags of maggots (more expensive than meat) and lots of other kinds of bugs. Felt sick. After that we drive to the elephant camp, and to get into the actual camp we have to walk across a scary swinging bridge like they do on “I’m A Celebrity…” very strange as its just made from bamboo so that as well as swinging about in the air it also moves around under your feet. When you have around 40 people walking across it gets even more interesting, swinging and bouncing along. I just keep hold of the rails along each side - also made from bamboo - to try and keep my balance. The first thing we see at the camp are the elephants bathing. Their mahouts ride them down to the river, then ride them into the river
and then the elephants start to lie down and roll over in the river! It’s very funny watching the mahouts trying to keep their balance and choose when they jump into the water rather than just being dumped in by the elephants. Their balance is amazing. As the elephants start to lie down they stand on their shoulders, backs, anywhere where they can stand on them. Once they were all in the water the elephants started squirting the mahouts with water. Very funny, and there was cute baby one too. After their bath in the river we then went up to a seating area where the mahouts and elephants put on a show about the work the elephants do, and how they are trained. This included them dragging, pushing and lifting logs. They also showed us how the mahouts get on and off, with help from the elephants lifting and bending their front leg for the mahouts to use as a step. The elephants were also trained to collect rubbish and put it in a bin and to pick up the mahouts hats if they fell off and put them back on their heads for them! When the show was
over it was time to go for the ride on the elephant. They had 2-seater platforms on the back, but because I was on my own I had one for myself. That was good in one way because I had the elephant all to myself, but bad because it meant that I had to balance by myself. With two people on you would naturally have the balance, but I was perched in the middle being thrown all over the place. When we first went downhill I was squealing, which the mahout thought was very funny. He was just sat on the elephants head with nothing to hold onto. He didn’t speak any English but I’m sure he deliberately went downhill as often as he could to try and scare me. I realised after a while to hold onto the back of the seat so that I didn’t slide forwards when we went downhill. My elephant was a bit naughty too. We were the last elephant out and soon lagged behind when mine decided first to have a good old dump in the river, then a long wee and then decide that he didn’t want to go the way that the
mahout was trying to get him to go. They had a bit of an argument and the elephant made a bit of noise and swung his head about - scary! The mahout eventually got his own way and we carried on. I did feel a bit scared when we first set off, but then I just thought that even though I had to hang on sometimes the elephant had four legs so was pretty stable and that if I did fall off I would land either in the plants on the forest floor or in the river. So hopefully it would be a soft landing! The ride was through the jungle and quite a lot of it was through the river, it was very peaceful and once you got used to the movement of the elephant and kind of rolled with it, it was really comfortable. Half way round we stopped at a tribal village where they had stalls selling souvenirs, I bought an elephant with bells on. It was funny when we got back to where the elephants were, the mahouts were laying out on the platforms having a snooze, and mine was having a fag! Then we went
back the same way through the jungle and river, with my elephant wanting to go a different way to everyone else! The mahout kept talking to the elephant and apparently they have to learn elephant speak at the beginning of their training. The role of mahout is usually passed down through the family, I’m not sure if it’s only boys but there were no girls here (I don’t think!!). After the ride it was back across the swingy bridge and in the van to go to lunch. Instead of the usual buffet lunch we were given a selection of local dishes to try. This included buffalo (I was brave and tried some) and some fish covered in what looked like baked beans. The beans were actually very nice - not baked beans but similar. The same but different! After lunch we went to Chuang Dao cave, a huge cave/temple. It had lots of Buddha shines inside and there were lots of monks around. The tour guide had been a monk for nine years so I was chatting to him a lot about Buddhism. then we went to see a hill tribe called the Karen. The driver dropped us off and
we had to go trekking through the jungle to get to them, only for about 5 minutes. They are refugees from Myanmar (Burma) and are the ones that wear the rings on their necks. They wear them, so the story goes, because at one time the women were being killed by tigers from the jungle. They then decided to start wearing the rings around their necks to protect themselves. So the tiger couldn’t get at their throats…..but what if it went for their legs??? They thought of that too and some of the women wear rings around their lower legs too. They start off wearing them when they are about 4 - 5 years old and, normally want to start younger, with 10 rings then keep adding them every year or so until the age of 45. They are really heavy too, and rather than being separate rings they are like a coil. They keep them on all night, shower in them, everything…. There were also women here with big loops in their ears, so that they had big holes in their ears. They were selling local crafts here too. The children were very cute and couldn’t speak English. They
did know how to say 100 Baht though! The last thing we did before heading back to chiang mai was go riding on a raft down the river. The raft was made from strips of bamboo canes tied together. It was very rustic. There were gaps between the canes so water came up, and there were quite a few times when we went under the water a bit as well. All that was moving us along was one boy with a paddle and the current, which was quite strong in places. After trekking through the cave and in the jungle, and the ride on the raft my shoes and trousers were filthy! It’s been a brilliant day though. The elephant camp and ride were fantastic, and I really enjoyed the ride on the raft. I was nervous when I first saw it but it was beautiful drifting along the river, watching people fish….and scaring a cow that I don’t think had expected to see people floating down the river!
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