Thailand #4
Jan. 4th, 2017 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_squiddyDay 7 - Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai
OK. This might well be one of my favourite days. Chaiyan went completely off programme to take us to a place he thought was brilliant - and he was not wrong! In the morning when he told us he was taking us to see another temple, we all inwardly groaned a little - but this one was designed and built by a contemporary artist who studied in London. And it was bonkers. The White Temple essentially takes traditional Thai art and architecture, mashes it up with pop culture and then turns the whole thing up to 11!
From the moment we arrived, we were stunned! The building is a small but incredible temple where no surface has been left undecorated! It is white, highlighted by silver and surrounded by a lake, surrounded by a green space, surrounded by more mad sculpture. Before you go in, you can sit on a bench and have your photo taken with a giant mirrored robo-god. There are skulls and dragons and rock and roll influences everywhere (there are demon heads hanging in trees which trail airplants from them. They include traditional figures alongside Pinhead and HellBoy - and there is a tiny altar to Jack Daniels just randomly squeezed into a corner). To enter the temple, you must walk over a bridge and below there are hundreds of hands stretching out up to you - maybe to grab you but maybe to ask for help. Some have bowls, some have skulls that they hold like bowls, but one distinctive one has red nail varnish and is flipping the bird! Demons and dragons guard the entrance and once you pass these then you can finally go inside! The temple room is painted in a traditional Thai style (scenes of life and stories of the gods), but it you look closely then those stories contain Pikachu, Batman, Wolverine and loads of other fictional characters. When out the other side and into the complex, you can write your wish on a tin leaf and leave it to be hung on a huge covered walkway which leads back to the exit, visit the incredibly over-the-top gold toilets in a gold mosaic cubicle in a giant golden building - or drop a coin into a beautiful sunken wishing well shaped like a lotus flower!
When you have finally finished looking at the utterly unbelievable buildings, you can go and visit an art exhibition by the artist, which is full of pictures in a traditional Thai style that gradually get stranger and stranger as his career progresses. Toward the end George W Bush is riding on a rocket and the world is being orbited by rubbish, all in a very traditional Thai style! I loved it - brilliant place, so glad we went!
Back on the bus and a little further down the road, we stopped to visit 'Cabbages and Condoms'. This is a national project set up by the monarchy which provides families with a method of birth control - along with profitable and easy to grow crops which are not opium! The project aims to cut the birth rate and reduce drug trafficking, so of course we had to stop! It is only really a glorified service station and shop - but it was here that I discovered freeze dried strawberries and how entirely delicious they are!
A few minutes later, we stopped again - this time to take a look at some hot spring and natural geysers. They geysers spout up on both sides of the road and have just been enclosed like little round ponds - but the pools that don't spout are used to cook quail's eggs1 They just sit in the water in little baskets just waiting to be hooked out and eaten - it is super cute!
Our final destination were the craft villages at San Kamphaeng. The first place we visited made paper umbrellas (which are apparently waterproof) and we watched the whole process being done by hand - from the initial shaping of pieces on a lathe to the making of paper from mulberry leaves and the cutting and stitching of bamboo spokes. The ladies who did it just sat cross legged on big bamboo mats and chopped away at the wood with machetes! There was a section where umbrellas were painted and decorated: for a small fee the ladies there would customise the case of out mobile phone!
Our next stop was the gem factory. I don't do jewellery and one gem factory is much like the next so I had a look at the jade they were carving (some big, interesting pieces in the workshop but everything in store was pretty bad) and then settled in to wait for the others. I ended up wandering into the other part of their shop which sold bags made from crocdile and stingray and snail collagen based beauty products. Grim! I'm glad I didn't buy anything from them!
Next we went to the silk district and saw silk moths and silk worms growing in their hatcheries and silk cocoons being unravelled to be made into stuff. I have seen this before - but what was interesting was the coarse texture of the raw silk: it has to be boiled and dyed before it goes all soft. We watched the ladies weaving, which was fascinating. I can use a loom but they worked very fast with such fine materials - it really is a skill! Of course there was a shop but as I hate the texture of silk and think it's a bit grim to wear boiled worm bum, I didn't buy anything here either!
The next village was silversmithing - a small and very basic workshop (good), leading into a very big and glitzy showroom where people in suits stalked me about trying to show me things I might like to buy (awful). I left.
