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Published: September 25th 2008
Thai Silk
Dance and music presentation in Chiang MaiAlternate Title: "...Everything but Yul Brynner"
Lumbering. This describes two actions of the asian elephants that we had the opportunity to visit with in the surprisingly diverse country of Thailand. Asian elephants, up until the last half century were used for lumbering as beasts of burden in the logging industry of northern Thailand. Lumbering also describes the deceptively slow swagger with which these fascinating creatures move. We had the pleasure of experiencing the latter up close as we participated in the one-day mahout (elephant trainer) course at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center near Lampang in the north, not far from the border with Burma. But more on that later.
We arrived in the steamy capital of Bangkok, Thailand just after midnight on September 16 with thoughts of the 1984 Murray Head hit "One Night in Bangkok" thumping in our heads. Strangely enough, most flights to Bangkok arrive around midnight, from what we've read, so getting a cab and hotel was pretty quick. Soon we were in our adequate-at-best cheap hotel room. We woke in the late morning for our only full day in Bangkok. That could only mean one thing ... rain.
Actually, to our recollection this was
Buddhist Temple in Chiang Mai
Monks praying during a daily ritual. our first real rain of the trip (except for the brief rain shower as we arrived at the edge of the Sahara in Morocco). That was okay with us, because we had nothing particular in mind to do in this city and we wanted to finish and publish our Japan blog entry. So we did.
Once we had finished, with the rest of the day, we took a stroll through a nearby park and browsed some of the nearby shops and many Thai Massage parlors in the area. These places are numerous in areas of Thailand with tourists. The thai version of massage is a combination of the traditional rubdown, stretching and chiropracty. They don't just use hands, but elbows, forearms and feet to massage the muscles.
We selected one place. Cosmina got a full hour-long 8-step facial (just US$9) and I went for the hour Thai massage (a $6 bargain). And, of course, with all the women working there, I was introduced to my masseur, who is the one guy who works there. I didn't want to offend him by asking to switch, so I just went with the flow. He washed my feet and lead me
to a very dimly-lit upstairs room covered with gym-class style floor mats upon which to lie down. Luckily, there were a couple other clients present, thus lessening the embarassment. He got started and after an hour of getting beat up by this guy, I felt remarkably loose and relaxed. As we left the room after the massage, my masseur let out a resonant fart, thus punctuating the end of the session. Hopefully, in Thailand, this is a compliment. Cosmina looked like a new woman after her facial. We had dinner at a lousy, touristy restaurant, and called it a night.
The next morning we prepared our bags and caught a flight to the northern city of Chiang Mai. We didn't realize until that morning that Bangkok has two airports. The big, new airport handles most of the air traffic, and the older airport handles just a few domestic carriers. We WERE flying domestically, but we thought that we were at the new airport, so we took a chance and told our cab driver to take us there. The airports are in virtually opposite corners of the city, and not very close to one another. If we were wrong, there
was a good chance we wouldn't make it to the other airport in time. Luckily, our driver pulled some Dale Earnhardt maneuvers and got us there 15 minutes earlier than we expected.
We've noticed on this trip that the speed and recklesness of cab drivers and the surrounding traffic is inversely proportionate to the presence of seatbelts. The slow, professional cab driver in Cape Town will surely have seat belts in his cab. But the cabbie pulling the two-wheel corners and almost hitting pedestrians in Cairo will never have them. Peril notwithstanding, we made it to the airport, and it was the right airport. We even had time to get lunch. However, we almost (by just a few minutes) missed our flight because we walked to our gate (Gate A1) and turned in when we saw the signs for "Gates A1-A, B and C". The gates all have their own separate security clearance and x-ray. We were 15 minutes into our boarding time, when we asked the agent if that was the correct gate. She told us it wasn't, and that A1 is the next gate down. We weren't the only ones to make that mistake and we all
rushed to the next gate, went through security again, and boarded the plane just as they were revving the enginges. The plane was backing out of the gate as we sat down in our seats. A close call.
Upon arrival, we arranged our hotel at a info desk at the airport. The Top North Hotel. It was spare accomodations, seemed clean, spacious and had a great pool. Except for seeing cockroackes at night(outside our room, only), it was a good deal for $25 a night. The rest of the day we played tourist by visiting the nearby Wat Phan An, a buddhist temple and got to see the monks get called to pray. It is a beautiful and spiritual place.
