Chiang Mai

Ok...here it is finally finished! Get ready, it's a long one! :)

Last week we took our second big trip in Thailand to Chiang Mai, a wonderful city in the north. I have been so excited to go to Chiang Mai and waiting to go since we moved here 10 months ago! I've only ever heard good things about it and how beautiful the area is. The city is surrounded by mountains and jungle and is full of many exciting things to do and see! We did a lot in our 5 days and we have a lot of pictures so I put together a slide show (and also added a few of my favorites in the blog)... enjoy!

*If you have a slow internet connection like we do, hit pause while the slideshow is playing and then let it finish loading before you watch it all the way through.

Our hotel was called Yaang Come Village and I think it's probably the best hotel I've ever stayed in! It was decorated in a traditional Thai style called Lanna and was really unique and artistic looking and helped make our busy vacation relaxing too!

On our first day we decided to do a half day tour to one of the hill tribe villages and to the most famous Wat (temple) in Chiang Mai called Wat Doi Suthep. There are many different tribes living in Thailand some more set up for tourists then others. I know you've all seen pictures of tribal women with the really long necks (if not, I scanned the postcard above so you can see them), they are part of the Karen Tribe here in Thailand. We didn't go to their village but maybe on another trip...although I feel bad for these women because it's a tradition they stopped in the past but brought back when they realized tourists would cough up the cash to see them. The village we did visit was small with a beautiful flower garden...oh and opium and marijuana, lol. The villagers in the past didn't know how to grow anything else that would make them any money and so the current King stopped them from growing these crops and taught them how to grow vegetables and flowers instead...but they still have a few plants of each for demonstration. Well, that's what they say anyway! There were a bunch of cute little kids running around the gardens cracking us up because they made up a song in English to sing to tourists coming to the village. It goes something like, "1 Baht, 2 Baht, 3 Baht if you want to take a picture with me..." with a very thick accent so it sounds really funny. :)

The second destination on the tour was to Wat Doi Suthep which is a very important Buddhist Temple for Thai people and is very popular with tourists because it sits on top of a mountain and has some really beautiful views. The temple was under construction, which I think happens every rainy season to protect the gold on the stupa (the spire thing... I think that's what it's called). We got blessed by a monk during our visit which is supposed to give you very good luck. He says a prayer and then ties a string bracelet on your wrist which you have to keep on for at least three days. Ours are still on so we must be extra lucky right now. :)

After our tour we went back to our hotel to cool off from the heat and go swimming and then we walked down the street to the Night Bazaar. Thailand is crazy about bazaars and shopping. Many of the items they sold were the same cheap stuff or knock offs you can get anywhere in Thailand but they did have a few more unique items and it was neat to see something different. They also had a lot of art and antiques which were fun to look at.
The second day of our trip we decided to do a full day tour. Chiang Mai is also famous for it's elephants so you can imagine why I really wanted to go there!! :) In the morning we went to an Elephant camp where we saw an elephant show. They do tricks and do a demonstration to show how in the old days the elephants were used in forestry. Then they do something really amazing...elephants can paint!! Yes, real pictures! I heard they could do this and had seen videos of it before, but it was really cool to see it in person! After the show everyone fed the elephants bananas and sugar cane and took pictures with them. I always wondered if an elephant could pick me up with it's trunk, and I got to find out! I thought I was just standing next to the elephant for a picture, but then all the sudden I was in the air!
After the show, we took an ox cart ride through the hillside to another village (really it was people selling souvenirs again or as Chris calls it "the guantlet of cheap crap") and then took an elephant ride through the jungle. The jungle was so green and beautiful and everyone on our tour was laughing at our mahout (elephant trainer) because he was really hysterical and talked to us the whole time... I guess it helps that we can speak Thai decently now. We even sang "The Chaang Song" with him, which is a children's song about elephants that our Thai teacher Joy taught us. After the elephant ride we had lunch and then took bamboo rafts down the river. The Thai tour guide kept calling them bamboo submarines because he said they end up under water since westerners are so fat, lol. Funny, but true. :) Luckily, we didn't sink... although our captain fell in the water when he was trying to dock it. We also met some nice people from Oman (a country near the United Arab Emirates) who were on their honeymoon. They were really interesting to talk to and made our raft ride really fun. Plus, the girl, Sofia had really cool henna all over her arms which was neat to look at! :)

For the end of the tour they took us to an orchid farm, where they also had a monkey show, snake show, and a water buffalo/rice demonstration. We decided to see the monkeys, which was a cute show and and I got to be part of the act. They tied me up and the monkey had to rescue me, lol. :) He then sat on my lap for a picture, but I wasn't allowed to touch him in case I startled him...he might decide to rip my ears off or something, yikes!