Finally, we went to see woodcarving. This was more like the parasol place - just a bunch of chaps sitting around gently carving huge, beautiful scenes from bit of tree! Of course the big ones were expensive, but I did pick up a dancer carved from teak (still expensive, but it would definitely have cost more in the UK).
We were pretty knackered when we finally made it to our hotel: Khum Phaya Resort. What a fabulous place! It was huge, covered in lizards and a bit like a little holiday village with lots of two floor buildings instead of one giant hotel. Plus, my quarters had a jacuzzi bath and giant rain shower in the bathroom a balcony overlooking a gigantic and tropical looking pool with lots of islands and bridges and things in it and a ridiculously massive bed!
After freshening up a bit, we were ready for our dinner - which was next door at the Khum Khantoke Restaurant. Here, Thai people sit on the floor to eat and Westerners pretend to do the same by dangling their legs into pits underneath the tables. Everyon sits outdoors around a central performance area, where a dance show takes place. It is obviously a very popular place for locals to celebrate as well as for tourists to gawp: we were some way back from the action which was surrounded by the flat tables! We had just started eating when the dance show began. Lots of ladies came out with those pointy finger extensions on and whirled around a bit, then a lady arrived on a big chair and was ceremoniously decanted. After a short break, she came back with a big fan dress and did a dance which we could only surmise was re-enacting the famous poisonous lizard scene from Jurassic Park (there was a PA explaining the stories but we couldn't really hear it)! A lot of young men came out and danced around walloping some drums in a sort of war dance and then a young chap came out and balanced swords all over his person. After a bit of singing a fish-lady and a sort of demon monkey (I was reliably informed after that he was actually a good god) did a bit of falling in love - and then they played the 'Happy Birthday' song and wandered over to present Vish with a cake for his 70th! A good surprise, which meant we go to have a proper look at their costumes and take lots of pictures!
Day 8 - Chiang Mai Save Elephant Foundation
Maybe this was the best day of the trip? It was definitely brilliant! We were picked up from our hotel by our guide for the day, Sai, and taken to 'Save Elephant Foundation', an elephant sanctuary up in the mountains. I had been assured that we were going somewhere that cared for elephants, but on the way there, we passed people riding on them, and places where you could stop your elephant and buy fruit to feed it. I realised before we arrived that we were in a mountainous area where there were lots of elephant (and tiger) attractions - but that the one we were going to did actually care for the animals - it was just a shame to pass others that used them for entertainment...
Whejn we arrived, we went straight to the main lodge, which was quite a substantial place with lots of table to sit at, a food preparation station for the elephants, a shop, a little cafe - and an upstairs with accommodation for all the volunteers who come and help at the sanctuary (i.e.: backpackers). All the way around the lodge was the 'feeding platform' - basically just a big old balcony with a yellow line - and then the elephants came! We had two to look after ourselves, and because the others were oddly nervous of the elephants, I ended up feeding one called TamTim all by myself. I always thought that elephants picked up their food with the end of their trunks but that is actually ridiculous because that is where their nostrils are. They actually wind the end of the their trunk around it - sort of like balancing food on your wrist and then bending your hand over the top of it. TamTim really liked little bananas but did not like melon: she just dropped it on the platform every time I gave her a piece! The other elephant only liked melon and wouldn't eat bananas though - so It worked out!
Once we had fed the elephants, Sai took us actually into the park to meet some of them! We were followed around by a little dog and Sai explained that the foundation also took in lots of pets who lost their homes after the Tsunami! I reckon there must have been over 50 elephants at the park and Sai explained that they were all there for different reasons. Some had stood on landmines and hurt their feet, some had been used in illegal logging and some had gone blind from having lights in circuses shone in their eyes. Some of the elephants were understandably very nervous of people but others were quite curious and alright to approach. Elephants are curiously soft and warm (I thought their skin would be all thick and leathery) but a little bit bristly.
We watched a couple of elephants eating some stalks and learned about their lives. Each elephant has their own personal keeper who cares for them and they are left to make their own friends and form their own groups. The next group we met were a mother and young elephant and their nanny - and another elephant who hung around close by because she really loved the baby but the mother didn't like her! We moved on and met a blind elephant who was enjoying a lovely dust bath, and then a whole group with a super cute tiny baby! We were warned not to get too close because even a baby can still flatten you - but it was running around all over the place and while we were avoiding that another elephant snuck up behind me and I had to move swiftly out of the way!
