Making wishes in Chiangmai

While driving back from Central Airport Mall in Chiangmai, I looked up at the night sky and noticed there were pretty lights floating. Upon scrutiny, I realised it was paper lanterns that people have lit and set loose in the sky.

In Thailand, Khom Loy lanterns are released to chase away troubles, woes and bad luck. It also brings a sense of peace and hope for something better to come. The first time I released a Khom Loy lantern in Pai, I was shivering cold in my pyjamas, standing in the middle of a nowhere field, as Bryan slowly set the wax in the centre on fire. Then we waited for the hot air to fill the lantern before releasing it to the sky. the cold air lifted the lantern up and far away, as we stood there in the dark hugging each other. I felt like we had released our sad memories and were looking forward to a new future together.

So imagine my amazement as I gazed out of the car window and see tens of lanterns being released from the city itself. We decided to chase down the source of the lanterns as Bryan swiftly manouevered through Chiangmai traffic and one-way streets. We figured it was coming from one of the city temples and at one point, stopped at one of the streets behind the temples to take a good look at the lanterns. People from street side cafes and stalls were gazing at the sky with their mouths agape. This reminded me of the scene from Disney’s Tangled (Rapunzel), where her parents released hundreds of lanterns each year on her birthday in hopes that she will return one day.

The biggest display of lanterns can be seen during Loy Krathong Festival, usually held at the end of the year on the full moon of the 12th month of lunar calendar. In 2005 to mark the anniversary of the asian Tsunami, 5,000 lanterns were released in remembrance of those who lost their lives in Thailand.

Elephant Sanctuary Part 5

if you’ve missed the previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

That’s Lek! she makes an appearance later part of the day to talk to us. we were lucky she was around during our visit. Read her story here on how she became a mother to elephants.

This is Hope. he was in a very sorry state when the rescue workers were called to get him, but now he’s a happy playful elephant at the reserve. The stories of all the elephants Lek has rescued over the years are found here.

Lek invited us to sit on the field and Hope ran up and down, allowing us to touch him.

Other residents of the camp.

here’s the food chain at the elephant reserve.

There was a story of another female elephant, whose name I forgot. She was found working at a hotel and taught to greet guests upon check-in and do all sorts of small things to entertain them. Hence, she was more used to humans than elephants so it took her awhile to befriend any elephant at the park, preferring a solitary life at the start.

one of the baby elephants love being rubbed down by his mahout.

at the end of the day, the elephants were brought back to their pens to be fed leaves and corn. considering they had a whole bunch of fruit in the morning, they sure as hell eat a lot!

This is a video of Lek rescuing one of the elephants.

I hope some of you reading this will be moved as I was, especially after spending a day with these elephants. If you’re so inclined, do visit the elephants at a conservation or rescue park and have a hand at taking care of these giants. if not, you can help out in small ways by sponsoring a lunch US$10 (that’s the cost of one bowl of tampopo ramen) or a medical kit US$25 (the price of a pair of shoes from Charles & Keith). else, it’s ONLY US$75 a year to sponsor an elephant. it costs a lot to take care of these poor elephants, and as you can tell from the video, it costs a lot more to buy an elephant from an owner so that they can bring it to the nature park.

There are only 30,000 elephants left in this world.

Elephant Sanctuary Part 4 – Mud Spa

if you’ve missed the previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

When it was time for the babies to bathe, we all had to go back to the walkways. Elephants are very very protective of their young so we weren’t allowed to bathe them as they will not allow us near their young. One wrong move and you’d have a elephant stampede so we stayed on the walkways as we watched the mahouts guide the herd to the river.

The mahouts taking a break as they watch their charges play in the water.

you see how the older elephants group around the 2 babies. further down the river there was another herd of elephants bathing too. if they ever got too close, the other elephants will crowd around the babies and trumpet a warning.

bath time over.

THIS IS MY FAVOURITE PICTURE!

Baby elephants learn by mimicking adult elephants. for some of these orphans, Lek has to show them how to pick up things with their trunks and even how to throw dust on their backs when she first rescues them. The lucky few who get adopted by a female elephant, like this pair above, will get the care and teaching he needs to prepare himself for adult life.

After the bath, they headed straight for the mud pits, which was what I didn’t get. shouldn’t it be the other way round? any way the mud, when packed onto their skin, actually cools them down and keeps the insects away.

