Tuesday is an early start, as we’re heading out to the Elephant Nature Park. The elephant is the Thai national symbol and has been an ingrained part of the national culture for a very long time. As a consequence, many elephants are used domestically, primarily in the logging industry with large numbers in the tourism industry too. Logging was banned in the 1990s (due to the impact it was having on flooding during the rainy season), and this meant that many domestic elephants were now out of a job – some were moved into the tourism business while others were smuggled across the borders into Laos and Burma where logging still continues. Domestication of elephants is unpleasant – look it up on the internet if you’re interested, but it’s pretty barbaric. Additionally, domesticated elephants are generally not treated well – some are treated OK, but many are badly treated. Tourism generally involves elephant rides for tourists, ‘mahout training’, plus elephant shows where elephants perform tricks, paint etc. It’s all a bit grim, is not great for the elephants, and is mostly done because there are lots of tourists who want to ‘tick a box’ and say they’ve done elephants in Thailand. Given this, certainly around Chiang Mai, there is a large industry to serve this market. Elephant Nature Park does not subscribe to this world view.
Elephant Nature Park was set up in the 1990s by Lek, a Thai woman who hated the treatment of elephants in her country, is based around an hour or so north of Chiang Mai, and now houses some 34 elephants (plus some 70 dogs, lots of cats, and other hangers-on too!) The shtick is that, as a tourist, you can go along and help out by feeding and bathing the elephants, and also gaining an education in the process – essentially, it’s the very definition of eco-tourism. It’s all very good and very interesting – we’re shown around and introduced to some of the elephants, and we’re able to get very close to them pretty quickly, though usually they’re behind a fence or we’re higher up on a feeding platform. They’re amazing creatures close up – the skin is really thick and rough, and what looks like downy hair is actually very coarse, like a hairbrush. The trunks are great – they’re very dextrous and also possess great agility and strength, delicate enough to pick up a grain of rice but strong enough to knock you over (or pull down a sizable tree). Feeding them is very interesting – you hold out the food and they take it very carefully, curling the end of the trunk around the food to transport it to their mouth. They’re very gentle. Following this, we humans feed, then we’re off to the river to bathe the elephants – this involves bucketing water over them, and given there are quite a few elephants and probably around 30 people, everyone involved ends up getting very wet! The elephants then roll around in mud and dirt for a bit (to cool themselves down), and we get the opportunity to bond with them a little – including receiving a ‘kiss’ from one elephant (it’s very amusing and odd – like having a soft wet vacuum cleaner hose stuck to your face briefly!) Following this we watch a documentary made for TV about Lek and the sanctuary, where we learn more about the domestication of elephants. We also learn about those that are used to beg in tourist resorts – baby elephants are led around and tourists pay money to feed them, to have photographs taken with them, or to see them perform tricks. The documentary was made in 2002, and we’ve never seen this anywhere we’ve been in Thailand, so we conclude that things are at least changing for the better – the practice is now banned in many places in Thailand. Then there’s a bit more feeding, some more bathing, then we head back to Chiang Mai. It’s been a great day, meeting the elephants up close and interacting with them on their terms. When we leave Chiang Mai at the end of the week, we’re heading down to Sukothai to stay at Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary (BLES) for three nights – BLES operates on the same principles as ENP but is much smaller and doesn’t take day visitors – we’re hoping it’ll be a special place. Amusingly, one of the people we pick up on our way to ENP is an Australian who apparently is an actor in Neighbours – he plays a character called Lou Carpenter. Linda recognises him straight away, I’ve still got no idea who he is!
Wednesday is the start of a two-day trek into the jungles of northern Thailand. We’re going ‘off-the-beaten-track’ and have gone for a walking-only tour (many others include elephant treks, rafting etc. – more examples of box ticking). We’re also overnighting at a camp in the jungle, which should be interesting. We pick up four others, all French blokes, who are doing a three-day trek. They look quite serious about their trekking, kitted out in all the gear. We drive north, heading out way past where we were yesterday at ENP – stopping off at a market along the way for provisions – and end up at a hill tribe village for lunch, then finally we head off on the trek. It starts off pretty gentle. Our guide is called Chad, and he’s a real character – his English is pretty good, he’s a bit of a local, and as he heads out in his oversize jeans and shirt and flip flops, he starts singing! It’s very warm and humid, moreso as we get into the jungle, and even moreso as the trek starts to get harder – which it most certainly does! We are definitely off the beaten track – we’re heading up very steep inclines and down equally steep ones, along very narrow paths some of which are along the edge of fairly steep drops. It’s a beautiful place to be trekking, but conditions make it pretty tough, particularly for Linda who is not happy with the steepness of some of the slopes (both up and down), the fact that some are only a foot wide (and that’s not a unit of measurement!), and the amount of trees we have to scramble over/under! We stop for a break in a local hill tribe village to get a drink and catch our breaths, then head off again via a shortcut to our camp. The shortcut drops steeply down the side of a valley and is painfully narrow – we’re glad to reach the end of it, though Linda panics slightly at one section (crossing a massive downed tree) and manages to twist her right knee. Still, we reach the end.
