Elephants

Mum and Dad gave their Elephant excursion to us, a Christmas and one year Aniversary present. I love elephants and from them I understood this to be a day of elephant riding.

Bumping along a dirt road that climbs a steep mountain (after a hour long car ride) I say "I'm looking forward to riding an elephant". The Swiss American woman who now lived in Bali, sitting next to me, says "oh no, we've not riding elephants". At first I was disappointed, this was soon to change.

The Elephant Sanctuary is in a valley surrounded by hills coverd by jungle and the orchards and pastures of local famers. There are nearly 30 elephants on the property, nearly all of them are rescued from being work animals in cruel logging camps, or from tourist places where they are made to perform or be ridden on. Then there are a few babies born on the property, incrediably cute little things that play like children and playfully annoy the older elephants.

Our host is an Aussie woman named Michelle, incrediably skinny and smoking like a chimney. But lovely and welcoming and glad to see some fellow Aussies. In our van load there is the Swiss American lady and her Balinese husband and their child, a strange Sydney sider giantess, and two fat loud American blokes. We become part of a bigger group, with a few other Americans and a few European families (maybe Scandanavian?). The main building is a bamboo structure, with walks between the bathrooms, main building and the feeding area. The latter, like the rest is open air but with thatched roof, with a slightly raised verandah area from which the feeding took place.

We are given an introduction talk where Michelle told us about the Elephants and all their complex stories. Its like a soap opera she tells us. There are sorts of characters among them, the dopey old male, the prude (who won't let anyone mate her), the hussy (who backs into all the males so that they will mate her), the drug addict (an Elephant that was put on speed (before she was rescued) so that she could work night and day) and a rabble of young elephants. Through the day we learnt of other stories; sad stories of the elephants before they were rescued. But also encouraging stories of their lives now. A blind elephant who was befriended and cared for by another elephant, a desperate female who won't leave the side of a male that isn't interested in her, and of an Aunty who seperates two young elephants because she thinks one is a bad influence for the other who is in her care.

In the wild elephants form natural social groups of family units with the mother as the leader. When the mother is pregnant (for 20 months!) and gives birth, her sister will take on the role of nanny or aunty , sometimes producing milk also! She helps care for the baby who like human young need lots of care. In the elephant sanctuary where their are no natural family ties, the elephants have created their own social groups, and female elephants have taken it upon themselves to become aunties, some even producing milk (so great is their inate desire to care and help!).

First order of the day was feeding. We lined up along the verandah with big basktets of food and gave it to the elephants who scoped it up with their tunks and gulped it down, huge watermelons and whole hands of bananas going crunch, splattering juices in the huge mouths of these beasts. Em fed them while I filmed her. She even got to fed a little baby one, who could only eat peeled bananas and small pieces of watermelon, for two hundred kilos of elephant he was still pretty cute.

After our human lunch in a dining room on the top floor (360 degree view of the valley) we headed to the river to wash the animals. It was amazing to walk beside these huge beasts, powerful enough to kill you. There is something incrediable about being right next to such huge creatures, walking right next to them and being able to touch their rough leathery skin. At the river people went in with the animals and scrubbed and cleaned them. Once clean the great beasts lumbered out and promptly got dirty again, flicking dust onto themselves. We learnt that this is a natural sunscreen to protect them.

In the afternoon we viewed a film the founder had made. It showed the horrible conditions that elephants are in during their 'training'. They are poked and proded, stabbed and whipped into submission. It is a cruel and nasty practice that I believe should be stopped. These are wild animals forced into submission, to be entertainment for the tourist whim and desire to ride them like a horse. We learned that elephants' backs are not made for uncomfortable carriages and saddles. This whole experience was a re-education for me. I naively thort, as many others do, that the elephants here were well treated, that they liked being ridden, that they liked performing. I was so very wrong. To get elephants to do what we see them do, they go through so much suffering, its terrible. What the founder of the sanctuary wants to see is a change, to have elephants trained in a gentle way, through reward, not punishment, like horse husbandry and horse 'whisperers'. But eventually she wants to see all the elephants returned saftely to the wild and to be left there untouched by human hand. It was so wonderful to see stewardship of creation in action at this sanctuary. We returned to Chiang Mai with a renewed love and care for elephants, and a desire to promote change in people's minds.

Mama and Papa Isham and Christmas

Well it has been awhile so hope this post isn't too long for you all. Mum and Dad arrived last week on the 21st of Dec. Em and I had a great few days with them exploring Chiang Mai together. The warm weather, and chilled out atmosphere of this city made for many relaxed conversations around cold drinks in the many quaint little cafes that are scattered around Chiang Mai, the pit stops our adventures.

