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| Hazy sunrise in Chiang Mai |
I really can’t resist the opportunity to pet, snuggle, ride
or feed 99% of animals, so of course since there are elephants everywhere in
Thailand, I had to indulge. I signed up for a little excursion, again
recommended by my hostel for their rescue efforts and humane treatment of the
animals, and was picked up bright and early to go hang with the pachyderms. We
were driven about an hour outside of the city into the rolling hills and
valleys, but the sky was still full of hazy smoke, and the hills were pretty
crispy.
We arrived to the elephant camp and were immediately
directed to ditch our nice clothes in favor of some outfits quite reminiscent
of my massage costume. After that, we were given a brief but useless lesson in
elephant commands. Each elephant has a trainer, a mahout, that basically
lives with it 24 hours a day. They eat, sleep and hang out together, and most
of the time, form very strong bonds. What this means is that the animals will
rarely listen to anyone but their mahout. After the lesson, we were paired up
and wandered into the corral to get matched with an elephant. I was paired with
a lovely little German girl, and this was her first trip out of Europe.
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| Elephant commands |
She hesitated when our elephant arrived, so I happily jumped
up into the front “seat” which is basically directly (no seat or saddle!) on
the elephant’s neck. I bent my knees, tucked my feet in behind her giant ears,
and grabbed on to the garden hose that was tied around her neck for my only
real stability. After some clamoring, my riding mate made it onto the
elephant’s back, and off we were.
As touristy as it was, it really was a cool experience. We
were out in the hills surrounded by a working farm, which was beautiful even in
the dry season. Our elephant was a bit slow and stubborn, so we were at the
back of the march, but it was so cool to lumber along directly on top of such a
giant and powerful animal. Her skin against my legs was really rough and dry,
and her thick bristle-like hairs were pretty scratchy, but I didn’t mind much.
We climbed up a steep slope, and the elephant, whose name was pronounced
Mellow-Poe, took giant bumping steps up the trail which definitely inspired me
to cling pretty tightly to my garden hose grip. On the way down, she tipped us
forward enough that I again found myself digging my knees and feet into the
crook of her neck to keep from pitching forward over her head! |
| Scratchy elephant head! |
The German girl was adorable, and giggled with every jerk or
bump of the elephant and she marveled at the scenery. She had never seen a
banana tree or a rice field before, and watching her take it all in and helping
her figure out all the new sights was pretty fun. Once we had ascended and
descended the hill, our elephants were lead to a large watering hole…and
without much warning or ado, they charged into it one by one and kneeled into
the water, sequentially dunking all the tourists J
We were directed to hop off our mounts and given buckets to bathe our elephants
with. We were all barefoot, and the bottom of the concrete reservoir was
squishy with what I pretended was “mud” -- the water was warm, waist-deep, and
opaque. Ick-factor ignored, I loved being eye-to-eye with the kneeling
elephant, and she seemed to tolerate the little bath for a few minutes.
She tired of bath time eventually, and stood up and began
walking away without warning. When you are inches from an elephant and it
decides to move, you instinctively get the heck out of the way! Our mahout helped
the German back on, but when I hopped on by facing the elephant and leaping off
the trainer’s bent knee, Mellow-Poe had lost patience, and took off towards her
pen before I had a chance to get settled! Hilariously, I was stuck riding
backwards (facing my new German friend), which was surprisingly comfortable and
unsurprisingly entertaining to all the other riders and trainers. It was a
short backwards ride back to our starting point, and the elephant ended up
letting me turn around for some final pictures and the dismount.
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| Washing our ride |
We rewarded her relative tolerance with bunches of bananas
that she dexterously plucked from our hands with her prehensile trunk and
popped quickly and greedily into her mouth. We said goodbye, allowed to rinse
off and change back into our clothes, and were fed a delicious “lunch” (it was
only 10:30, but I was starving), of KOW SOI??, a noodle/curry dish famous in
Chiang Mai. After eating, we were shuttled back over the hills, into the city
and dropped at our hostels.
I spent the remainder of the hot afternoon hiding in the
outdoor lobby under a fan finishing my Top Secret Clearance application. I
still can’t believe they want every address you’ve ever lived at and every
country you’ve visited. Filling in those details took close to forever! But I
finished it while sipping fresh mango smoothies and eating amazing curry, so at
least that’s a little improvement over my standard work-from-home fare.
In the evening I hit the Sunday night market with a group of
people from the hostel. It was in a different area of the city, and although it
was still crowded, it was a little more spread out than the night before so we
had less trouble navigating as a cohesive group. We ate street food, looked at
all the stuff for sale, and people watched for hours! I accidentally ended up
ordering pork blood soup….I thought I was just getting the pork version of Khao soi (pronounced cow soy), but about halfway through sharing the bowl with a British girl, she
remarked how “lovely and tasty” this version of black pudding was….whoops?? Oh
well! What I didn’t know before didn’t bother me, and it was yummy, so we
finished it off!
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| Curry and clearance apps |
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| Mmmm bugs! |
Everything you can imagine is for sale at these markets:
Handicrafts, soaps, candles, knick-knacks, purses, touristy souvenirs,
paintings, shoes, scarves, t-shirts, dresses, and goofy “Thai” pants that are
all the rage with backpackers. It’s a totally sensory overload, and I can’t focus
on shopping when chatting with other people, so when the group turned towards
home, I made one last solo loop to see if anything caught my eye. It must have
been too late and I was too exhausted, because I couldn’t decide on anything
and headed home after a half hour or so.
I had booked a morning mini-van ride to Pai, another little
backpacker enclave further afield, and after another pre-bedtime cold shower,
crashed for the night!
