The Oliphant on the Opium Trail

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Chiang Rai, Thailand

October 23, 2549

Sean: The infamous “Golden Triangle” - conjuring up images of immense poppy fields, clandestine CIA operations, and nefarious characters processing heroin for the world’s market - is now a legitimate tourist destination complete with huge tour busses and t-shirt vendors. You know a place is no longer edgy when Grey Line ferries large numbers of sightseers to it.

Named The Golden Triangle by some long forgotten official in the Nixon administration, this portion of South East Asia where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet (it looks nothing like a triangle to me), used to be where the majority of the world’s illegal opium and heroin were produced. Now, at the epicenter of it all is a western quality museum devoted to the controversial plant and its effects (both positive and negative) on modern societies.

The museum starts off by taking you through the five thousand year history of this pain killing flora and explains how the natives have utilized it for medicinal, religious and recreational purposes. Passing on through, we see how this inaccessible region of the world created their own economy in the modern age by taking advantage of the favorable growing conditions and isolation to eventually become a major supplier to the world’s heroin demand.

The modern history starts with the weak and final Chinese dynasty (the Qing) that was compelled by the western powers (Britain, France, Portugal, et al) via two Opium Wars to allow the importation of the drug that eventually made their society weaker. This cycle continued until Mao Tse Tung eradicated opium (to a large degree) and made its consumption illegal in China. Mao’s defeated opposition, the Kuomintang, were forced out, with many of them fleeing to Taiwan and forming their own quasi-independent state, but many in the west immigrated to the remote region where we now find ourselves.

Being anti-communist means this group was not averse to wheeling and dealing in one of the most profitable crops. So it didn’t take them long to make the region infamous, calling it to prominence and concluding in its ignominious naming by a Washington bureaucrat.

The tourism industry has capitalized on this infamy and nowadays riverboats and tour busses disgorge Thais looking for a little local history and a nice cup of coffee at a local café (to discourage hill tribe poppy growing, the government has offered substitute crops with coffee being one of the more popular; trading caffeine for opium). Of course, it wouldn’t be the tourism industry if it failed to notice that wherever tourists flock, so shall t-shirt and trinket vendors.

Shannon: The Hall of Opium, as the museum is known, was extremely informative on a subject that I knew little about. During our travels through China, I skimmed over the history of the Opium Wars, but didn’t give it much attention. The museum gave a better overview of how the cultivation and sale of this illicit drug has affected world affairs. Great Britain, having gained control over India in the 18th century, used their newfound power to persuade farmers in that nation to produce opium, in an effort to balance their trade deficit with China (which exported silk, porcelain and that very popular social beverage - tea - to the English). Previously, the trade between the two countries was largely one-sided, as Europeans were consuming huge amounts of tea and other Chinese products, but did not have an equivalent product in demand in China. This became a serious drain on their financial resources, as they were forced to pay for their purchases with silver, and the trade imbalance was beginning to slow the British economy. Opium proved to be the solution to this problem. The drug turned out to be very popular in China, where the number of opium smokers quickly increased. By 1838, 1,400 tons of opium was being sold by the British East India Company to China, making its way to the opium dens that we know of in popular culture.

The Chinese government, recognizing the impact that the large number of addicted people were having to the social fabric of society, had previously outlawed opium imports, but it continued to find its way into the country due to sale and smuggling by the British East India Company. In 1839 this situation came to a head, as 3 million pounds of the drug were confiscated and destroyed by the Chinese. This sparked the First Opium War, and a defeated Chinese state was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking, which ceded Hong Kong to the victorious British, among other things. The Second Opium War, sparked by another incident, continued to weaken the sovereignty of that Asian nation, and led in part to the eventual downfall of the Chinese empire.

China, of course, wasn’t the only nation with a history of opium use: a lot of nations made a profit selling it, and a lot of nations battled the subsequent drug abuse. Like many other things we now know are addictive, opium was once thought to be the next new “miracle” medication, used to treat everything from headaches to respiratory illnesses. Companies such as Bayer began including opiates in popular remedies, which not surprisingly led to mass addiction. Morphine, an opium derivative, became popular as a pain reliever (for which it is very effective) and as a ‘cure’ for opium and alcohol addiction (not so effective). That blunder was followed by an even larger one: from 1898 through to 1910, heroin (another opiate) was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough medicine for children. Needless to say, that little pharmaceutical blunder was a bit embarrassing for Bayer, the chief proponents of the theory.

