Chiang Mai
We are back in Thailand, after six weeks of seemingly non-stop touring. We spent our first night in Thailand in the border town of Chiang Khong on the Mekong River. Most of our tour group will take the sleeper train back to Bangkok from Chiang Mai, but our plan is to decompress in Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand, in the north among the mountains and along the Ping River. We'll be here 9 days.
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| Chiang Mai, moat around the old city |
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| Buddahs R Us store |
Girlie Boys
Since a few others are also leaving the tour at this point, we're having a farewell dinner, and our guide Noi asks if anyone wants to go to the "girlie-boy" show. Girlie-boys are transvestites, many, but not all, surgically altered. They are very open about who they are, and there are a surprising number, on the streets, in shops, etc. The girlie-boy show is fast, very loud, any highly entertaining. The costumes are Vegas showgirl quality, and the singing and dancing are well done. Our "waitress" takes us each by the arm and escorts us to a good table. We order two beers and her eyebrows go up "None for me?" So of course we buy her one. She slips it into her cleavage and insists Doug take a sip in-situ. For me, she puts my glasses on ( I have to wipe off her lipstick next morning) and plants my hands firmly on her very firm breasts.
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| At the girlie boy show |
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| A girlie boy performing |
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| Doug sips beer from our waitress' cleavage |
Next day we trudge around for a while looking for a nice place to stay. We find two, one on the river and one in the old city, so we'll split up our stay here in both places. Both have pools! And balconies! And real shower stalls! And breakfast included! Yes, we are living it up, for about $45/day. We book ahead for a day at the "Elephant Nature Park", which houses rescued elephants. After much thought, and good info from Intrepid Tours, we've opted out of elephant riding and watching elephants "painting". First, elephants are not truly domesticated like dogs or cats that are bred to live with humans. Elephants are captured, and don't breed well in captivity. Secondly, anything that elephants are trained to do, from pulling logs to painting pictures, requires training. Elephants, being so large, are not trained gently. So we will be able to feed them and wash them in the river, but no shows.
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| Our second hotel in Chiang Mai |
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| Our first hotel in Chiang Mai |
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| Fish for dinner |
In Chiang Mai we visit the cultural center to learn about Lanna (northern Thai) life. Even before western influences it was complicated here. Strong Buddhist beliefs, of course, but many older factors are still here, like rice planting and harvesting ceremonies and animist and Hindu influences. It's HOT, so we sit down for a fruit smoothie, made with yogurt. These are available everywhere in Southeast Asia, and we usually enjoy at least one per day, a great pick-me-up when we need to sit down in the shade. We move on to several of the historic wats (temples) in the old city, then cool off in the hotel pool. Dinner is right across the street in a northern Thai cafe. The fish stuffed with lemongrass is sizzling over charcoal on the street outside the restaurant.
The following days day we see some more wats and museums, but mostly we take it easy. We're still decompressing from the pace of our 40 day tour. At one of the wats three young women wearing university tags ask if they can guide us. We agree, but understand almost nothing due to their accents. Doug asks to see the notes one of them is reading from. She's written it in perfect English, so he offers to read it back to her as it should be pronounced. I get the feeling she's uncomfortable with this, probably because it's not what she's been instructed to do. There is an awful lot of giggling amongst the three of them - they've got a ways to go before becoming successful guides. The languages in SE Asia are so different from ours it's got to be tough; I suspect a lot more Asins are learning English than vice versa due to the tourism industry.
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| Novice monks preparing to chant |
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| Novice tour guides with incomprehensible accents |
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| Customer service at the temple |
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| Teak Temple in Chiang Mai |
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| Temple in Chiang Mai |
We're not far from the Waroset market now, which could be dangerous. This is mostly for local shoppers - it's two large three-story buildings selling anything you could possibly need or want, from fresh fish to underwear, but it's a warren and finding things is a challenge. Finding your way out is also a challenge. If you come out on the wrong street it's tough to find your way back. Doug has no stamina, he leaves me before covering the first building. I stay and see it all, but surprise myself with how little I buy.
Elephant Day!
(Reader alert -Skip the next six paragraphs if you're not as enthralled with elephants as I am.)
Today we go to the Elephant Nature Park, about 90 minutes north of Chiang Mai. It's a non-profit founded by a woman from one of the hill tribes. Her grandfather was a shaman who received a young elephant as payment. Her love of elephants began then, and she rescues as many elephants as she can. Thai law views captured elephants the same as farm animals; there are protections only for elephants in the wild. This means she has to purchase any elephant she wants to save from abuse; $100,000 is a typical price. She's opened her rescue center to tourism in order to support her mission.
