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Published: January 28th 2008
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Hey everyone - we are now in central Thailand. Since our last entry we have taken a slow boat upriver on the Mekong to cross from Laos into northern Thailand. This was great - we would thoroughly recommend the upriver run - heaps of room on board, with the boat moving slow enough that you get a really good look at the sights and scenery drifting by. The cold drinks and nibbles available also helped! We probalby would not recommend the opposite trip going downstream - the boats we saw had people packed in like sardines...
Once over the boarder we headed to Chang Mai, Thailands second largest city. We decided to give the treking and hill tribes circus a miss so took in what the city had to offer by the way of the local temples, a day long cooking class and a night of Mui Thai kickboxing action.
The cooking class was a lot of fun and really filling! We started with a market tour and were given lots of handy advice when shopping in tropical Asian markets (i.e don't buy pink eggs as they have been fermented..). We learnt to cook a heap of Thai dishes
very quickly, and got a cook book and certificate to prove our skills!
The boxing was interesting, as the nights card started with two 8 year olds, then progressed into the teenagers before finally getting to the main event - two adult males! However the best fight of the night was the single womans match, which was a huge mis-match between a dump truck and an athlete... the crowd was on the small girls side and she managed to stay away from the big girls fists for 3 rounds before being knocked sensless, but at least she got more appalause than the winner when she regained conciousness!
We then zapped down to Lampang to be close to our prebooked "3 day Elephant Mahout" training course over the folllowing few days. Lampang was pretty sleepy, with the main attraction being Burmese style Wats (temples to you Farangs at home) with cool rooflines made of teak, and pony & cart rides around the 3 main streets of Lampang (the pony rides were really for the cruise ship type toursits in town).
Pretty soon it was time for the main event - the elephants, which Sandra has been champing at
the bit to get to for over the last 2 months (since we booked) and for which we had to rearrange the itinery for our Asian traveles.
We arrived the night before, and checked into our accomodation for the next 3 nights - which were rustic "homestay cabins" at the back of the centre, where the permanent/professional Mahouts lived.
The program started with the issue of our nice blue demin Mahout suits (large - one size fits all) and matched up with our elephants and professional Mahouts (who we soon learnt were the only ones our elephants usually took orders from) for the course. Simon drew Jojo, an 18 year old male who was the largest of the herd with a lot of attitude and a huge appatite. Sandra's elephant was Wanalee, a 10 year old female with a very cute "thankyou" bow which scored her heaps of exta bananas from everyone.
There was no messing around - one go though the list of commands, then straight onto our elephants, off again, on again, off over the head, having the elephant sit down, lie down, get off and on again, and picking things up, being shadowed all
the time by the professional Mahouts who made sure the elephant behaved itself, and actually responded when we gave a command.
Luckily, Sandra's mahout was as snap happy as she is, and he took loads of photos (a VERY small number of these are attached), whose catchphrase was "Sandra, Sandra, camera, camera, take photo...."
Then it was off for our first bathing session (along with the arrival of the tourists who had come to watch the bathing and later tourist show). This took place in a nearby pond, and was hugely popular with the professional mahouts who seemed to try to outdo each other with trying to get their and other 'trainees' as wet as possible. It wasn't until later baths that most of us learnt that you had to stand up on the elephant and keep a watchfull eye out for trucks pointed in your direction (usually already full of water ready to be blown in your face!).
Once both elephants and people were wet it was off to the showground for our first show. Jojo lead the parade from the bathing area to the showground, closely followed by Wanalee, who was the resident drum beater...
A burmese style Wat
with an interesting roof line that leaked... Once we had been put though our paces in front of the tourists (repeat of all the getting on and off and commands of the morning), the professionals came in and put on a show of elephants pulling logs and demonstrating traditional forestry moves. The show also included demonstrations of elephant painting, music and balancing acts (see Jojo on the log). The show finished with a race to the tourist barrier where bananas and sugar cane were feed out by the tourists in exchange for photos.
Then followed lunch, more bathing, another show before we rode our elephants into the jungle, where they were tethered for the night, and collected again at 6.30 the next morning. The second and third days followed a similar schedule, but included extra bathing on the way back from the jungle (before any tourists arrived).
We really really enjoyed the course, however found that we had quite a few muscles which have not seen much action on our travels so far!
Once the course finished and we had received our 'diploma's' we set off South. We are currently in search of some old Siamese empire ruins before heading to the beach for
the last leg of our Asian adventures.
Hope the return to the working grind is not getting you all down to much - we will be thinking of you from the beaches of southern Thailand soon.
S&S
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