The history of opium is a pretty mixed bag. Opiates have been found to be extremely helpful for medical purposes, but the trafficking and abuse of them has created many problems. One interesting part of the museum showed different methods that heroin smugglers have employed to try to import the drugs - including some examples sent in by drug enforcement agencies around the world. And to give it all a human touch, the museum wraps up with personal stories of a few heroin addicts - they don’t end well, in case you were wondering.

It was an interesting museum. My only real criticism of it, though, is that - like quite a few places we’ve visited on this trip - it was not completely forthcoming. Rather than confront their past history with opium drug addiction, the displays imply that the only addicts in Thailand came from the population of ethnic Chinese immigrants - native Thais of course did not participate in this unsavory activity - though this did not seem to mesh with other statements made in the displays. And rather than admit any complicity with the production or sale of the drug - Thailand forms one leg of the Golden Triangle, after all - it was explained that the Thai government was “forced” to deal in this illicit drug by the evil western powers. Anything that might shed unfavorable light on the Thai people or government was obviously censored out. Hmmmm…for an otherwise quality museum, we expected better.


October 24, 2549

Sean: Chiang Rai doesn’t grab you as a destination; there really isn’t much to see up here. We had a great time yesterday taking the motorbike (another 100cc Honda Dream) up to the border and seeing that amazing opium museum, but without that, the city doesn’t have much to offer in the way of outstanding sights.

One popular thing to do while in the area is to visit the hill tribes. This part of the country is inhabited by indigenous people that are, in essence, stateless as their roots span all three countries. The Thai’s are hesitant to give them full citizenship, fearing a mass influx because of the porous borders and extreme poverty in the other two countries (not to mention the overt discrimination toward them in Burma).

So it’s a fairly popular sight, while up here, to take in a few of these “genuine” hill-tribe villages to see the natives. Now I don’t want to become too judgmental here, because how people choose to spend their tourist dollars is up to them, but I just can’t get my head around how showing up at a small village in a tour bus and snapping pictures of the locals is somehow an authentic experience for either the tourist or the tribesman. The first time a foreigner showed up there, they ceased being “lost” hill tribes. I certainly wouldn’t want my own city’s cultural growth stunted at some arbitrarily agreed upon era just to satisfy people’s curiosity. Last year, while in Puno, Peru we took a boat out to a few of the Isla Flotantes to witness a similar phenomenon - natives living on floating reed islands living the way they’d lived for hundreds of years…if you mean by commuting each morning from town, wearing “South Park” t-shirts and selling mass produced baubles to tourists then yes, it was the genuine article. (My favorite incongruity was that many of the islands had solar panels which I think, while rankling traditionalists, is fantastic, because I love electricity and can’t justify denying anyone the desire to live with one Watt less than I currently enjoy).

So what else is there to draw us to this northern Thai city, if we’ve visited the museum about illicit narcotics and poohpah-ed the only other major attraction? Why, Shannon’s mom, of course!

Fresh into retirement from her career as a federal agent, she decided (along with her friend Linda) to take the airs in this beautiful country. The last time we saw her, we exchanged goodbyes at the Riga airport way back in May. We met up with them here in Chiang Rai and have spent the last couple of days checking in with each other and catching up on all of the things that have happened in the meantime.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

October 28, 2549

Sean: We’ve followed Michele and Linda south to Chiang Mai. Between chilling out some more and chatting over coffee, Shannon and I have taken in the sights of the city, while Linda and Michele were on their tours of the area. Chiang Mai, while not having any spectacular attractions, is a central city for the region. In the old days (before a unified Thailand) it was the capital of its own state and the temple on the mountain overlooking the city (Wat Phra That Doi Suthep) is one of the most important in the nation (so sayeth Lonely Planet). The surrounding factories produce the majority of the country’s handicrafts as well.

So we set out one day on a rented motorbike firstly heading up the winding highway to the beautiful temple. Being a bit overcast, the views to the city weren’t very impressive, but the golden stupa at the peak was one of the finest. (Shannon: Until we arrived in Asia, I just had no idea how much gold paint there was in this world.) There is a big Buddhist research center there also so we bought a small book on the principles of karma, thinking we can improve the paths of our future lives (as good a thought as any, I suppose)

Taking the scooter the other direction out of town put us in center of knick-knack production where we witnessed many of the processes that are responsible for the kitschy souvenirs at a market near you, including silk production (we got to see how the worms give up their precious threads) and paper umbrella making.