We walked through more of the sanctuary and saw more of the elephants and some oxen - and then went back to the lodge for an early lunch, and a chance to look around 'Cat Kingdom' - a part of the grounds where all the stray cats lived (it was full of baskets and little platforms for them to sun themselves on)! We also wandered along a long viewing platform which ran next to river and watched the elephants just enjoying the sun, scratching themselves against trees and wandering about. One naughty elephant decided to run off toward the gates so her keeper had to give chase and turn her around, jumping out the way to avoid her kicks! I went for a little walk around by myself and happened to find a view down to the river where two elephants were playing with a basket which had had their food in. It was beautifully framed by the trees - a scene straight from Jungle Book!
After our lunch, we were all meant to help bathe the elephants - but none of the others would do it! What was wrong with them I don't know, but they didn't fancy wading into the river and washing an elephant! So I got to do that on my own with Sai as everyone sat and watched. We had to hang out on the bank for a while waiting for the elephants to arrive and one we had met earlier came over with her keeper. He had a bag full of bananas but was saving them to get her into the river but she was having a good snuffle about and trying to steal them - very funny!
Eventually my elephant was ready for her bath (she was not keen about getting into the water and had a bad leg) but once she was in she seemed happy! Having had a dust bath earlier she was quite mucky so we had to chuck quite a few buckets of water over her to get her clean again! Thankfully she did not join in and hose us down, so I just ended up with wet feet!
Back on the viewing platform, we were given a wonderful view of the freshly washed elephants having their afternoon snack of pumpkins, bananas and melons (including the little baby, who was scooting around all over the place)! There was a lot of food but once it had all gone, some of the elephants wandered over to the kitchen to try and get more! (The whole lodge is surrounded by giant bollards so they couldn't get in!) We saw all of their bums crowding around the doorway and then walked around to the other side where we saw all of their faces peering in at the door!
In our final walk, we went to a more secluded part of the river where we met two elephants who didn't really get on with the others and weren't super keen on people. Sai seemed to have some sort of special connection to them and really wanted us to meet them! Possibly because we were a small group we got to see this when others didn't. They were quite unafraid of us and came to say hello! Sai also showed us where the elephants sleep (he explained that they have to be locked away at night because when they let them stay free-roaming they crossed the rived and ate all of the crops belonging to the farmer next door).
All in all, I think we visited a good place where they do care about their animals and try to look after them well - much better than a place where you can go for an elephant ride!
OK. This might well be one of my favourite days. Chaiyan went completely off programme to take us to a place he thought was brilliant - and he was not wrong! In the morning when he told us he was taking us to see another temple, we all inwardly groaned a little - but this one was designed and built by a contemporary artist who studied in London. And it was bonkers. The White Temple essentially takes traditional Thai art and architecture, mashes it up with pop culture and then turns the whole thing up to 11!
From the moment we arrived, we were stunned! The building is a small but incredible temple where no surface has been left undecorated! It is white, highlighted by silver and surrounded by a lake, surrounded by a green space, surrounded by more mad sculpture. Before you go in, you can sit on a bench and have your photo taken with a giant mirrored robo-god. There are skulls and dragons and rock and roll influences everywhere (there are demon heads hanging in trees which trail airplants from them. They include traditional figures alongside Pinhead and HellBoy - and there is a tiny altar to Jack Daniels just randomly squeezed into a corner). To enter the temple, you must walk over a bridge and below there are hundreds of hands stretching out up to you - maybe to grab you but maybe to ask for help. Some have bowls, some have skulls that they hold like bowls, but one distinctive one has red nail varnish and is flipping the bird! Demons and dragons guard the entrance and once you pass these then you can finally go inside! The temple room is painted in a traditional Thai style (scenes of life and stories of the gods), but it you look closely then those stories contain Pikachu, Batman, Wolverine and loads of other fictional characters. When out the other side and into the complex, you can write your wish on a tin leaf and leave it to be hung on a huge covered walkway which leads back to the exit, visit the incredibly over-the-top gold toilets in a gold mosaic cubicle in a giant golden building - or drop a coin into a beautiful sunken wishing well shaped like a lotus flower!
When you have finally finished looking at the utterly unbelievable buildings, you can go and visit an art exhibition by the artist, which is full of pictures in a traditional Thai style that gradually get stranger and stranger as his career progresses. Toward the end George W Bush is riding on a rocket and the world is being orbited by rubbish, all in a very traditional Thai style! I loved it - brilliant place, so glad we went!