2 of the teenage elephants were playing in the mud. the mahouts threw a ball inside and they started tossing it around happily.

The walkways are high enough for the elephants to walk under. sometimes they would stop and lean against one of the supporting beams and wriggled about as they scratch their backs against the rough wooden frames. it’s a little disconcerting when the walkways wobbled a little but it’s damn cute to see them close their eyes in bliss.

Elephant Sanctuary Part 3 – Bath Time

if you’ve missed the previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

The other part of the day that the elephants look forward to apart from eating is bathing. despite it being “winter” at that time of the year, it was still relatively hot during the day and the elephants appreciate a dip in the river like any other animal. since there’s only one river, each herd had to take its turn to use the baths. We were all given buckets and hard bristle brushes and we marched to the river after the elephants.

I HAZ BUCKETZ!

The wooden walkways extended all the way to the river so we waited above ground while the mahouts walked their charges to the river in a row.

The beautiful elephants set against the wonderful backdrop of nature.

Okay I don’t remember all the elephants’ names and I can’t really tell them apart. But i remember these 2 old ladies of the camp coz their story warmed the cockles of my heart. This is Mae Tee (the one with the weak ankles) and Mae Kham Paan. or maybe it’s Mae Khum Kaew, another old lady in the park. anyway these 2 elephants are very cute. according to the guide, one of the female elephants is very shy and her friend is very protective of her. she will wait for her shy friend wherever she goes, and if any elephant from another herd dares come too close, she’d trumpet a warning and chase off the other elephant so they won’t bother her shy friend. I actually saw it happen that day and i was thoroughly amused and touched to see such a close friendship exist among elephants.

my heart breaks to see her hind legs wobble like that but the guides reassured us she’s not in any pain.

so we all marched into the river and started scooping the water with the buckets and throwing it onto the thick hide of the elephants. they probably can do it themselves with their trunks but they don’t mind a little extra help from us. it also helps us bond a little better with these elephants.

possible pooping action.

with so many volunteers crawling over the elephants and giving them all the attention they deserve, I decided to scrub her ass with the brush as part of her spa treatment.

after the scrub treatment, the elephants had free use of the spa facilities which included dunking in the relaxation pool or simply play in the cold water jacuzzi.

Hello Ma’am, I hope you’re pleased with your treatment today. Would you like to sign a package? You can share with your friends. Today special promotion!

Part 3 of 5

Elephant Sanctuary Part 2

if you’ve missed the previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Elephants live in herds as they are social animals who live in some sort of social hierarchy. I’m no elephant expert so please correct me if I’m wrong. Each herd is kept in a pen separate from the others. With each new elephant rescued, the staff will watch how the elephants interact with each other, seeing which herd will accept the new elephant and change the sleeping arrangements as such.

If I didn’t remember wrongly, this isn’t a mother-child pair. they were both rescued separately but the female elephant has taken the baby elephant under her… flapping ears.

like any baby who doesn’t appreciate being awaken.

Saying hello good morning to one of the volunteers.

Each elephant has a mahout, which means keeper or driver of elephant. If you’ve been to Thailand and seen an elephant, the man accompanying the elephant is his mahout. They train elephants to do an assortment of things, sometimes using items that inflict pain on the elephant if it disobeys or is slow to learn. In this park though, these mahouts are more like caretakers than trainers. they not only take care of the elephants but also play with them. sometimes you can see an elephant taking a friendly swipe at his mahout with a playful trunk. Here, the mahout is taking pains to peel the corn from the cob and feeding it to the baby as its too young to figure out how to eat corn properly.

Elephant dust bathing. this coat of dust acts as a repellent against insects and also provides a thin coat of SPA-40 to keep off the sun rays.

from the main compound they’ve built long wooden walk ways that allow us to move around the area while keeping high away from the elephants. there are 2 stretches of walkways where the elephants know its where the food comes from so when it’s time, the mahouts will let the elephants out and they will wander over to the wooden walkways and wait with inquisitive trunks.

The guide showed us how to feed the elephants. you take a bunch of bananas or an open pumpkin and put it in the snout of his trunk. Never ever put your hand in his mouth. The elephant will lift the food and put it into his own mouth and before you can even say cream of pumpkin soup, his trunk is back again searching for more.

