Chiang Mai trip

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Well, got to Chiang Mai – a bit sprawled out city and looks like it has a lot of agriculture around it. We were blown away by the lovely setting of the hotel – considering it is only cost about AUD78 a night including breakfast – it is just gorgeous – the rooms are lovely a spacious and all look out onto either ponds, pools or some form of water. The hotel is placed in a botanical garden which is amazing – we met the owner/creator of it driving around in a golf cart but thought he was a gardener – such a humble man but what foresight he had for this place. There are about 6km of pathways and 115 ha of land. They even have a little zoo for kiddies, paddle boats to travel around the extensive water ways (which we are going to do today) bikes and golfcarts to hire and a lovely museum –
Last night we went to the city – caught a taxi off the side of the road – along with many other local thai people… and walked around the city a bit – initially a real shock as it is dirtier and more unkempt than we thought it might be – and after tripping and Gary constantly banging his head as everything here is built for short people! There seems to be no limit to how many people or things you can fit on a scooter/motor bike here – we have seen up to 4 or 5 people on one bike! – no helmets – only for the tourists! Have even seen people talking on a mobile while riding a bike and the worst was a guy texting and riding!!

It may be a land of mostly poor people but they all have mobile phones! We were a tad irritated with the noise and filth and eventually found a nice place to chill out and have a drink – then the mozzis set in so we caught a tuktuk (was dying to do this but think it will be a onetime experience as Gaz had to double up to fit in it and also banged his head again!) and went to the night bazaar – rows and rows of street sellers and buildings filled with little stalls – much of it very similar but some really interesting stuff too. We shopped a bit and then found a quaint local bar called the Mango bar – the guys who owned/ran it were so friendly and it has such a nice atmosphere and you could watch the bazaar happen in front of you – they even insisted we share their dinner – vegetarian thai food which was really delicious. The people here very artistic and can make a place look really stylish and flash by using very simple lighting and décor effects – mind-blowing simplicity!
14th Jan
We were supposed to do a cooking course today but Gax decided he really didn’t want to go so we lay around the pool, had yet another massage which was probably the best I have had so far, ate and lazed about. In the afternoon we thumbed down a taxi (very easy to work it out here – the yellow ute taxi’s do main routes in and out of town – final drop off point is at a market and they stop running at 7pm - they are really cheap. The red ute taxis will go anywhere you want after negotiating a price and run at all hours - but expensive in comparison to the yellow ones. The tuk-tuks are mostly around town and not long distance). Our yellow taxi costs us 30 – 40 Baht into town but when we catch a red taxi home after 7pm we pay 300 baht!
Anyway – we went in and looked at a few temples – beautiful structures and very detailed work. We did some more shopping at the night bazaar before finding a place for a few drinks, did more shopping at ended up at our Mango bar that we had discovered the night before. They were very excited to see we were back again! All in all we had a great evening before catching a ride back home.
15th Jan
Were picked up early by a very comfy minivan and drove out to the other side of the city – about half an hour out of Chiang Mai – to our elephant place. The trip was about being a ‘mahout’ or elephant farmer for a day – shit, they work hard! It was an amazing experience – a very rural outfit/farm but run very professionally – the owner spoke fairly good English and really has a passion about looking after elephants – he says the money we all paid supports the local farmers as he buys the food etc for the elephants and in return the locals are also caring for the elephants. We got allocated our own elephant for the day and a mahout to show us how and what to do. First we had to check all the signs of health… down to squeezing the poo to see if they had enough water!! Then we had to brush the ele down and take it to the river and bath it. Washing a body that size takes a long time and lots of effort! The eles are really sweet and will sit down for you to wash their backs but my ele was 14 months pregnant so was not allowed to sit or she may struggle to get up so I had to stand on the bank and she would come right to the edge for me. Then they lined all the eles up and made us stand and get sprayed by the eles!
We were given mahout clothes to wear and a bowl of bananas/pumpkins/sugar cane etc to feed our eles. You shout ‘bon’ and they lift their trunk and open their mouth for you to put the food in.
After that we were shown three techniques of getting up! First one is by tapping their leg which they bend and you use it as a ladder…. Seems simple enough but it only lifts you so high!! The second one was to tap their head and they bow their head and you climb on their trunk and hoist up from there –now you are facing backwards so you have to do a u-turn on the top! Lastly you can get them to sit and climb up but again, my ele was not allowed to sit so the easy option was out for me!
Surprisingly enough, we all managed to get on with a lot of shoving and pushing from the mahouts! And we set off – lovely and comfy for the first 3 minutes… after that, every leg muscle aches! To keep your knees bent and squatting behind the ele’s ears is not the most natural thing for westerners! We climbed up a mountain and down the other side to a river – about an hours ride and thankfully there was a nice high rock by the waterfall that the eles would walk up to so that the mahouts could drag us off – we could hardly stand by then, never mind dismount an elephant! The eles had a swim and we could swim with them – they just lOVED the water and tumbled and rolled in it – you had to be careful to always stay on the top or they could squash you! Then we sat cross-legged again..(oh god, these poor muscles!) for a truly traditional thai lunch (but no hot stuff) and whatever we did not eat we could feed to the elephants – they knew this was coming and there were trunks and ele spit flying everywhere!
The second attempt at getting up on the ele seemed a little easier and we set off for a ride back to the camp and then dismounted again. This time I apparently did it ‘very elegantly’ (I would call it ‘sliding off an elephant!’). We fed them and got to meet two little twin baby eles – very rare to have twins – they were soooo sweet! Then we had to get on again!!! This time in the ‘advanced riding technique’ of two of us on one ele. I didn’t really enjoy that too much – felt like I was going to slip off as I was literally perched on top of the head and when she put her head down a bit to pinch some grass, I really felt vulnerable – however, we walked down a river bed and thank god it was only about 20 mins before I was allowed to slide down her trunk again!
It was the most wonderful experience and am sooo glad we did it. There are a lot of very unprofessional ele camps here in Thailand and so many poorly treated ele’s which is so very very sad. I was apprehensive about this one but had done research to find out which were the better places and feel that Patara Elephant farm really is a genuine outfit and they really do care for their eles – and we got a free DVD of pics that they took of us during the day – have not been able to see it yet though.
Today, (16th) is our last day in Chiang Mai – we are going to revel in lazing around in this tranquil environment for the last time – tomorrow is Bangkok which promises to be bustling, busy and noisy!

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