Back on the bus and a little further down the road, we stopped to visit 'Cabbages and Condoms'. This is a national project set up by the monarchy which provides families with a method of birth control - along with profitable and easy to grow crops which are not opium! The project aims to cut the birth rate and reduce drug trafficking, so of course we had to stop! It is only really a glorified service station and shop - but it was here that I discovered freeze dried strawberries and how entirely delicious they are!
A few minutes later, we stopped again - this time to take a look at some hot spring and natural geysers. They geysers spout up on both sides of the road and have just been enclosed like little round ponds - but the pools that don't spout are used to cook quail's eggs1 They just sit in the water in little baskets just waiting to be hooked out and eaten - it is super cute!
Our final destination were the craft villages at San Kamphaeng. The first place we visited made paper umbrellas (which are apparently waterproof) and we watched the whole process being done by hand - from the initial shaping of pieces on a lathe to the making of paper from mulberry leaves and the cutting and stitching of bamboo spokes. The ladies who did it just sat cross legged on big bamboo mats and chopped away at the wood with machetes! There was a section where umbrellas were painted and decorated: for a small fee the ladies there would customise the case of out mobile phone!
Our next stop was the gem factory. I don't do jewellery and one gem factory is much like the next so I had a look at the jade they were carving (some big, interesting pieces in the workshop but everything in store was pretty bad) and then settled in to wait for the others. I ended up wandering into the other part of their shop which sold bags made from crocdile and stingray and snail collagen based beauty products. Grim! I'm glad I didn't buy anything from them!
Next we went to the silk district and saw silk moths and silk worms growing in their hatcheries and silk cocoons being unravelled to be made into stuff. I have seen this before - but what was interesting was the coarse texture of the raw silk: it has to be boiled and dyed before it goes all soft. We watched the ladies weaving, which was fascinating. I can use a loom but they worked very fast with such fine materials - it really is a skill! Of course there was a shop but as I hate the texture of silk and think it's a bit grim to wear boiled worm bum, I didn't buy anything here either!
The next village was silversmithing - a small and very basic workshop (good), leading into a very big and glitzy showroom where people in suits stalked me about trying to show me things I might like to buy (awful). I left.
Finally, we went to see woodcarving. This was more like the parasol place - just a bunch of chaps sitting around gently carving huge, beautiful scenes from bit of tree! Of course the big ones were expensive, but I did pick up a dancer carved from teak (still expensive, but it would definitely have cost more in the UK).
We were pretty knackered when we finally made it to our hotel: Khum Phaya Resort. What a fabulous place! It was huge, covered in lizards and a bit like a little holiday village with lots of two floor buildings instead of one giant hotel. Plus, my quarters had a jacuzzi bath and giant rain shower in the bathroom a balcony overlooking a gigantic and tropical looking pool with lots of islands and bridges and things in it and a ridiculously massive bed!
After freshening up a bit, we were ready for our dinner - which was next door at the Khum Khantoke Restaurant. Here, Thai people sit on the floor to eat and Westerners pretend to do the same by dangling their legs into pits underneath the tables. Everyon sits outdoors around a central performance area, where a dance show takes place. It is obviously a very popular place for locals to celebrate as well as for tourists to gawp: we were some way back from the action which was surrounded by the flat tables! We had just started eating when the dance show began. Lots of ladies came out with those pointy finger extensions on and whirled around a bit, then a lady arrived on a big chair and was ceremoniously decanted. After a short break, she came back with a big fan dress and did a dance which we could only surmise was re-enacting the famous poisonous lizard scene from Jurassic Park (there was a PA explaining the stories but we couldn't really hear it)! A lot of young men came out and danced around walloping some drums in a sort of war dance and then a young chap came out and balanced swords all over his person. After a bit of singing a fish-lady and a sort of demon monkey (I was reliably informed after that he was actually a good god) did a bit of falling in love - and then they played the 'Happy Birthday' song and wandered over to present Vish with a cake for his 70th! A good surprise, which meant we go to have a proper look at their costumes and take lots of pictures!
Day 8 - Chiang Mai Save Elephant Foundation
Maybe this was the best day of the trip? It was definitely brilliant! We were picked up from our hotel by our guide for the day, Sai, and taken to 'Save Elephant Foundation', an elephant sanctuary up in the mountains. I had been assured that we were going somewhere that cared for elephants, but on the way there, we passed people riding on them, and places where you could stop your elephant and buy fruit to feed it. I realised before we arrived that we were in a mountainous area where there were lots of elephant (and tiger) attractions - but that the one we were going to did actually care for the animals - it was just a shame to pass others that used them for entertainment...
