Being kissed by elephants
Trip Start
Nov 26, 2007
1
13
17
Trip End
Mar 01, 2009
Chiang Mai,
Thailand
Saturday, February 16, 2008
During the day we visited the wat with the buddha head entwined in the roots of a tree and had seen the elephants giving tourist rides up and down the street. It was our first elephants so we were quite excited, until we went to the area where the rides started... it was really upsetting and we had to leave quite quickly as it was so upsetting. All of the elephants were chained up and some were rocking back and forth, an obvious sign of distress.
On our tour in the evening we went to the area where these elephants lived at night, called the elephant Kraal (while on the tuktuk tour). It's where they used to herd the wild elephants to then use them in battle. Again the elephants were chained up and not too happy, but there were, however baby elephants running around, which kept everyone on their toes, as they love to charge at groups of people, like human bowling for them!! They were only 10 days old, so it was quite special to see them so young and nice to see them unchained.
After Ayuttaya we headed north on a bus to Sukhotai, a lovely 6 hour journey on a cramped bus! Sukhotai was nicer then Ayuttaha but in different ways. The wats and temples are 15kms from the main town, so you have to either hire a scooter or a tuk tuk to take you there. This tuk tuk though was a back to front one though, with the seating area (rather; basket) on the front of the motorbike, with the driver steering the basket with his feet and hands! It was really funny, but our driver was great and instead of getting all sweaty by hiring a bike to cycle around the huge park, we motod past in style!! (all for about 4 pounds for the day!).
Chiang Mai is alot bigger than the other 2 towns we have just visited, but obviously smaller than Bangkok. Its a great city, with loads to do. We have been on a cookery course, which i highly reccommend...
Chiang Mai town
we made 6 dishes each and seemed to eat all day! The food was amazing as well, and the course came complete with a cook book so we can hopefully recreate the dishes at home! Yesterday we went on a day trip to see the hill tribes, including the long neck Karen tribe. They have to have brass coils wrapped around their necks from around 6 years old (only the women) to push their shoulders down and make their necks appear longer. They can take them off (by cutting them) but they keep them on for 24 hours a day, sleeping etc in the coils. It makes their skin very bruised and black underneath and must be so painful, and apparently is especially bad in the hot season. They also have these coils around their calves under their knees, so their legs grow around the coils. You can only imagine how uncomfortable it must be. It was certainly eye opening, especially hearing that they can't leave the village as they dont have citizenship in Thailand (they have come to the hills from Burma and China after the wars in Burma) so if they leave their provence they will be arrested! strange when you think how easy it is for us to travel around the world, but some people cant leave their town!
Our most amazing trip has been with the elephants in the Elephant Nature Park. It was the dream of an amazing woman called 'Lek' who wanted to help the abused elephants of Thailand. Many of the elephants used for tourist's benefits are badly kept and in need of help. Asian Elephants are not made for tourists to ride on their backs so their backs cave in - they should have rounded backs - not a protruding spine (which we have seen a lot of), so they are often in great pain to give rides to us tourists. Im so glad that we didn't have an elephant ride after hearing about this. The mahoots also break the elephant's wild spirit by putting it in a small cage so it can barely move and poking their legs and the inner ear with nails so that it obeys the humans. Unbelievably cruel and so upsetting. As you can imagine (being the extreme wouss that i am) i was in floods of tears.... But Lek, has taken 31 of these elephants and created a park where all they do is what they want to do - eating, sleeping, bathing. You can visit the park and help to feed them and bath them while giving much needed funds to the park.
It was the most amazing experinence, and we had a great day. Bathing them in the river was incredible, giving then a good old scratch with the brush. They each still have a mahoot who controls them, but only through words and rewarding good behaviour (like teaching a dog), so there are no big metal hooks or sticks. It was so lovely to see them happy and playing..
Cooking class - J
i thoroughly recommend it... www.elephantnaturefoundation.orgSo tomorrow we are off to Loas, probably stopping over night on each side of the border to catch a slow boat to Luang Prabang. heres hoping it all goes smoothly!