Along with the factories, another major draw is the daily night market in town. The prices here are good if you’re interested in picking up a few souvenirs. Some of the stuff is pretty nice, but unfortunately for the sellers, their variety isn’t that varied. The majority of vendors rotate between a limited supply of goods so the market is saturated with many people selling the same things - great for us as we can shop around and get a pretty good “foreigner” price.

Shannon: Sean and I had spent several days in Chiang Mai the last time we were in Thailand, so during this trip we mostly chilled out and took it easy. Meeting up with my mom and Linda on most evenings, as well as a few afternoons, we ended up spending quite a bit of time just chatting, eating, and chatting some more. It was interesting to hear about Thailand from their perspective, since they were doing some things we weren’t and also because they had a tour guide giving them additional information (though it sounded like their guide presented only the rose-colored version of life in Thailand). But even that was interesting to talk about. It was also nice to spend a bit of time not focused so much on traveling, but just relaxing around family.

Unfortunately, our time with them seemed to pass too quickly and before we knew it, it was time for them to fly home. Saying goodbye to them in Chiang Mai, we headed south to the ancient Thai capital of Sukhothai.

Sukhothai, Thailand

November 1, 2549

Sean: During the Khmer empire’s decline, parts of the region began to declare their independence and Sukhothai became the capital of the nascent Kingdom of Siam - this area is the origin of modern day Thailand. The attraction here is the old walled city (although the walls are gone pecawn and only exist on the much photocopied maps that are given out at the guesthouses). We rented some bicycles and tooled around the ancient temples, but try as it might, Sukhothai is not Siem Reap and the temples can’t compete with the splendors of Angkor.

Shannon: It was a bit disappointing when, after getting dropped off at the old city and renting our bicycles, Sean and I tried to orient ourselves off the photocopied map they gave us. I was sure we couldn’t be where they said we were - when did we pass through the massive city walls (3 tiers thick if you believe the sheet of paper)? Sadly, as Sean said, what I was expecting to find is long gone - with only a bit of dirty rubble left in their place.

As my dear husband said, before declaring their own independence, Sukhothai was under the auspices of the Khmer empire. Hence, there are a few Khmer-era temples here, but they are extremely modest by comparison with those at Angkor Wat. We told ourselves that it wasn’t fair to compare the two, anyway. Angkor Wat was built during the height of an empire that lasted 600 years or so and ruled over much of South East Asia. Sukhothai was an emerging kingdom that only lasted a few hundred years, eventually swallowed by another emerging empire further south. The temples here are pleasant, modest and well-tended (at least what is left of them). But having just recently visited Cambodia, it’s hard not to see them through jaded and weary eyes.

Still, it made for a very nice stopover on our way south.

Kanchanaburi, Thailand

November 3, 2549

Shannon: We now find ourselves in the pleasant town of Kanchanaburi, a few hours northwest of Bangkok, and our last real stop in Thailand. The name of the town may sound familiar - it is famous for the so-called ‘Death Railway’, the subject of the book-turned-movie Bridge Over the River Kwai. For those that aren’t particularly up on the subject, the Death Railway was built by the Japanese during World War II, literally cut through the jungle into Burma as a supply route. Most of what makes it famous is the fact that POW’s were used to build it and a great many of them died in what turned out to be very brutal conditions.

Kanchanaburi has an excellent little museum devoted to the subject, conveniently located right next to the War Cemetery, which houses the remains of the POW’s who died during the construction. It’s a pretty well put together museum and gives a fairly even-handed account of the issue, explaining both the reasons that Japan needed a supply route but also detailing the conditions of the workers (which no matter how you slice it, were pretty poor). To get the job done in the most expedient manner possible, the Japanese railway engineers set up many camps along the proposed route, simultaneously building sections and then linking them together. Some camps were a bit better than others, and this is reflected in the casualty numbers. Those that were closer to re-supply locations, those that were located a bit further from malarial-infested waters, those with better sanitary conditions…all of these things made a big difference. Approximately 16,000 POW’s died in the 18 months that it took to build the railway, mostly due to common ailments and malnutrition. But the really staggering - and often untold - story is of the 100,000 Asian civilian workers who died (Burmese and Malaysian, predominantly) who either volunteered or were coerced into working on the project by the Japanese.