On Christmas Eve we all attended the missionary church, packed out with expats, missionaries and other 'farangs' (foreigners) that live in Chiang Mai. It was an excellent Christmas Eve service, great classical Christmas hymns (Em sang beautifully up the front) and a good hearty sermon on Matthew, and the Christmas story he tells in that particular biography of Jesus. He talked about the three Magi being the first gentiles to see Jesus and how this is important to us as a sign of Jesus coming to save all of us, not just the jews.

Christmas
Christmas in Thailand is quite different to back home. The temperature is about the same, except those rare Christmas snows in Tassie. But most places are open, even for Thai school children it is a normal day. Most people are out and about, only the banks are closed (cos the rest of the world's banks acknowledge Christmas day, it makes it difficult for Thai banks to open).

Em and i joined mum and dad for an early breakfast and exchanged gifts. We then took a tour out to a craft village on the egde of the city. This probably sounds like a quaint little village with grass roof huts, little local people in traditional garb sitting with the wares spread out in front of their homes and dirt path weaving between the huts. But no, it was just an average street filled with shops ready for the tourist dollar, pretty much like any other shop in Chiang Mai. The other frustration with this trip was the stops at a Jewelry centre and a carpet place on the way, where they show you through their big impressive show rooms and try to talk you into buying their products. The Jewelry place had huge impressive display cabinets with all sorts of well crafted and glittering rings, bracelets and necklaces, a treasure trove that could feed at least three African countries. The carpet place was run by a little man from Kashmir. He served us tea and showed us all his amazing rugs and told us how they were made, etc But again these rugs were way out of our price range, so after much explaining of our limited funds and despite his Indian charm and persistance we left.

On the return from the craft village we stopped in at a place that made the whole trip worthwhile. It was a wood carving place. The work here was amazing!! Incrediable scenes of elephants, people working in fields, jungles etc all carved into table tops, chairs, cabinets various other furniture items. The work was so carefully crafted the creatures almost walked out of them. Emily sat and carved a piece that they had there for tourists to try, and they thought her a natural at it. So much so that one of the craftsman sold Em some of his tools.

In the afternoon we all had Thai massages, such a nice relaxing way to spend a Christmas afternoon. We then had dinner at this beautiful little resturant by the river. We were outdoors right by the river side in a little garden with hanging lights surrounding us. Hope all your Christmas dinners were in as nice a place as this. Em even got up and joined the band playing her little flute that she bought here.

Later after mum and dad had returned to their guesthouse we went out to find a quiet place for a Christmas drink. We'd heard about this rooftop bar and on our wanderings were able to find it. To get to it we had to climb up a series of staircases at the back of a building. The lighting was dim and odd graffiti marked all the walls. It was like some creepy place out of Blade Runner or Minority Report. Finally we reached the top, a ricketty platform on the top of the building, open to the sky, which i guess it needed for all the cigarette and 'other' smoke to escape. Again the dim and multicolored lighting and odd music filled the place, as did the 'farangs' seated on cushions around low tables. I hate smokey places, as does Emily, so we left. We found another place, with outdoor tables, a mixture of farang and Thai people. On the stage a Thai man played and sung country western songs. I had deep fried icecream, quite good, but not as good as the stuff my sister has made. Then Em decides she wants to sing, so she bravely goes up and joins the man on stage to sing parts of a song she barely knows. She was great, and got some cheers and applause when she finished.

So that was Christmas...then there were elephants....

Around Chaing Mai

Emily on the old wall, corner of the old city, the main bridge, the Sunday Night Market, us in a Tuk-tuk and the gateway into the centre of Chaing Mai

English Boys and Night Monkey

The Leprosy Hospital

15th December
Today we ventured out to the Hospital. We walked a fair distance before finding a taxi that knew what and where we were talking about. Taxi's here are either Tuk-tuks, which I am sure you have all seen in tourist brochures of Thailand. Or they are glorified Utes, where you sit in the back in a covered area on bench seats. Both are quite fun to ride in, the sensation of air rushing past is quite enjoyable, and not having to wear a seatbelt is very liberating. The journey to the hospital took us past many different Thai buildings, from eleborate temples, through to simple thai homes and shop fronts. We also saw some baby elephants which I was able to film quickly while traffic had stopped our taxi. They looked rather forlorn being led through loud busy traffic, they heads down and trunks dropping between their front legs.

