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Published: September 28th 2008
Our trip from Laos into Thailand was not an easy and was full of choices. We could either spend $100 to fly, 3 days and a little less money taking a boat along the Mekong or spend 15+ hours on a local bus with no air con to the Laos/Thai border. This would save us (the trio and our Aussie friend Ryo) the most time and cost the least, but we were NOT looking forward to it. Still we knew it was the decision that had to be made- so off we went. On a local bus was filled with Laotians sleeping in the aisles, no AC, non reclining seats, and few valiums for our 15 hour overnight bus to the border.
The driver was a maniac, I think he was driving fast due to the fact that we left 1 hour late! The roads were windy and at times there were no roads at all. Just piles of dirt that would make the bus rock from side to side and there were so many times I thought for sure the bus would get stuck. I think the rain also did not help the road situation. I would wake up
from my half sleep to see the road illuminated in front of us- full of pot holes and muddy hills and just the craziest thing I have driven on in a bus. But... we survived and arrive at the Thai border around 6am- however; it didn't open until 8am. We hung out for a while and had some noodle soup for breakfast and waited for the border crossing to open. By 8am there was a huge line of people, but it went pretty quickly. The guy at the Thai border crossing was so nice- as he stamped my passport he yelled "Welcome to Thailand!" A great gesture, but I was definitely too tired for his yelling! After crossing the border we made it to the local bus station in Thailand to take a bus to Chang Rai and then take another bus to Chang Mai. Finally, after over 24 hrs of traveling we arrived in Chang Mai- exhausted, but alive.
The first day in Chang Mai, we didn't really do much, especially because we were still exhausted from all our bus trips. We walked around the city, got our bearings and found the night market, where we spent some
money buying sunglasses and t-shirts. There are fake sunglasses and fake wallets and fake purses everywhere. I can seriously come home with the best fake Louis Vuitton collection ever. The night market is amazing here and it is so hard to not spend all my money buying things. I am trying to save my shopping time for when Megan gets here because Bangkok is suppose to be great for that and Megan and I are often bad shopping influences on each other! I did manage to buy a pair of ridiculous brown fake Ray Bans. However, I insulted the lady by going too low on my bargaining price and had to wait about 5 minutes and send the boys over with a higher price since she wouldn't even speak with me!
We enjoyed some amazing Pad Thai (local noodles) and our first Chang beer and had a pretty chill night.
The next was a busy day! We woke early and rented motos to head out of town to some animal sanctuaries. We knew they would be super touristy, but we didn't care. We still thought they would be amazing.
I can't even start to explain how cool
our day turned out to be! We first went to the Mae Sa elephant camp. As we walked in we were immediately greeted by people selling bananas to feed the elephants! You can feed elephants?! So for less than $1 we bought some and saw about 7 huge elephants just waiting for some goodies. We were able to walk right up and pet them and feed them bananas. I literally had elephant snot on me from their nose when they went to grab the food. It was a great start to our day. I do have so say I was not impressed that their feet were chained and some of the workers seemed less than thrilled to actually take care of the elephants, but we did manage to meet some workers that really did have the elephants' best interest at heart. (I keep thinking of Nins and her "Save the elephants" campaign circa 1995-present)
After the feeding we were able to go to see a 5 month old elephant and her mother. You could get right up and pet the baby and the mother was there watching. The baby even went over to the mother to breastfeed. Truly an unreal
experience I have never seen in any zoo!
After this we made it just in time to see the staff bathe the elephants in the nearby river. This too was absolutely crazy. They brought out about 20 elephants and let them roam free in the river while we watched. The elephants were dunking their heads under the stream and playing in the water. They were even shooting water from their trunks. I imagine that if you were ever lucky enough to see this in Africa, it would look similar. Well, minus the trainers and the women that stood down stream with baskets to catch the elephant poop. Yes, their job was a poop elephant catcher!