OM NOM NOM NOM!

I took the opportunity to stroke his trunk as it came questing through the wooden beams. it was very dry, hard and had a wrinkled leathery feel to it. it had bits of coarse hair along its skin so it felt a little prickly. it was wonderful to be able to get this close to an elephant. I’d have hugged his trunk but he might get a little alarmed by the thing attached to its nose so I didn’t.

Part 2 of 5

Elephant Sanctuary Part 1

In December 2009 when we were in Chiang Mai, Bryan suggested visiting the elephants at the local elephant sanctuary Elephant Nature Park. This park is run by its founder, a pint-sized lady with a big heart Lek, and unlike many other elephant camps where elephants are kept to earn a living entertaining tourists or ferrying them around, these elephants are left to roam freely in an open area and taken care of by volunteers.

As a fan of elephants, imagine my excitement at being able to go up close to these gentle giants. I was prepared with my mammoth t-shirt. We booked ourselves on a one day tour of the park, which started bright an early with a mini van that came to pick us up at the hotel. The drive to the park was about an hour long, located in a natural valley bordered by a river.

The park has several programmes for volunteers to participate in. we were there on the shortest tour, there are others that allow you to stay anywhere from 2 to 14 nights as you help out at the park and learn about the elephants. there are a few who stay for months taking care of these elephants on the long term programme.

When we arrived, there were already volunteers from the week long programme who are hard at work preparing food for the elephants, who can eat up to about 250kg of food per day PER ELEPHANT. that’s a shit load of bananas and pumpkins to prepare! the truck reverses itself into what is the food preparation hut and the volunteers form 3 lines and toss the fruit from the truck onto the shelves. Further down, another group of staff pick through the fruit and pack them into individual baskets (shown above). Each basket has a name of an elephant. The park has about 30 elephants to date.

The main compound of the park includes the teaching and living quarters. Here the guide introduces us to the members of the park, which not only include elephants and humans, but also dogs and cats, as Lek doesn’t discriminate who wanders into her nature reserves. she tells us which animals are friendly and which are not, so we know better who to approach or not.

I’m not sure why though. probably don’t want any puking incidences.

Part of the family.

This was the more adventurous of the cats in the compound, who was slinking around us along the beams of the hut. bored, she pounced on the other black cat and they started fighting. flying tufts of hair ensure.

we were put in a common area so that the staff can tell us about the elephant rescue programmes and what they’ve been doing to help these elephants. they also taught us simple elephant behaviours like what to look out for in case an elephant panics and also ran through a list of dos and don’ts while in the park. as punishment, she grabbed the naughtiest cat and used her as demonstration on what to do when an elephant lies down like that (as seen above).

when class was over, we walked out to take a look at the elephants grazing in the sun. ok perhaps grazing isn’t the correct word to use. not sure if elephants nibble on grass.

further away from the main compound is a hut where they treat the elephants with medicine and care.

Here comes the first curious group. Most of the elephants at the park are old elephants who worked at logging camps all their lives until the government abolished logging. This left many elephants homeless and unwanted. While some of the elephants are released into the wild, most of them continue working at elephant camps as performers in animal shows. I had been to one of those as a kid. The staff got me to stand in the centre of the tent as an elephant curled his trunk around my body and lifted me up, much to the delight of the crowd while I was screaming the house down, not because he was rough, the elephant was very gentle. I was just chicken shit at that age. Thinking about it now, I feel slightly guilty as having participated in one of those shows where they exploited these poor elephants.

This is Part 1 of 5. To donate it’s only US$10 for one lunch or  US$25 for a medical kit. or US$75 a year to sponsor an elephant

if you’ve missed the previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Off the Beaten Track in Pai

Since we’re massively saving money for the house and the potential renovation and the maybe wedding, we decided we won’t be going anywhere this year *sadface* However Bryan did suggest going back to Pai this December and I was happy again.

I was categorizing this blog’s posts when I realised I had prepared these pictures some time back but never got round to publishing it. Here are set 3 of a series of Pai 2009 photos. Series 1 and series 2 are linked here.

about a few kilometres off the main town of Pai you have long stretches of road peppered with coffee places such as this. Very popular with Thais, they serve simple coffee, thai music and a view of the countryside.

Tourists from Bangkok

Postman Pai.

let sleeping dogs lie. next to this huge ass tiffin.