The Hospital is set in beautiful grounds, with well kept gardens and old colonial style buildings. We walked a fair way, big fig trees lined the road, and we past more old buildings before finally coming to the main wards where we met Dr Trevor Smith. He's a wonderful man, very well spoken and gentle in his manner. Of the same generation type as Dr Hamlin I suspect. He took us on a ward round. I was surprised with how much I understood as he explained each patients' condition to us. Emily and I were fascinated, amazed and encouraged at some of the procedures and breakthrus that he has made. In appearance the patients ranged from quite crippled and malnourished, to appearing quite 'normal' with maybe only a limb missing. Alot had clawed hands (quite common with leprosy) and of course many had skin legions and cists. I say this all quite matter of factly, but I found quite a few patients difficult to cope with seeing. Em did fine, but it is all new to me, and had I seen more I think it could have brought me tears. Seeing other people suffering with this illness is sad, but there is an encouraging hope that we learned. Admissions to the hospital have dropped dramatically as improvements in the health of the population has risen. Also Dr Smith has made many sucessful operations to fix the clawed hands, and other deformities that affect their movements. Also the hospital has a workshop that creates special shoes for the patients (another encouraging thing we learned). We met Heather, Trever's wife near the end of our ward round and she pulled me aside to talk about teaching work for me. I will hopefully be doing some volunteer work at a school near by.

Walking back along the road we managed to get a lift with a lovely Thai lady, who made great attempts at conversation with us on the drive back to the main area of the city.

In the evening at the invitation of the Smiths we went to a missionary Chirstmas Carol night. It was outdoors under an impressively large tree. There were candles and alot of Carol singing, some great classical songs and then those irritating secular ones like 'Santa Claus is coming' and 'Ruldoph the red nosed reindeer'. They had the different nationality groups get up and do items, we joined the Aussies in a rendition of Waltzing Matilda with Christmas themed words. We didn't stay long after, feeling rather out of place and figuring we'd meet alot of these folk at the church service on Sunday.

More photos

A view from above of the night market, and Seth in new fisherman pants and Thai shirt bought at the market for a very cheap price.




A stall at the night market, and a cute Tintin Puppet, sorry the image is on the side (forgot to flip it clockwise)

Emily in front of one of the many temples, and the a view from the train on our way to Chiang Mai

Thai Massage

14/12/06
We didn't end up getting to the Hospital today, our contact advised we go there tomorrow. So we went for a wander, relaxed in a little cafe we like, had a Thai massage and then went to the Night Market again. Now the Thai Massage is definitely an experience to write home about.

Emily and I were led up a little staircase into two little curtained off areas. The soothing sounds of trickling water and Zen music filled the room. Here with smiles and gestures from our host we were directed to change into Thai cotton Pj type clothing that were neatly folded on the beds on the floor. Once we were ready two little thai women entered and gestured for us to lie down on our backs on the beds. We were in seperate ares but I assume the massage was the same for Emily. The little Thai woman positioned herself at the foot of the bed and became massaging my feet. Thus began the amazing relaxing experience of full body Thai massage. She worked every muscle in my legs, back, and arms, using all sorts of techniques, quite often getting her legs into it to press and pound and stretch. At one point when I was lying on my chest she had my legs up and was pressing her feet into my spine. Sounds like yoga contortions, but it felt great! There were a few moments of potentially awkward intimacy (groin massage) but it wasn't bad, it was all very proffesional.

When we came down stairs afterwards the host had made us cold lemon grass tea. It was delicious, and a perfect end to such an incrediable massage.

The Train to Chiang Mai

12/12/06
When you think of a train ride in the first class carriage (on an overnite train), you imagaine, or you expect a few luxuries. Okay its not Australia, but its not Africa either. Just the few modest things like a comfy bed, free meals and drinks in the dining car, and maybe our own bathroom, or at least a shared clean one. Well, as you can probably guess our 'first class' experience left alot to be desired. The cabins were very small and pokey, but you could open up a partition and have a shared space with the people in the next cabin. So we did this and got to know some great English blokes, one of whom reminded me alot of Dan (Cousin Alex's boyfriend). The 'comfy' bed was the seat folding out into two bunks, they weren't too bad, although all the next day we could still feel the rocking sensation of the train. The meals, well, there was no dining car for starters. A large pushy Thai woman who kept pestering our English freinds with "One more beer?", took our orders for Dinner and Breakfast (the prices being quite dear considering the cheap meals we've had elsewhere). These meals turned out to be very average, I couldn't even stomach the cold greasy egg, limp toast and ambiguous meat that was our breakfast. The bathroom was a pokey little shower/toilet cubilce with the strange Thai toilets they have here (huge toilet bowl and a hose for...well you can work it out).