We learn that Thailand banned logging 25 years ago, but the forests are so depleted that they can't support more elephants than are already in them - captured elephants can not be returned to the wild. Tourism is the only viable option for elephants to earn their keep, and they eat a LOT. So it seems that elephant riding is necessary, but most tourists are naturally looking for the lowest price. Low prices equate to low care. We see a video of traditional methods of "breaking" young elephants and it's awful. There is one government training center that teaches mahouts how to train elephants without cruelty.
Although the African elephant is much larger overall, the cognitive centers are larger in the Asian elephant. Both size and intelligence make them more trainable. Elephant intelligence is comparable to apes and dolphins, and they are one of the few species that are known to grieve and to recognize themselves in a mirror. They are also unique in having four knees and having their teats located just behind their front legs. Elephants live about 80 years. Many of those here at the center are either elderly or somewhat disabled due to their history in the logging industry. That, and the fact that they are well fed and tended here makes them fairly gentle. We are able to feed them, scratch them, and bathe them in the river. This is better than sitting on top of them anyway!
The center brings out big baskets of watermelon and bananas so we can feed the elephants. They use their trunks to sniff the fruit, then wrap the end of their trunk around it and pop it into their mouth. Their trunks feel leathery, but soft and supple. When we later stand beside them and scratch them we feel the tougher hide on their flanks and the sparse but stiff hairs on their backs and sides. Elephants have acute hearing and a well developed sense of smell, but weak vision. They have no color vision. Every so often one of them starts to walk. They're very quiet; a bit disconcerting when an animal this size lumbers up behind you.
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| Young elephant loving up his mahout (who has treats for him) |
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| Washing our elephant |
Bull elephants are a major problem. The center has three adult males and one immature. Although the center probably would not neuter them in any case, neutering a bull elephant requires internal surgery. The center is building large enclosures for the bulls with massive cement posts, swimming pools and big concrete scratching posts. Meanwhile, they have to be tethered under shade pavilions and approached with great care. We see one that has been here since infancy pick up a rock and hurl it at the mahouts who have just fed him. Needless to say, the bulls are off limits for the visitors.
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| Naughty Baby in foreground. She charged Doug. |
www.saveelephant.org/
That night we have dinner at a typical open air restaurant. The patrons at the two tables next to us change twice. Of the four couples who dined next to us, three are older Caucasian men with younger Thai women. I remember that at our breakfast cafe the owner (a Canadian expat about our age) said hello to a well dressed Thai woman. He said she was the door-to-door Viagra saleswoman. Later I dream I'm bowling with Ghandi, who has converted from Hinduism to Buddhism. I have a dusty pink bowling ball. Ghandi's is standard black. I ask him about Buddhism - if it's a personal journey to Nirvana, isn't that a bit selfish? I wish I could remember his answer more clearly, but it has something to do with the fact that the only path to Nirvana requires right thoughts and right actions. If you're not good to others and to the earth, you won't be meeting Ghandi in Nirvana.
It's All Happenin' at the Zoo
Next day we hire a songtau (pickup truck converted to a taxi via covered benches in back) to Wat Suthep on top of the hill. It's nice to get out of town, the route takes us through a national park. The wat, like most, is over-the-top overdecorated. On the way back, we have the driver drop us off at the zoo. This is an entirely new concept to me, interactive zoo keeping. Visitors can feed most of the animals by purchasing zoo-keeper-approved vegetables. We feed bananas to the emus. It's intimidating to feed giraffes - we're standing on a raised platform, but they tower over us waiting for someone to hold up a green bean. We feed carrots and potatoes to the dwarf hippo (just drop them right in her mouth and listen to her crunch) and, what's this? Right over there two hippos are gently mating on the pond - not something I expected to see in northern Thailand. We see a large bull elephant in a small low enclosure. Yes, you can feed him cucumbers. I'm sure he has a larger more secure enclosure somewhere, but this easy access makes me think he must be neutered. He soon demonstrates that he is not. It's larger than a big man's arm.
We see an irate macaque monkey having a fierce argument with his reflection in his stainless steel dinner pan. He grimaces and grunts and shakes it up, and repeatedly tries to drown that other macaque in the moat. He finally succeeds, and we wonder how many pans are at the bottom of the moat. Our last wildlife encounter is not planned. We're walking up the hill path when a woman warns us to look out for the cobra. He's not one of the exhibits. We ask if we should continue and she says sure, but be careful. We can't even find him, but another patron points him out. He's sticking his head out of a hole in a tree right about at the level of our heads. He's not too big, and we slink by on the far side of the path. We finish our day with more wildlife - fish for dinner, and then dip our feet in the big tank for the fish-nibbler pedicure.
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| Tuk tuk transportation |
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| Hot chilies anyone? |
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| Banana vendor stall |
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| Laundry day at the monastery |
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