Feeling spiritual as we were, we went back to the hotel and took a dip in the pool (a baptism of sorts), cleaned up and went to a very nearby Thai restaurant that we found in our guidebook called "Aroon Rai". As popular a place as it is, and as delicious as the food was (and it was!) it was dirt cheap. We shared three dishes (khao soi -- a Chiang Mai noodle curry specialty, chicken with ginger
sauce, and vegetables with oyster sauce), two beers, ice cream and fried banana with honey. Everything amounted to US$10. And every single thing was delicious. We went back for dinner the following day.
The next morning was a big one, because we had to get up early to catch our hired car that would take us to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center for our Mahout Training Course. As one of our english-speaking elephant guides, Tu, would tell us, elephants have about the same life span as humans, so usually they will have the same trainer ("mahout") their whole lives. Elephants, as we mentioned above, were used for years to haul lumber chopped from the Thai rainforests. Once this practice was outlawed, hundreds of domesticated elephants were left without jobs, but still were too tame to be returned to the wild. Elephants eat so much, that unless it could earn the money for its own food, no mahout could afford to keep one. So the TECC found a purpose for these tamed beasts and set up the Mahout Training course to promote awareness of the animals and to teach. The Mahout courses range from a day (as ours was) to
a full month. The proceeds go toward the elephants and the mahouts (who all live in an adjoining village). Tu proceeded in telling us that the elephant dung was actually gathered and used to make paper, for fuel, and also to cook food. When I commented that they cook with elephant farts, Tu's eyes got big and she said in her heavily-accented English, "Oh, elephant have reeely beeg fahts ... you will see."
and we did. And they do.
The TECC is situated on a large expanse of rainforest, and, as luck would have it, we were there during the rainy season. And of course it was downpouring by the time we got there. After Tu's introduction, when it was time for us to meet and mount our elephants, it was still raining pretty hard. We donned our new denim "mahout suits", and learned how to mount the elephants. There are three ways to mount/dismount an elephant: from the side of a standing elephant, from the side of an elephant laying on its side, and then (the most fun) over the animal's forehead as it brings its trunk to the ground. We each had an elephant and its mahout
to help us. I wish we could say we took to it quickly, but we didn't. We didn't break our necks getting up there, but we weren't very graceful either. We shouted "Sop SOONG!" and the elephant brings his right front leg up to use as a step while you grab hold of the ear to climb up the side. "Map SOONG" is the same position, but to dismount. We tried and (barely) succeeded in the other commands. The mahouts speak about as much English as we speak Thai, so it was hard to communicate with them. They all had a hearty laugh, though, when I lost my pants attempting to execute a "Sop Soong". Unfortunately the ties on the mahout pants come undone easily, and as I prepared to mount, my mahout pointed out that the front of my pants were hanging around my knees. He and the assistant mahout started cracking up, and I, frantically trying to re-tie them, joined in the chuckles.
Then we took the elephants on a trial run around the training grounds, practicing "Bai!" (go), "How" (stop), and "Ben" (turn). Ultimately, the elephants only really listen to their real mahout, who was walking
next to us as we sat, helpless, on the elephant's neck. If the elephant wants to stop to pick a tree branch to eat, there was nothing we could do to stop it. One of the exhilirating things about the ride is that there is no saddle or anything to hang on to. You just lean forward with your hands flat on the elephant's forehead to stabilize yourself and hope for the best.
After practicing for over 30 minutes took a break, had some tea, and changed into dry mahout suits as the rain had subsided. Once refreshed, we hopped onto our elephants (along with our mahouts) for a long ride into the forest. The ride was amazing. Aside from the beautiful scenery, the excitement of riding the elephant, with now saddle in between us, was overpowering. The elephants held steady as we waded across and along muddy rivers. Once my elephant, spotting a tasty branch high up on a tree, reached up with his trunk to grab it. Tilting his head back to reach gave me the sensation that we would slide off the back, so I leaned way forward to steady myself.
We made it to
an area called the "training grounds" and had a lunch of fried rice and green curry. After lunch, we got to meet the two one-year-old baby elephants, pet them and feed them bananas. No need to mention how Cosmina felt about all this. One of the babies grabbed my wrist with his trunk and tried to pull me into his pen with him. The other baby was so happy with the bananas that he started to attempt climbing over the wooden fence to get more. We also visited the elephant hospital where elephants from all over Thailand can be treated for free. Seeing how well even the sick elephants are taken care of really gave us a lot of confidence in the place. After this, we got to watch some of the "teenage" elephants get bathed by their mahouts before they started their elephant show. The elephants got in parade formation (all marching single file with their trunks grabbing the elephant's tail). The lead two elephants held a bass drum between them as a third elephant beat the drum with a mallet to set the cadence of the march. Then we were led to a ring where the elephants and
mahouts performed tricks (painting, kicking soccer balls and demonstrating how the elephants used to be used to haul lumber). Everything was well done, and it never seemed that the animals were being mistreated or exploited (a concern of ours). The bond between mahout and elephant is strong, and the animals themselves are amazingly intelligent and powerful. After the show, we were given sugar cane to distribute to the elephants as a treat and then they continued playing with soccer balls. It seems that they really enjoy the performing and playing. After the show, we were shown the "Elephant Dung Museum" where (fortunately, after a disinfection process) they can turn elephant dung into usable paper which could be turned into usable souvenirs (we even bought a few).
