8/5/10 (chiang mai)
Annie Lin
Chiang Mai - Mae Sa Valley - Chiang Mai
By my standard we woke up early in the morning at 7am to get ready for our day. We were going to the elephant camp about an hour away at Mae Sa Valley and had to be there before the show at 9:30am. We checked in with Mr. Sak before leaving who gave us directions on how to get to the camp. Along the way we got a bit turned around on the road but found the camp with plenty of time to spare. We are always a little weary of going to animal camps or farms since there is a reputation that the animals are not treated very nicely. Pai recommended the elephant camp and said that the elephants do amazing things. When we arrived there were a row of fifteen elephants each with their own trainer, called mahout. There was a wall listing each elephant and its own mahout. It is said that a very special bond is formed between the elephant and its mahout. We watched people feed the elephants bananas and sugar canes. Some of the elephants got impatient with the people taking too long untying the bundle of sugar canes that they just grabbed the whole bundle with their trunk and shoved into their mouth. There was a very cute little girl about four years old feeding an elephant at the far end of the stable away from the crowds. She was nervous and excited at the same time. I’m sure the elephant was feeling the same thing.
The beginning of the show started with the elephants taking a bath in the river. The mahout instructed the elephants to lie down and the mahouts poured water on the elephants and scrubbed their bodies. I think the elephants liked the baths so much that they would let themselves go and poop in the river. If you have never seen an elephant poop it is about the size of a softball. There were women standing at the edge of the river with baskets scooping up the poop. If you ever thought you had a crummy job just think of theirs!
Then we entered an open stadium where the elephants performed all sorts of acts from kicking a soccer ball into the net with an elephant as the goalie to playing harmonicas using their trunks. The most impressive thing was watching them paint. Their mahout handed them different color paintbrushes. Some painted stems with different color flowers on each one of them and it was amazing the control they exhibited with their trunks. One elephant painted a view of the mountains and it even had a dimensional effect to it. It was incredible! The paintings were available for sale afterwards. All of them were $67 US each except for the mural of the mountains, which was selling for $200. I would have seriously considered buying one of them if we were able to carry them around easily in our travels. The most amazing one was a huge mural that was selling for $10,000. I would like to meet the elephant who painted that canvas. After the show we walked to visit their newest addition to the park. An elephant had given birth to a baby girl elephant five months ago. The mom and the baby were kept far away from the other elephants and crowds. The baby was rambunctious and several times tried to put her mahout into a corner and kick him with her hind legs. The mahout had to be careful and would hit her legs when she did so. I guess the baby elephant had a lot of learning to do.
After a full morning with the elephants we headed to lunch at a boutique hotel called Proud Phu Fah that I had read about in Lonely Planet. The hotel was tucked away in the valley and had an open-air restaurant with a view of the valley. We had a very relaxing lunch so much so that we considered asking them if we could take a nap before heading off. If someone was looking to unwind and get away with very little to do this was the perfect place.
Along the way to the elephant camp we passed by a tiger farm that Jon was curious to check out so we drove back to the tiger farm. The place was such a contrast to the elephant camp. It was one of the most modern and sophisticated entrances to an animal park we had ever seen. There were TV screens showing you various packages. The packages depended on what size tigers you wanted to see and how many ranging from $10-$66 and higher to spend ten minutes with each tiger. The most expensive was a visit to the baby tigers. We felt it was too commercialized and a profit center. The tigers looked like they had been drugged, which is likely considering they probably don’t enjoy lines of people coming up to the them to take pictures. I felt bad for the tigers.
By this time we were feeling groggy and needed a nap. We considered going back to Mr. Sak’s place for a nap but were also interested in a monk chat at another temple. We had become monk chat junkies. We headed into town to find the temple. I took a quick nap in the car to recuperate while Jon enjoyed a chocolate latte at a nearby coffee shop. After a quick nap and caffeine surge we headed to the monk chat. We found several foreigners talking to monks. We sat at one of the tables with a few monks and quickly developed a friendly rapport with them. They were all university monk students and were as curious about us as we were about them. We met a lively young monk nicknamed Tiger who shared with us his reasons for being a monk. He is from a village close to the Laos border and is learning English so he can go back to his village to teach the children. Many of them were intrigued that someone, like me who looked like them, can speak English so fluently. They envied Jon’s pale skin tone while we tried to explain to them that westerns spend tons of money to get tanned skin. We tried to explain a tanning salon but I don’t think they understood the concept. Jon approached one of the more fluent English speaking monks for an interview for our blog. He was nervous being on camera since it was his first interview.
After spending a few hours with our monk friends we decided to head home. On our way home we stopped for dinner. Jon was in the mood for Miguel’s Mexican while I settled for some local food. For dessert we got a fresh juice shake along with a banana and chocolate rotee. A rotee is what I would describe as an Indian fried crepe filled with any topping you like and most order it with condensed milk and/or chocolate on top. It was a sweet ending to a full day.
Reader Comments (3)