After the river bath, the elephants put on an hour show where they do everything from painting, to playing a harmonica, to playing a soccer game! I was cracking up the entire time. I had never seen elephants do these things. I have video footage of it and I am just laughing the entire time. I know that this was definitely exploiting the elephants, but honestly I was cracking up the whole time. It was amazing what these elephants could do! We were able
to take to take some more pictures with the elephants after the show. The elephants would wrap us in their trunks so we could take photos. It seriously, was unlike anything you can do back home. Pretty cool!
After this, we headed down the road to grab some local food and some delicious fried bananas. Then I felt brave enough and thought it would a good idea to drive the scooter. It was only a few miles down the road to our next destination so "how hard could it be?" I was definitely getting the hang of it and doing well as we pulled into the parking lot of the tiger kingdom. Just as we hit some gravel I slowed down to make a turn, but apparently that was the wrong thing to do since I CRASHED! The moto fell over and my leg was full of blood. Woohoo- lots of fun. The moto was fine, but I was not too stoked on the idea of having a bloody leg while we were going to a TIGER PARK! Maybe they would think I was a wounded animal and would want to eat me! I am really making it seem
worse than it was, but it was just so embarrassing. Since we were right at the Tiger Kingdom, Ryo (the Aussie) ran in to get some workers to clean out my wounds and help me out. The immediately all came out to help. It was quite the spectacle even though I only had some scrapes on my leg. Then of course, some other travelers had to come see what was going on and so on. I think my face was redder than the blood on my leg! After I was all cleaned up we went into the Tiger Kingdom.
This experience was absolutely amazing. There are huge cages for tigers that have been born and raised at this breeding ground. Initially the place started as a rescue center for tigers that were been hunted in Asia and slowly, through more and more breeding, it has turned into a huge tiger sanctuary. The tigers have grown up around people and therefore, you are allowed to go into the cage with a tiger. So Jeff, Chris and I chose the big boys, while Ryo opted to hang out with some toddlers. The three of us went first. Our tigers were 10
months old (once they hit one year, they get too big and you cannot go in the cage!) and will eventually grow to 3x the size they were for us. They were still HUGE! We cautiously walked in with the trainers over to the first tiger. Now I know that it is hard for many people to believe that you can just hang out with tigers, which leads a lot of people to speculate that they are drugged. However, these tigers were playing with each other and have just been accustomed to being around people. Plus, tigers always sleep in the middle of the day so them just lying around is not unusual.
I was super tentative at first. It is so intimidating walking up to a giant tiger and petting them. We had to approach them from behind and not get too close to their heads (they don't like that!). As the time passed we got more comfortable and the trainers even started playing with the tigers in front of us. There were probably about 7 tigers in the cage we were in, so every time we looked the other direction there was a tiger hanging out or
playing. We were able to see most of them up close although a few were too playful. It was just so unreal- WE WERE IN A TIGER CAGE, PETTING TIGERS! So crazy! After about 20 minutes your experience is up, but I definitely think they let us stay in there longer. Anyone who knows Jeff knows that this was his dream and I'm sure the trainers could tell he was loving it and let him stay longer.
After this Ryo had his toddler tiger experience. He was able to go in the cage with the 5 month year olds. They were definitely more playful with him, like a bigger house cat. He could actually pet them on their head and hold their hands. It was really fun to watch him interact with them.
At the Tiger Kingdom they also had 3 month old babies and ones even younger than that! We couldn't view them since they were still too small, but we did see some pictures and they were sooooo freaking cute. It was just a crazy day, between elephants and tiger. This whole blog is literally about animals because this was our favorite part of Chang Mai.
The city of Chang Mai is a lot bigger than I expected and there are definitely plenty of things to do outside the city that we didn't get a chance to do. There are hill tribes living around here that have longnecks because the women stretch them with jewelry. Totally national geographic style! I was really amped on going to see them, but when your boyfriend should be the next Jeff Corwin, I was outvoted! I definitely agree that our animal experience was amazing and would not have changed things for the world! We hope to do a lot of the outdoor stuff in Pai, our next city.
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Courtney Enriquez
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the BEST blog and BEST animal pictures yet! And how cute are those little kids... <3