The third day of our trip was the day I have been waiting months for and probably one of the coolest days of my life. We traveled to a city one hour outside of Chiang Mai called Lampang and visited the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. They have a mahout training course and Chris and I did the one day program. You can do one to thirty day courses (if you do 30 you are a professional and should buy your own elephant and move to the center). We got there early in the morning, started the day by changing into our mahout suits (being a mahout is dirty business) and then learned about elephants in general and the difference between Asian and African elephants. Elephants can understand hundreds of words, but we just learned about 10 of the most important ones, or at least the ones we would be using that day. Then we got to meet our elephants! My elephant's name was Tantawan, which means Sunflower. She was 49 years old, really sweet but a little stubborn...she didn't mind people hugging her trunk which was fun, but some elephants don't like that, they feel restricted and will push you away...well, more like fling you away. Her real mahout's name was Pun and he was really nice and patient with me... he kept trying to get me to sing her songs. :) Chris' elephant's name was Jan Daeng, which means Red Moon. She was 37 years old and also really sweet. She wasn't quite as big as Tantawan, but we did have 12 years on her! Jan Daeng's mahout's name was Tien, easy for us to remember! :) He and Chris had a good time together I think, I could hear them laughing all day.

The first thing we learned was how to climb onto your elephant... much much harder then we thought! Keep in mind we are mahouts now so there are no seats... this is bare back riding. Chris and I realized we need to really start lifting weights! The first way you can climb on is by telling the elephant to lift their front leg. You then grab onto their ear and a fold of their skin, step up on to their leg, and jump pulling yourself onto their back. Sounds easy, but keep in mind they were like 12 feet tall. I had a difficult time pulling my big butt up there but I made it, dang it! :) The second way to climb on is to tell your elephant to lower their head. They place their face and trunk against the ground and then you take a running jump onto their head like you are jumping a hurdle or I guess like a vault jump. Once you're on, the elephant will stand up and then you can try and keep your balance while turning around so you are facing forward again. You can also get off the same way, tell the elephant to put their head down and then slide down the trunk like a slide. The third way to climb on the elephant is to tell them to lay down on their side (something we didn't know elephants could do). Then you just climb right up them! That was definitely the easiest method, but I think the vault jump was the most fun. :) Once we were up on our elephants we walked through the camp practicing our commands and balance and then down by a pond where the elephants got to have one of their many meals of the day (a lot of grass and other stuff they thought looked good).

After the morning training session we rode our elephants to meet the babies and the sick elephants in the hospital! They had two babies right now, both one year old males. One was born from artificial insemination! They were so adorable and funny... One year old elephants are just slightly smaller than a VW Bug and full of spunk. We fed them some bananas and they kept trying to play games with us... they liked to hit your arms with their trunks.

We saw a couple of the sick elephants in the hospital which was really sad... one was there because they found her disabled in the wild. Her front leg looked like it was broken in half, and they think when she was born her mother accidentally stepped on her. She had a hard time getting around, so she is lucky to be so well taken care of now. They also had two elephants who had stepped on land mines near Burma. They both are recovered (although missing part of their feet) and living at the Center. The Center has 80 elephants right now, six of the King's Royal elephants and many elephants who were confiscated by the police from people who didn't take care of them and some elephants donated by people who could no longer afford to feed them. Every elephant has a mahout also... being a real mahout is very hard work. When you first buy or adopt your elephant, you stay with them 24/7 without taking a bath or changing your clothes, so they can remember your scent. Then after that you are with them 26 days a month (difficult if you have a family). If your elephant gets sick you stay with them in the hospital. If they are getting better and don't need to be in the hospital you stay with them out in the jungle until they are fully recovered, mostly to protect them from poachers who try to sneak in to kill the males for their ivory.

After the tour of the hospital we had lunch and then went to see the elephant show. Here they did some of the same things they did in the other show we saw the day before, but the elephants also played soccer, balanced on a log, played the harmonica, and played the infamous "Chaang Song" on a xylophone! :) The elephants also painted here and we bought one of the pictures! It's a portrait painted by a 9 year old male and we love it! I can't wait to have it framed! Some of the elephants can paint portraits, some can paint flowers and some do neat abstracts.

Another big business they have at the center is making things from elephant dung like fuel and paper. Chris and I each made our own sheet of dung paper which was really interesting, although Chris was gagging the whole time, lol.

Chris recovered from his barfisode and we went back to meet Tantawan and Jan Daeng and took them for their baths! We rode them into a pond told them to lay down and then scrubbed them up with the cold water! We then rode through a river and the jungle back to their camp where we received our mahout certificates, fed them again and said our goodbyes! It was a great day.

The last day of our trip we decided to take a Thai cooking class. There were six people in our class that day, me, Chris, two girls from Canada and two girls from Austria. The teacher took us to a morning market where we learned about Thai vegetables, meats and noodles and bought all of our supplies for the food we were cooking that day. We each made seven dishes (all the really good ones too), so when we move home be prepared to try some Pad Thai, Tom Yum and mango with sticky rice, "aroi (delicious)!" I think we probably each ate 3000 calories that day, but it was fun and we were on vacation!!

The teacher took a lot of pictures of our class to put on their website! I'm not sure if they are up yet, but you can check them out if you are interested at www.chiangmaismartcook.com/ our class date was October 26th.