The famous bridge was actually one of the easier parts to construct, as it is located very close to existing towns and was an easy place to get men and materials to. The really difficult parts were located deep in the jungle and given colorful names like Hellfire Pass, a deep section cut through solid rock and lit with torches at night to enable the men to continue working. All work was done by hand, as the Japanese didn’t have the means of getting equipment deep into the jungle. So what they lacked in equipment, they made up for with forced labor. The first-person video accounts of those that survived the experience were pretty interesting. I found the comments of one Japanese engineer - blustering because the Hollywood version of the event portrayed the Japanese as unfamiliar with how to construct the bridges, until one of the POW’s stepped in and showed them ‘how it’s done’ - particularly interesting. I suppose he didn’t mind that the film purportedly (I haven’t seen the movie) shows cruel treatment towards the workers by the Japanese, but the thought of someone else having to show them how to build the railway hurts his pride. Go figure.


November 3, 2549

Shannon: As we’ve read recently, there’s just a wee little problem with the Bridge Over the River Kwai - it doesn’t actually cross the River Kwai. Or at least it didn’t when it was built. The bridge of literary fame actually crossed the Mae Khlung, but Pierre Boulle didn’t know that when he wrote the book. Since the ‘death railway’ runs parallel to the River Kwai for many miles, he made an assumption (and we all know what happens when we assume).

This caused quite a conundrum for the Thai government, actually. When hundreds of tourists, fresh from their neighborhood movie theaters, began to flock to see the legendary bridge etched into popular culture just north of the town of Kanchanaburi, they wanted to see a bridge over the River Kwai, not the Khlung. So the Thais did the only reasonable thing: renamed the river. The bit that flows under the bridge is now the Khwae Noi (“Little Kwai”).

We journeyed north from town to see it today. Surrounded by tourist shacks and shopping centers, I’m sure the POW’s and Asian laborers that built the bridge would hardly recognize it. It looks a bit different today, anyway. Allied bombers - aided by the new Azon guided-bombs, were able to take out two sections of it during raids in 1945. Those sections have been replaced, but don’t match the original spans, so are very easy to identify. Visitors can ride a tourist train over the span for a nominal amount, but we chose to walk over it instead. In true developing-nation fashion, there isn’t much to keep you from falling over the side and into the river - guardrails would destroy the aesthetics, I’m sure. But in one small safety concession, they’ve at least covered the railroad ties with steel plating between the rails to give you a nice surface to walk on.

Sean: As you can see from our pictures, the bridge doesn’t look anything like the one from the movie, that’s because the hellish toil produced the first wooden bridge, but was later turned into something a bit more permanent by the Japanese.


November 7, 2549

Sean: Just up the road from Kanchanaburi (half hour by local bus) is a neat organization that I’ve been looking forward to visiting for quite some time. All throughout the country there’s a problem with underemployed elephants. Since logging was outlawed in 1989, the owners and mahouts (elephant handlers) have had to get creative with caring for these voracious beasts. Not only do they eat around 500 pounds of food a day, but you can imagine that they require a bit of room to stretch their stumpy legs. The solutions have been as varied as the amount of elephants, but mostly they are put to work in the tourist trade. Some have been taken to Bangkok to ply the streets, beggar like, where - for a few dollars - tourists can pay to feed the large beasts. Others are employed in camps where they are trained to do tricks like play soccer and paint canvas masterpieces (seriously) for the amusement of sightseers. The lucky few have wound up in conservancy preserves, a new breed of ecotourism that returns the elephants to their natural habitat and then funds the enterprise by having tourists pay to visit. This last option is getting a bit more popular as not everyone considers elephant soccer ‘amusing’ and a few too many accidents have proven that the hubbub of the city is no place for the peaceful pachyderms.

The camp we are at, called Elephants and Friends, was started by a Belgian girl, Dominque, and her Thai husband, Phot, and is bit more humble and low key than some of the bigger preserves currently in operation. Shan found this one after some serious research (it’s still in its infancy so they’re not in the guidebooks and are also a few links removed from the top on a Google search (Go ahead and give ‘em a click to find out more). Tragically, Dominique died this past March at the far-too-young age of 27 - the victim of an as-yet-undiagnosed liver ailment. The camp lives on, though, and what it lacks in organization it more than makes up for in heart.

