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Published: September 13th 2007
The Thai Elephant Conservation Centre
Sarah demonstrates the ancient mahout art of Thack Long - mounting an elephant from the front.Sarah and I have had a fantastic first few days making our way north from Bangkok towards Chiang Mai, via Phitsanulok and Lampang. Thailand is an amazing country - full of friendly people, beautiful temples and sweaty foreigners (ourselves very much included).
One of the highlights of our trip thus far was a 1-day mahout course, learning how to train elephants at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre. It was a real privilege to spend a day with these amazing animals, although it's debatable how much control we had over them. They very much seemed to do as they pleased, which primarily consisted of eating - animals after our own hearts.
As well as spending time riding, feeding and bathing the elephants, we also visited an elephant hospital, and saw other animals at the centre demonstrate the skills they had learned. It was slightly strange seeing these animals "domesticated", but I think that's probably simply because it seems unusual to us, whereas it's viewed as the norm locally. Certainly, the centre seems to do a lot of good work educating people on elephants, and helping rescue any elephants that have been orphaned or mistreated.
The other highlight was our
Feeding time
She eats 200kg of food a day . . . I was talking about the elephant! trip to Sukhothai, the former Thai capital, about half way between Bangkok and Chiang Mai. The old city is very well preserved, and we spent the day cycling round the ruins. Unfortunately, a problem with the camera meant we lost our photos from that day (and the 1st three days of our trip). Losing the photos might have been the low point to date, but a colony of ants eating our last mini-bar of Green & Black's chocolate (a going away present from one of Sarah's friends) came a very close second.
Apart from those highlights, it's safe to say we've enjoyed everything else we've done too. Our initial destination was Bangkok, where we spent a couple of very pleasant nights at the Dusit Thani - a late birthday/early Christmas present from my parents. Our first evening was spent enjoying room service and Arsenal v Portsmouth on the telly. The following day, we saw the Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha.
We then spent 3 nights in Phitsanulok (close to Sukhothai), visiting a local waterfall and Wat Yai, one of the most revered temples in the country. The walk to the falls was somewhat longer than expected, as the
Lampang guest house
Another busy day . . . bus broke down en route, but the scenery was pleasant, and the locals very friendly.
After Phitsanulok, we stayed in a riverside guest house in Lampang. The guest house was fantastic - a converted teak house - and the gardens beautiful. Aside from the elephant centre, we also spent time in Lampang visiting the local temples in a horse-drawn carriage.
We arrived in Chiang Mai last Monday (10 September), and have been keeping very busy since. But we'll tell you all about it when we next update the blog . . .
Hope everyone reading this is well.
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