Then the real fun began. We rode the elephants back to the Mahout School, but not before riding them into the river for a bath. On the mahouts' command (with us still on their back), our elephants knelt down in the muddy water until they were almost completely submerged. We tried to ignore a few nearby "elephant floaters", as we ourselves were immersed to our waists in the muddy water. It was a
lot of fun, and we had huge grins on our face for the whole ride back.
Upon returning, we were presented with our "Mahout Diplomas", made from elephant dung, of course. We thanked our mahouts as well as Tu and her assistant, Mat. We then passed out in the back of our car back to Chiang Mai, dreaming of taking a nice shower.
Our next day, we were scheduled to take a Thai cooking course at a local school called "Baan Thai". We were picked up from our hotel where we met another couple staying in our hotel. Maxim and Julie are from Belgium, and were really fun to talk to on the way to the school and throughout the day. We got to the school and within minutes our group was walking to the nearby outdoor market (Somphet Market) to learn about the ingredients and how to select them. We each had a basket, and were soon carting back the good in the early morning heat back to the school. We each would be making six dishes, tasting them all as we went along. The nice thing was that each course we could select from three options.
Who's Really in Charge
The elephants are happy to oblige their mahouts Cosmina and I each selected a different dish for every course, so by the end of the day we'd together made and tasted 12 dishes. And we didn't have to worry about forget the steps, because we each received a nice recipe book with all the dishes. Coming to a dinner party near you!
Among the dishes we made were spring rolls, Pad Thai, Hot and Sour Prawn soup, curry paste (with the mortar and pestle) and Chicken Green Curry. We won't even get into the desserts. It was a fun, informative and filling day.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. Then we decided to explore the neighborhood a little more. We checked out a couple of nearby bookshops and then happened upon a wonderful local festival. A large stage was set up in a square right near our hotel. Local music and dancing acts were taking turn on the stage. There were also food and craft stalls set up along the perimeter with some amazing products. We were especially impressed with one of the acts of young Thai women all dressed in silk doing a slow and graceful dance with candles in their
hands. They performed this to beautiful live traditional instruments.
We wish we could've stayed longer, but we'd arranged to hang out with our belgian friends, Julie and Maxim, at 8:00 at Zest, the bar and grill in front of our hotel. We were all still pretty full from the cooking course, so we split a medium pizza and had a few beers. We did a lot of taking and laughing. And then the crickets came out. Fried crickets. The manager, without asking us, fried up a bunch of crickets and brought them out to the table to try. Maxim and I jumped at it. Cosmina, after seeing us do it, popped one in her mouth as well. Julie wouldn't even look at us while we ate them, and promised Max she wouldn't kiss him again. They actually were not bad at all, and we both enjoyed the treat.
The next day, we flew from Chiang Mai to Ko Samui, an island in southern Thailand (insert "Meet the Parents" joke here). We checked into our bungalow by the beach at the Spa Resort on Hat Lamai beach. The little air-conditioned bungalow is small but cozy, about 100 feet from
the beach, five steps from the pool, and just $35/night. The beach by our hotel is good for sunbathing, but not really for swimming (a lot of fishing boats in the way). For a good dip in the water, we have been walking 10 minutes down the beach to a place where we can rent two chairs and an umbrella for 100 Baht (three bucks). The sun here is hot, so the umbrella was welcome as were the coconut waters (served right in the coconut) we ordered. The beach here is wonderful and relaxing. But if that didn't relax us, the hour-long Thai massages we had right on the beach were (still just $6!). Who knew so much fun could be had for so little! We love Thailand!
Our hotel, though very nice for a budget place, is very new-agey. They specialize in week-long fasts using special drinks to cleanse you out. They also apparently do a great colonic, as well (fancy talk for an enema). They have yoga and meditation, too. We actually did participate in the free morning meditation. Even though some of the treatments are a little "out-there", nothing is pushed on you. And to our
knowledge, Cosmina and I weren't brainwashed into joining any cults during our meditation. And the restaurant here serves a lot of really healthy and delicious, including a mean green curry.