Shannon: Elephants and Friends was formed to provide a home for unwanted, abused and/or mistreated animals. Their idea is to create a space where former working elephants can live out the remainder of their lives in their natural environment, cared for and respected by the volunteers and staff of the foundation. Boonmi was their first acquisition - a 71 year-old female elephant that was virtually a walking skeleton when they first saw her. Abused, with open wounds on her head and more dead than alive, the vets gave her less than a month to live. With a lot of determination and care, Boonmi survived and is now the “old woman” of the camp.

They now provide a home for 6 elephants, each with their own sad history. When we arrived, the elephant that I rode during our stay was still being treated with antibiotics to help heal the wounds created by a previous mahout. Elephant handlers have a tool called an ankus, which is something like a small, one-sided, curved metal pick used to help control the elephants. Normally, mahouts use pressure from their knees (they sit right behind the elephants’ ears) and voice commands to urge the elephants to perform the task they want. If the elephant doesn’t respond, they can also use their ankus to apply strong pressure to certain control points on the head, where the skin is a bit thinner and more sensitive. It is not meant to hurt the elephant, but unfortunately some poorly trained mahouts get overzealous and hit the elephants with the tool, sometimes to the point of creating open holes in the elephant’s forehead. This was the case with my elephant, which also bore scars and badly torn ears from many years of abuse. It’s pretty sad, really.

Some abuse of elephants has probably always been around; they have been tamed and used for centuries by many peoples of South-east Asia. Traditionally, they’ve worked as beasts of burden - used for transport, hunting, warfare and for any undertaking that requires large amounts of brute strength. In Thailand, as well as neighboring countries, they have played a major role in the timber industry. As Sean mentioned, the downturn in logging operations put many of these creatures in the unemployment line, and their owners have struggled to put food in front of them as a consequence. Elephants are not dainty eaters, as you can imagine, and typically consume about 10% of their body weight in food each day. That’s about 500 lbs on average, so you can imagine the predicament that the owner of an out-of-work elephant finds themselves in. Many do the best that they can; others give little thought to how their ‘investment’ is treated as long as they’re making money. Unfortunately, this is also coupled with diminishing numbers of trained mahouts. Since it is no longer a well-paying job, few people are choosing it as a profession and as a consequence, where a mahout and elephant might have worked most of their careers as a team together (a mahout might start working at the age of 10 or 11 and be with the same animal for their adult life - these kindly creatures can live 80 or more years in captivity), an elephant today might labor under a new mahout every year or so. With less work, fewer experienced or well-trained mahouts in the industry, and mounting bills, the situation for some animals looks pretty bleak.

For this reason, these conservation camps are a very good way of spending your dollars if you’re interested in having an “elephant experience” while on vacation. There are a few of them scattered around Thailand, but this one in particular interested us because it’s family run, they sounded like they were really trying to make a difference and our dollars would be going to a good cause.

Sean: With one oliphant (the Dutch/Flemish word) assigned to each visitor, the most exciting point about volunteering at the camp is that guests are not only allowed to ride, feed and pet the animals at will, but are heartily encouraged - a rarity, I assure you, in the tourism world where animal interaction is usually heavily controlled. They can get away with this here because the handlers are always around and the amount of tourists is limited. So for the last three days, we’ve gotten to tag along and live like a mahout, twice daily riding them down to the river Kwai to wash them and playfully frolic in the current.

Shannon: It’s a pretty relaxing way to spend some time, that’s for sure. The typical day spent at the camp would be getting up in the morning for a nice breakfast (all meals are included in the price and you never go away hungry). Then you walk to the nearby forest to collect the elephants, which stay there at night, tethered on very long ropes so that they are free to graze. Mounting the elephants, you ride them with the mahouts to the river, where they will take their morning bath (and so will you). After letting them pause to take a drink, the mahouts urge the elephants into the water until they’re just about submerged. By giving the elephants different commands, they ask them to sit, dunk their heads, roll this way-or-that - while you scrub them to get the dirt off their bodies (they like to give themselves dirt baths at night). This is great fun, as you get absolutely soaking wet along with them. Some of the elephants take great pleasure in their baths, especially Sidoh (a 19 year-old male elephant - clearly the prankster of the group), who takes particular pleasure in trying to dislodge his riders. (Neither Sean nor I was riding him, but it definitely looked like fun). After bath time, you take the elephants to one of the pens set up around camp, where they spend their day eating and hanging out. Depending on the needs that day, you might then go with the mahouts to collect more food for the animals (we chopped limbs off banana trees to feed them). After lunch, you usually have a few hours to rest, read or relax before you take the elephants back to the river for their afternoon bath and then return them to the forest for the evening.

