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Published: January 30th 2009
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We arrived in Chiang Mai on the 17th of January, after our few days of visiting the ruins in Sukhothai. Chiang Mai, about 800km north of Bangkok, is Thailand's second largest city, but the difference between the two is like comparing the metropolis of Vancouver to the much smaller city of Nanaimo. More manageable to navigate than Bangkok, Chiang Mai was a great place to spend a few days before heading to our week of volunteering at the Elephant Nature Park.
On our first night in Chiang Mai, we decided to take in some real Thai culture - in the form of an evening of Muay Thai boxing. We arrived at the arena at 9pm and were promptly scooped up by one of the bargirls manning the door, and escorted to the section of the audience served by her bar, where we settled in for the next few hours. The first few fights were between boys who all appeared to us to be about 12 years old, and far too skinny to be real boxers! Most of the muay thai matches promoted to foreigners include some staged matches; we had heard while we were in Ko Lanta that an experienced
audience member could usually tell which of the choreographed fights was being fought after watching the first few minutes. The first two thirds of the matches we saw appeared to be the real thing, accompanied by the cheers and groans of numerous family members and supporters gathered in the two corners of the ring. Most of the younger guys spent their time in the ring sizing each other up, and there seemed to be some actual strategy at play. The last three fights were clearly staged (at least to us, as we hadn't had anywhere near as much to drink as many around us), but were as much fun to watch for their over-the-top theatrics, flurried rounds of punching and kicking, and the required, dramatic knockout.
The following night Berm and I spent hours exploring the Chiang Mai Sunday night walking market. Many of the streets in the centre of the old town of Chiang Mai are closed to vehicle traffic on Sunday nights and are transformed by a fantastic combination of musicians, vendors selling crafts, clothing and an endless variety of other items, and of course, dozens of stalls with all sorts of tasty treats on offer. We
pieced together a dinner as we wandered along the street, sampling snacks like shrimp sausages, banana spring rolls, coconut ice cream and chocolate-stuffed waffles. By about 11pm, the throngs of wanderers were heading home and so we dragged ourselves back to our hotel.
The next morning we were up bright and early to head to the main office of Elephant Nature Park, the starting point for our week as 'Elephant Helper' volunteers. After arriving, we began to meet some of our fellow volunteers for the week, and were soon shepherded into vans for the hour ride out to Elephant Nature Park, which lies north of Chiang Mai along the Tang river. Once there we had our orientation and dove into our busy work schedule. Every morning began with one of a list of regular chores (buffalo or elephant dung duty, corn cutting, or cleaning the cat house and watering the garden). At about 9am, we would each select one of two or three projects to work on until lunchtime. Over the course of the week, we helped remove hundreds of seeds from pumpkins, built a large drying rack for all the saved seeds (Berm's carpentry skills came in handy!),
cut a field of sugar cane, drained and shoveled out the elephant mud pit, and even taught English classes at the local village school. 11:30am each day was elephant feeding time, followed soon after by volunteer feeding time (a popular event), and then everyone headed down to the river to help, or to stay out of the way, of the elephants taking their midday baths. Lucky humans even got occasional kisses from some the younger elephants. You'd think Berm would enjoy a kiss from a lovely young lady more than his face suggests he did!
The highlight of the week was our trip to Elephant Haven, a hill-top elephant retreat. We accompanied six of the Park's elephants as they enjoyed the opportunity to roam and graze freely without their mahouts (each elephant has a mahout, who is his or her almost constant companion - kind of like a shepherd for elephants). That evening, we were treated to a concert by a few of the mahouts with some very interesting improvised instruments - a main element of the percussion section was a metal bowl full of cutlery. We tried a bit of Burmese traditional dancing as well (you can see
by the photo how successful we were). It was amazing to go to sleep knowing that the elephants were wandering in the nearby forest. The next morning, a few of the elephants wandered back to the hut, and we headed off in small groups with the mahouts to find the other four. It was a great moment to come upon an elephant in the middle of the forest, happily munching on leaves and vines. Once all were rounded up, we headed back down the hill and across the river. Some of the volunteers opted to ride the truck back to the Park, but Berm, Monk and I, with Clare and Leanne from Australia, walked back along the road with the elephants.
At the end of a fantastic week, we were sorry to go - we had enjoyed our time with a great group of fellow volunteers and our staff coordinators Jak, Mamut and Pom had kept us busy and happy.
www.elephantnaturepark.org
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alicia
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yahoooo!
love the pic of berm getting smooched by and elephant. you guys are having such an amazing trip! enjoy your final days there and i looking forward to hearing more stories when you get home. p.s. ahhhhh, the fun of teaching teenagers :)