The accommodation is basic – mattresses on the floor and mosquito nets above – but comfortable. All six of us are sharing one large room, but it could probably house another four others so the French blokes grab one end and we grab the other. We change out of our dirty sweaty clothes and hang them to dry – swimmers are now order of the day as there’s a small waterfall nearby where we can take a natural shower. Unfortunately, the waterfall is also a small trek away, along a very narrow and steep path, and while the fall itself is very pretty it’s also very difficult to get down to, along slippery rocks. Only half of us head into the water, and it’s pretty damn cold but very refreshing after the long hike. Then we head back and chill out for a while before dinner. Sadly, the place we’re staying isn’t as remote as we’d expected – it’s close enough to the road to the local village to be able to hear mopeds, and we can hear neighbours playing some dreadful 80s compilation CD! Still, dinner is welcome and very nice and after a couple of 50 baht beers all seems well. The sky is really clear and when we turn the lights out and our eyes adjust we can see so many stars in the sky. Bed comes early after a long day and it’s lights-out by 21.00 or so. It’s actually surprisingly quiet, with the exception of one very large buzzing insect and the omnipresent geckos. Oh, and the camp cat (well, one year old large kitten) which is noisy when it wants attention – it’s very cute!
We rise at around 07.00 the next day – well, Linda does, I’m up half an hour later, while the French blokes eventually rise around 09.00 or so! Linda’s knee is hurting and she doesn’t want to risk damaging it further and jeopardise the rest of the trip so after a chat with Chad he arranges a lift for her to a local hill tribe village where we’d be heading for lunch anyway. So after breakfast the rest of us bid farewell to Linda until lunchtime then head out on the trek. Within five minutes Chad has broken his flip flop and I have to provide an emergency repair with a zip tie! The trek out of valley is really tough, it’s very steep and narrow with some really shear edges at times – no-one’s chatting, we’re all too busy trying to control our breathing whilst dealing with the oppressive heat and humidity. Things get a little more gentle and we have a short break when we discover a banana tree horse and banana leaf hat (don’t ask) then we head down a very steep slope to a much bigger waterfall. This one has a pool at the bottom, and is much more accessible – Chad, myself and two of the French blokes change into swimmers and jump in. The water is freezing, but ultimately very refreshing after the trek this morning. Then another trek group turns up and joins in – obviously this is a popular place! Then we re-dress and climb back up steeply to get out of the valley, before heading along a few miles until another steep shortcut down to the village where we meet up with Linda for lunch. The other group follow behind 30 minutes later and it turns out they’re part of the same company that Chad works for, and Linda and I agree to head back with them to Chiang Mai – it means that I’ll miss out on a trek to see a bat cave, but as a consequence we’ll both be able to do a bit of rafting (at no extra cost) so it’s an opportunity for Linda to be able to salvage something from the day. We head back via minibus to the river just up from ENP, then do some white water rafting for about half an hour followed by 15 minutes or so of bamboo rafting. It’s all a bit noddy really, slightly interesting but obviously added as ‘filler’ for the box-tickers. We’d actually planned to do some white water rafting in a couple of days, on the day before we leave Chiang Mai, but this would be a whole day activity starting on the same river but much closer to the Burmese border. We decide to can it – not because we’ve ‘done’ the white water rafting now, rather, we’re fed up with tourist minibuses and particularly doing the trip north out of Chiang Mai – we’d be looking at a 5-hour round trip by road on Saturday and neither of us can really face that right now! We then head back to Chiang Mai.
One thing that has galled Linda about CM is the shopping – there’s some genuinely beautiful stuff available at very cheap prices. The problem is that we’re here for another 5-6 weeks and don’t have the room to carry stuff with us. We decide to ship some stuff back to the UK – OK, costs aren’t cheap, but we can offload some 6kg or so of kit that we’ve bought already or that we brought out with us and just don’t need anymore, and it also allows Linda the opportunity of doing some shopping! So we head out to the night market and Linda shops like a demon! In the end, by close of play Thursday, we’ve got around 10-11kg of stuff to ship home, which we’ll sort out tomorrow. As we head back from the night market we stop off for a beer at a local bar. Depressingly, given we’d visited ENP a couple of days previously, we see for the very first time a baby elephant being dragged around outside for the ‘benefit’ of the tourists, most of whom seem to be lapping it up. Linda finds in very distressing, we genuinely thought this sort of thing didn’t exist anymore – it turns out it’s still legal to do this in Chiang Mai, we’ve just been lucky not to see any so far.