Sean: Dominique’s husband, Phot, wasn’t around much during our three days as he was pretty busy, but their infinitely adorable daughter, 2 year-old Aree was, and she is the de facto captain of all. With the cutest smile and an outgoing personality, no one doubts who really runs the camp.

Shannon: Phot’s father, Phon, also lives at the camp, supervising much of the elephants’ care (he has been a mahout all of his life). He also clearly adores his granddaughter, often rocking her in her hammock in the afternoons. And with 5 other mahouts around plus the lovely ladies who cooked for us, Aree has no shortage of people looking after her.

Sean: While we were there, our visit coincided with two Dutch women, Elena and Sabina, who were on the downward slope of a two week stint at the camp. We had a great time chatting with them and also the camp’s only long term volunteer, an Aussie named John, who consistently finds himself frantically running around keeping the place in the black.

Shannon: Chatting over meals and over the course of the days we were there, Elena and Sabina enlightened us to many facets of their own country (in fact, we were delighted to learn that there is actually quite a bit of truth in the David Sedaris 6 to 8 Black Men story - which is truly hilarious. If you haven’t heard it, you should seek out a copy and listen to it. Really.) They both work in law enforcement in the Netherlands, so we also had many interesting conversations relating to their occupation. John was also great to talk to - not only about the volunteering that he’s been doing with the camp, but also about his life back in Australia. Having such a nice group around made the already fun experience even better.

Interested in elephants, I looked up some information on the web, where I learned quite a bit: Elephants are the largest land animals alive today. Standing around 9-12 feet tall and weighing anywhere from 6,500 - 11,000 pounds, Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants and are characterized by their smaller ears. Once common all throughout Southeast Asia (Laos was once known as the Land of a Million Elephants), there are now fewer than 40,000 Asian elephants left in the world, and only 5,000 of them in Thailand. This is in stark contrast to the African elephants, which have an approximate world population of about 600,000. A National Geographic article in 2006 estimated that there will no longer be any viable Asian elephant population in the next 50 years.

Some interesting facts I learned about these animals (shamelessly lifted from the article ‘elephant’ on Wikipedia):

• “According to biologists, the elephant's trunk is said to have over forty thousand individual muscles in it, making it sensitive enough to pick up a single blade of grass, yet strong enough to rip the branches off a tree. Some sources indicate that the correct number of muscles in an elephant's trunk is nearer to one hundred thousand.”
• “Elephants are herbivores, spending 16 hours a day collecting plant food. Because elephants only digest 40% of what they eat, they have to make up for their digestive system's lack of efficiency in volume. An adult elephant can consume 300-600 lb (140-270 kg) of food a day. 60% of that food leaves the elephant's body undigested.”
• “The large flapping ears of an elephant are very important for temperature regulation. Elephant ears are made of a very thin layer of skin stretched over cartilage and a rich network of blood vessels. On hot days, elephants will flap their ears constantly, creating a slight breeze. This breeze cools the surface blood vessels, and then the cooler blood gets circulated to the rest of the animal's body. The hot blood entering the ears can be cooled as much as ten degrees Fahrenheit before returning to the body.”
• “From a study reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an Asian elephant housed at the Bronx Zoo in New York repeatedly touched a white cross painted above its eye when it saw this mark reflected in a large mirror. Another mark made on the forehead in colorless paint was ignored, showing that it was not the smell or feeling which caused the interest. Elephants are among the very small number of species such as the great apes and Bottlenose dolphins capable of self-recognition.”
• “The harvest of elephants, both legal and illegal, has had some unexpected consequences on elephant anatomy as well. African ivory hunters, by killing only tusked elephants, have given a much larger chance of mating to elephants with small tusks or no tusks at all. The propagation of the absent-tusk gene has resulted in the birth of large numbers of tuskless elephants, now approaching 30%!i(MISSING)n some populations (compare with a rate of about 1%!i(MISSING)n 1930). Tusklessness, once a very rare genetic abnormality, has become a widespread hereditary trait.”