So this is how we spent our first two days in Ko Samui -- lounging on Hat Lamai beach. Eating green curry for dinner and fresh mango and banana from the vendors on the beach. Swimming. It was very chill. When we got tired of that, we'd go back to the hotel and take a dip in the pool. One day, we met a really friendly German couple, Christian and Claudia, who struck up a chat with us and treated us to a round of pina coladas. They were really friendly and, though we didn't have any money left that day to buy the next round, we luckily ran into them a couple days later and were able to return the favor. We were grateful for their friendliness.
To switch things up a bit, just barely, our third day was spent at Chaweng Beach, about 15 minutes drive north of us. It is considered the prettiest, but also the most heavily touristed -- and hence, tourist-y-- beach on
Ko Samui. Still, we had to see it for ourselves. We found a beautiful stretch of crystal blue water and white sand to stretch out on in the heat. As beautiful as it was, the amount of activity (including tons of jet ski operators) took away from the peace and beauty of the place. Even though our waters at Hat Lamai weren't quite as blue as Chaweng, we appreciated our beach's tranquility.
And then there were Chaweng's beach vendors. They come in droves along the beach, stopping at each sunbather selling ice cream, bracelets, spring rolls, freshfruit, sarongs, etc. They are all very polite and friendly -- never pushy like we've experienced in some countries. But the sheer number of them was a little overwhelming at times. At one point, one vendor was approaching us every 20 seconds. It gets tiring saying "No thank you" every half a minute. But one guy caught our attention, so we did buy from him. This young Thai guy, perhaps about twenty years old, approached a couple girls sunbathing about 50 yards away from us. He pulled an acoustic guitar out that was slung over his neck and started stumming and singing, like
Shot Fired!
...And one in the chamber. Look closely. a real troubador, a song "Ice Cream Is Good for You". He sang it with such soul that you'd think he was singing about a lost love. The girls clapped but weren't interested in buying his ice cream. He didn't seem to mind at all; gave them a big smile and a laugh and walked on. By the time he got to us, we were ready to buy (and not just because we were craving sweets). He strolled up to us and asked imploringly, "Ice cream?". To which I responded, "Ice cream." And he immediately launched into a Thai ballad, I wish we could've understood the words, but he ended the song by going up into his falsetto and at the end with a final "Ice creeeaaaam!" and took a bow. We cheered and applauded. When we asked him what kind of ice cream he had, he flipped his guitar around, and on the back were pasted pictures of all the different ice cream cones, bars and sandwiches he had with him. We got a real kick out of him and gave him a well-deserved tip too.
The next day was a planned trip with a company to the
smaller islands of Ko Tao and the even smaller Ko Nang Yuan for snorkelling and beaching. A van picked us up to transfer us to the boat dock in the morning. We immediately hopped on a 35-foot pleasure boat with about twenty other people and made the 1.5 hour ride to Ko Tao. As we were sitting right at the end of the boat, we were constantly splashed with water in our faces for the whole trip. It was so ridiculously hot, though, that we actually enjoyed it. While others couldn't take it and moved toward the front of the boat, we stayed and got soaked. We arrived at Ko Tao, donned our snorkel masks and hit the sapphire water making our way soon to the surrounding reefs. The reefs weren't too bad. There were some cool fish and other creatures we couldn't even identify. It was a very freeing feeling to be under the water among these animals and the coral. We can't wait to try it out in the Barrier Reef in Australia. We stopped for a brief but delicious lunch of curries and rice and fruit and then took another 15 minute ride to Ko Nang Yuan,
Bonding
...Maybe too closely a series of three very small islands connected to each other by strips of pure beach. The beach was probably the best either of us had ever seen to this point: white sand, crystal water, beautiful backdrop, and very peaceful. We snorkelled and sunbathed and enjoyed every minute of it. After a couple hours there, we hopped back on the boat an made our way back to Ko Samui.
That night we went to the local internet cafe and finalized all of our flights for the rest of the trip. Our last flight from Fiji to Buffalo will leave on October 25 and arriving the morning of October 26. We spent the next day on Hat Lamai beach, reading, swimming and sunbathing. Finally relaxing again for once on this very busy vacation. It felt good to have nothing to do (and to not have to worry about setting up any more flights).
We leave today for the city/island/nation of Singapore where our friends Vanessa and Tony Trombino live and work with their boys Matthew and Adam. It will be great to finally see some familiar and friendly faces (for the first time in two and a half months).
A Very Fresh Baby
With a very strong trunk at age 1 year 5 months We can't wait!
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