Friday is kind of a catch-up and doing-stuff day. We don’t need to be up early so we aren’t, and we have a leisurely morning followed by a trip to the local post office to ship our stuff back to the UK. It’s all fairly painless, but we’re both hoping we’ll see all our stuff again once we hand the box over – I’ll guess we’ll know in 2-3 months after it’s travelled several thousand miles by sea! Then we find a local coffee place and take advantage of the free wifi to sort out our car insurance (exciting stuff!) and other organisational stuff we need to do. Friday night we hit a local veggie restaurant – Taste of Heaven – where all proceeds go to ENP and where the food is excellent and great value!
Saturday was due to be white water rafting day but we’ve now canned this. Linda’s not too bothered about doing anything too much (her knee’s OK but she doesn’t want to push it too much) so gives me permission to head out and try the downhill mountain biking route four (the one I’ve been thinking about since Monday!) while she heads out for a wander to the local market. The biking group is much smaller this time – in fact, I’m the only one doing route four! Amusingly, I’ve also got the same guide, Lewis! We kit up (full body armour this time) and I get my bike – given I’m on my own I’ve got the best bike in the shop and it’s actually a pretty decent bike: a Giant Faith with Rock Shox Boxxer forks on the front and a nice Fox coil/oil rear suspension unit, plus decent hydraulic disc brakes. I set it up for purely downhill use, as this route is described as 100% DH. Then we set off. Firstly, there’s definitely some uphills, as we take the same route at the start as we did on Monday, but the climbs aren’t too steep, which is a good job as the bike is definitely not designed to be ridden up hills! Then we hit the proper downhill singletrack and WOW, it’s good! It’s much tougher than the stuff I did on Monday, but then the bike is much more capable. It’s a lot of fun, and as we get further in things get even tougher – we’re talking about steeps, rocks (including some very big ones), roots, water, ruts and big holes, sand, drop-offs, loose surfaces, and all stretched along very twisty singletrack – it basically had everything except mud! Route four splits at different sections to allow guides to split riders of varying abilities – if you do OK on one section then you can proceed to the next, otherwise you head down the ‘easier’ route. I must have been doing OK, as we always took the harder routes! A couple of observations: firstly, it’s not 100% downhill – there are definitely uphill bits, we just don’t ride them, we have to push the bikes up; and secondly, Lewis is an excellent downhiller, his skills are really good and – while I acknowledge he’s done the route a lot so knows it very well – he hardly dabs at all. Me? Well, let’s just say that this is unquestionably the hardest downhilling I’ve ever done in my life – without a shadow of a doubt – I’ve never ridden anything as technically demanding for such a prolonged descent. It’s relentless – each section is followed by another even harder section! It’s physically very demanding – I’m much more knackered riding this than I was on Monday despite there’s much less ascending required – in fact there are times when I need to call a time out and get my breathing sorted out! I certainly dab a few times, and have proper crashes maybe four or five times – pretty low speed but I’m thankful for the body armour and even then I’ve got some impressive bruises to show for it! It’s genuinely the hardest mountain biking I’ve ever had to do – some of the sections were just scary, I wish I’d taken a few pictures to demonstrate! However, I still had a big grin on my face all the way down and there was a big high-five awaiting me at the bottom from Lewis! Followed by a ride back into Chiang Mai then through the traffic to the company’s office (the hard DH route ends at a different place to all the other routes so we have to make our own way back into town!) I’m really glad I did it, it was much much harder than I’d anticipated but really good fun and at the end of the day, we all need to push ourselves from time to time. I’ll definitely do it again if I ever get back to Chiang Mai in the future.
Saturday night involved packing then food – we’re in bed fairly early as we’re both tired and we’ve got an early start in the morning as we’re getting the 06.45 train out of town. We’re now halfway through the trip and it feels like we’ve been away for such a long time – equally though, neither of us wants it to end. Chiang Mai has been a lot of fun, we’ve spent a long time here and – despite the occasional problem – we both like the place: there’s good veggie restaurants, good markets, it has a pretty laidback vibe and there’s loads of really cool stuff to do in the mountains outside of town. Things are likely to be a bit more gentle after this, but it’s nice to mix things up a bit y’know!