But all this aside the train ride was quite an adventure, great to make some new friends (who loved playing Uno, but couldn't master 500). Also in the morning it was great to watch the jungles and little villages pass us by as the train weaved its way up through the mountains to Chaing Mai. Sadly the only fauna spotted were dogs, cattle and maybe a cat or two. No elephants or monkeys.

We arrived in Chiang Mai and found a taxi driver who would take us to where we thought we were booked in. He generously gave us the ride for free (when we told him we are volunteering here). It turns out we weren't booked in there at all, so we booked for a night and set out to explore. Chaing Mai is a great little city. Its so much less comercialised then Bangkok (which is virtually first world, good trains (sky and sub way) aircon everywhere and many of the brands and business we have in the west). There are lots of little open air eating places, street stalls, and quite a few ornate guilded temples. In our explorations, just past an Irish Pub, we found a much better place to stay then our current one; which had no aircon, skungy floors and fluoro lighting, and a low door into the bathroom which Seth constantly banged his head on. So we booked ourselves into the new place for the next four weeks.

In the evening we met up with our English mates, Chris and Paul. We went out for a meal and then went down to the night markets. It seems you can buy pretty much anything, from T-shirts to swords, kitch and kitchen utensils, jewelery and watches that are "not fake, is good Rolex" to all manner of little food stalls. So we wondered our way along bargaining and bartering, picking up a few choice pieces. We spent alot of time trying to find cheap t-shirts, but the sales people wouldn't take what we considered a good offer. Finally the boys walked away with a t-shirt each for less then $4 each.

From the night markets we wandered back across the city and found a little pub run by a Dutchman, where the Aussies beat the English at pool 3 to 2. Traveling home Em and I decided on the luxury of a Tuk-Tuk;a little 3 wheel motorcyles type vehicle, a great experience with the wind rushing past as we speed through the busy streets.

14/12/06 (or 14/12/2549 as it is here...we're in the future!?)
This morning we moved into our new place, a very comfortable room with bathroom, balcony, aircon, tv and fridge, for a modest price. There is also soon to be free internet. The place is very new, you can smell the fresh paint. This afternoon we plan on making the trip out to the leprosy hospital where Emily will be working.

Arrival in Thailand

11/12/06
8 hours isn't a terrible long flight, compared to the long 14+ hour flights to such destinations as LA or J-Burg. But it is long enough to get restless, and sick of watching movies, (although the little "Video on Demand" units are pretty cool, unfortunately no games). So it was a relief and exciting when we finally touched down in Bangkok, local time: 7ish.

The new Bangkok airport is an impressive structure, very Thai in style, but also very modern looking; lots of glass and steel. The ceilings are high with an intricate lattice of steel then huge concrete pillars, most external walls are glass. A very cool location/setting for a sci-fi film (or any airport film really). From the plane we walked along a long corridor reminiscent of the film Gataca, with big glass windows and shiny steel floor. We passed into a even bigger corridor with amazing Thai murals on the walls, of beautiful Thai women in traditional clothing, landscapes and native flora and fauna. After no hassles in customs or baggage claim we stepped from air condition comfort into thick humidity and heat. With both of us having nearly lost our voices, coupled with the language barrier, finding transport proved complex. The next bus we needed was an hour away. So we negotiated as best we could (got a reasonable price) and got a ride in a nice air-conditioned car into the city, which is actually quite a distance from the airport.

After weaving through the crazy busy streets of Bangkok, past heavy traffic, lots of motorbikes, past night markets and trucks ladden with who-knows-what we finally came to our little hostel and settled for the night in our little room (thankfully air-conditioned)

12/12/06
Awoke feeling much more awake and with a bit more voice, but still a little croaky. The morning is cooler than the heat of last night. But I think the heat and humidity here is something that you just settle into, slow movement being the path of least resistance.

We wandered past the little stalls that are scattered along streets that border the busy roadways. Overhead a huge train-line, and buildings that reach up into the smog. The noise and smells surround us, a myriad of sights distract our eyes; all manner of things for sale from suspicious looking fish to funny little sweet pastries. We try the latter and move on from the former. I am hard to please, too much choice. Emily decides on broccoli and rice, after we've tried some delicious corn cakes. I eventually decide on some crab, which taste good but prove to be a mess to eat. A valuable lesson in culinary choices is made. Also there is language barrier issues when i ask for a napkins and am offered a hose.

We're now back in the hostel. We've a whole day ahead, to explore and then make our way to the train for our overnight trip to Chiang Mai.