Whejn we arrived, we went straight to the main lodge, which was quite a substantial place with lots of table to sit at, a food preparation station for the elephants, a shop, a little cafe - and an upstairs with accommodation for all the volunteers who come and help at the sanctuary (i.e.: backpackers). All the way around the lodge was the 'feeding platform' - basically just a big old balcony with a yellow line - and then the elephants came! We had two to look after ourselves, and because the others were oddly nervous of the elephants, I ended up feeding one called TamTim all by myself. I always thought that elephants picked up their food with the end of their trunks but that is actually ridiculous because that is where their nostrils are. They actually wind the end of the their trunk around it - sort of like balancing food on your wrist and then bending your hand over the top of it. TamTim really liked little bananas but did not like melon: she just dropped it on the platform every time I gave her a piece! The other elephant only liked melon and wouldn't eat bananas though - so It worked out!
Once we had fed the elephants, Sai took us actually into the park to meet some of them! We were followed around by a little dog and Sai explained that the foundation also took in lots of pets who lost their homes after the Tsunami! I reckon there must have been over 50 elephants at the park and Sai explained that they were all there for different reasons. Some had stood on landmines and hurt their feet, some had been used in illegal logging and some had gone blind from having lights in circuses shone in their eyes. Some of the elephants were understandably very nervous of people but others were quite curious and alright to approach. Elephants are curiously soft and warm (I thought their skin would be all thick and leathery) but a little bit bristly.
We watched a couple of elephants eating some stalks and learned about their lives. Each elephant has their own personal keeper who cares for them and they are left to make their own friends and form their own groups. The next group we met were a mother and young elephant and their nanny - and another elephant who hung around close by because she really loved the baby but the mother didn't like her! We moved on and met a blind elephant who was enjoying a lovely dust bath, and then a whole group with a super cute tiny baby! We were warned not to get too close because even a baby can still flatten you - but it was running around all over the place and while we were avoiding that another elephant snuck up behind me and I had to move swiftly out of the way!
We walked through more of the sanctuary and saw more of the elephants and some oxen - and then went back to the lodge for an early lunch, and a chance to look around 'Cat Kingdom' - a part of the grounds where all the stray cats lived (it was full of baskets and little platforms for them to sun themselves on)! We also wandered along a long viewing platform which ran next to river and watched the elephants just enjoying the sun, scratching themselves against trees and wandering about. One naughty elephant decided to run off toward the gates so her keeper had to give chase and turn her around, jumping out the way to avoid her kicks! I went for a little walk around by myself and happened to find a view down to the river where two elephants were playing with a basket which had had their food in. It was beautifully framed by the trees - a scene straight from Jungle Book!
After our lunch, we were all meant to help bathe the elephants - but none of the others would do it! What was wrong with them I don't know, but they didn't fancy wading into the river and washing an elephant! So I got to do that on my own with Sai as everyone sat and watched. We had to hang out on the bank for a while waiting for the elephants to arrive and one we had met earlier came over with her keeper. He had a bag full of bananas but was saving them to get her into the river but she was having a good snuffle about and trying to steal them - very funny!
Eventually my elephant was ready for her bath (she was not keen about getting into the water and had a bad leg) but once she was in she seemed happy! Having had a dust bath earlier she was quite mucky so we had to chuck quite a few buckets of water over her to get her clean again! Thankfully she did not join in and hose us down, so I just ended up with wet feet!
Back on the viewing platform, we were given a wonderful view of the freshly washed elephants having their afternoon snack of pumpkins, bananas and melons (including the little baby, who was scooting around all over the place)! There was a lot of food but once it had all gone, some of the elephants wandered over to the kitchen to try and get more! (The whole lodge is surrounded by giant bollards so they couldn't get in!) We saw all of their bums crowding around the doorway and then walked around to the other side where we saw all of their faces peering in at the door!
In our final walk, we went to a more secluded part of the river where we met two elephants who didn't really get on with the others and weren't super keen on people. Sai seemed to have some sort of special connection to them and really wanted us to meet them! Possibly because we were a small group we got to see this when others didn't. They were quite unafraid of us and came to say hello! Sai also showed us where the elephants sleep (he explained that they have to be locked away at night because when they let them stay free-roaming they crossed the rived and ate all of the crops belonging to the farmer next door).
All in all, I think we visited a good place where they do care about their animals and try to look after them well - much better than a place where you can go for an elephant ride!