Sean: Elephants and Friends made for a great experience, and I think anyone with a bit of extra time on their hands would find it to be one of the best things they have the chance to do in Thailand. The camp could always do with a few more guests (only room for about 6, but if you show up, they can find an extra bed) and really need a couple of extended stay helpers (no experience necessary), so if you’re interested...

It would have been nice to spend more time there, as we were just getting to know the mahouts a bit better and learn more about the personalities of the different elephants. But with tickets to Vietnam already purchased, our time is up and we’re off tomorrow. So it’s adieu to not only the massive mammals, but to Thailand as well.

Before you sign off, though, check out our video blog site to see a couple of new clips, including one from our last few days with the elephants.

p.s. Year Zero in Thailand is when Buddha attained enlightenment: 543 B.C.

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Photos

The Golden Triangle...
...nothing but good 'ole wholesome family fun.

Golden Buddha
You can even get in a quick prayer when you go to the infamous Golden Triangle.

Pad Thai
The most famous Thai dish.

Green Curry Chicken with Crispy Noodles
Mmmmm...

Noodle Soup with Barbecue Pork
One of our typical breakfasts and a bargain at 50 cents.

Pineapple Street Snack
Sometimes they dip it in a bit of coconut juice for that little bit of extra flavor. So good.

Orchid
Not surprisingly, the Thai climate is very conducive to orchids. You see them everywhere.

Temple Building...
...at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. Say that five times fast.

Sukhothai Historical Park
This is the coolest thing they have at the park. Not that we're complaining.

Ingenious and Resourceful
And to think that my motorcycle, with an engine that displaces ten times the volume, is only used to ferry my narrow behind. What a waste.

Bridge over the River Khlung..
..er...I mean, River Kwai. That's what you came to see, right?

Mahouts
We spent the morning hacking banana trees for our hungry, hungry charges.

Aree - Mahout in Training
Although that would be a demotion as now she's the head cheese at the camp.

Gentle Creatures
How could anyone mistreat an elephant?

A Picture of My Mahout & Elephant
Notice the ragged ears and the purple spots (antibiotics). So sad.

Rubber duckie...You're the One...
...You make bath time lots of fun.

Comments

[Jackie]

fantastic
Fantastic blog and the photography is really good. Have really enjoyed this I love thailand back again in december can't wait.

[Jean-Marie Akkerman]

propaganda is everywhere
hello, I read most of this large webblog, as I just finished mine from Vietnam and Bangkok, just wanted to make a comment about the ones you tow make about the Opium museum, you mention how the Thais avoid any information relating them to this drug misuse! well I can say that that kind of propaganda happens everywhere, just having returned from Vietnam the lies told there about history of their country is increadible, specially when it talks about the US war, in spite of everybody knowing that indeed the US did atrocious things there, their government educates them into believing even worse things! I guess all countries do so, The English like to give themselves the notion of having created much of capitalistic culture whilst the truth about the Capitalist system was created in the netherland whilst under the rule of King William of Orange who made England ( dont tell the English this as they'll deny it) a province of the netherlands under the greatness of the tulip trade...and m,erged theDutch banking system to Britain and Britain becoming the larger colonist in time took the notion of capitalism to its colonies...in the same way...Propaganda is something the USA is very guilty off and denies much of its realities concerning the destruction of Native American people's animals, biospheres, and War atrocities, including modern day ones, which I hope you two as U~S citizens are aware off whilst traveling the world and hopefully realising the unsympathy that there is Against Mr Bush!!! for just that... All the best in your travels JM Akkerman http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/J-M--Mickey/

[Paula Peer]

Miss you!
Hey guys! I am so excited for you both. John and I were JUST talking about you yesterday and then looked up your blog. We certainly miss you and hope you are having the life-changing experience that you envisioned. (We are alittle jealous, too!....okay, alot. ;>) It looks like you are having more fun than can be had here, dealing with the misc. N.O. post-Katrina warzone issues. You MUST tell us when you come through town to get your stuff. In the meantime, we wish you both a happy and exciting holiday!! Love ya, Paula and John

[Chris and Nikki]

Cool picture!