Further east along the hillside we found yet another cafe which served sweet iced teas and warm hospitality. They had a few huts that littered the area so we parked ourselves in one of them. While Bryan read his book, I laid in the hammock and wished the holiday would never end.

Resident cat who decided to join us.

the bandit and his princess.

99 baht stories.

at night, we hung out at a reggae & blues bar. i’ve never had so much fun.

Suntanning by Kata Beach, Phuket

We spent the afternoon by Kata Beach in Phuket. it costs 400 baht to rent 2 deck chairs for the entire day.

As we laid there in the blistering sun, hawkers strolled by us presenting their wares. they sold all sorts of strange things; sun dresses, bandannas, elephant carvings, lamps, huge fans with paintings on it, wooden vases. this guy here looked like he was selling porn DVDs.

it was peak season in Phuket, with many tourists flocking from Europe, mostly Russians and Swedes, judging by the Russian shop signs i saw everywhere. they all turn up pale and fat and after sitting in the Phuket sun for a day, they all leave burnt and fat. the number of fat people walking around Phuket was amazing. they didn’t care if everything was spilling out over their waistbands. i watched one woman 4 times my size wobble past me in a bikini straining to hold it all in. some went as far as to sit around topless so to avoid tan lines. unfortunately, all i saw this holiday were saggy boobs.

there were very few hot chicks at the beach that day so I was lucky to have these 3 sitting in front of me. the one on the right had a really nice tan. she was really fair underneath her bikini.

table 21 ordered a coconut with rum and a malibu mixed fruit juice.

there were a lot of sea sports available for the adventurous. here, someone was strapped to a parachute which was tied to a speed boat. it took 5 guys to get 1 guy up; 1 on the speedboat, 2 on either side of the parachute, 1 behind the parachutist, 1 at the back, all holding up the parachute as the boat slowly picked up speed.

here…

we…

Go!

so fun! i wanted to go but didn’t in the end coz the thought of one of the guys jumping onto my shoulders as I lift up into the air didn’t seem appealing. I’m not sure why they require one of the guys to ride tandem with you. perhaps worried that you might cut the ropes and drift off away.

it got too hot so we headed back to our hotel to jump into the pool right outside our bedroom.

A week in Phuket: Kata Beach

I thought i’d post pictures of our Phuket trip than start on Cataclysm.

we spent a week at Kata Beach, Phuket at a lovely hotel called Sugar Palm Hillside. Kata Beach is the quieter of her cousins Karon and the horribly crowded Patong. it has a good mix of a quieter neighbourhood and enough night life that you don’t get too bored. as you can tell from the picture, we had to climb a very steep slope every day to get to the lobby. Bryan would always push me up the slope even without me asking.

The last time I went Phuket I was a wee one so I didn’t remember much of it except jumping by the sea screaming everytime the waves lapped my ankles. I’ve never been a beach holiday type of person either until I started dating Bryan and finally begin to enjoy holidays where I do absolutely nothing except snorkel and get a tan.

Our hotel room opens directly to the swimming pool, how amazing is that. My agent actually upgraded us to the Jacuzzi suite but when we saw this pool we decided to stay where we were. even before we unpacked, we got into our swimsuits and jumped right in. There’s a bar at the other end of the pool so we swam over and ordered a Mango Daiquiri. the pool is made of 3 parts where the water will overflow into the one below. Every time Bryan jumped in, there will be an alarming PLOOOMP sound and all the water will flow into the next.

There was a seafood restaurant outside our hotel called Orchid Restaurant. they served only the freshest. it’s very serene to sit by the railing and watch the cars go by.

Down the hill at the junction there are rows of restaurants and shops that you can finish exploring within a night.

my favourite street side food in thailand: Banana Pancakes. they slap the dough onto the sizzling hot plate and throw cut bananas on it before cutting it into bite sized pieces and serving it to you covered with honey drizzle. i could eat this every other day.

Phuket was peppered with shops that sold swimsuits, slippers and floats. I was tempted to get the shark one.

We biked up the beach from Kata to Karon to Patong to Kamala to Surin and stopped at Bang Tao Beach when we realised it was a Muslim town with no naked ladies. along the road was an elephant camp *sad face* with many cute elephants carrying tourists back.

Scootering around Pai

When people ask me to describe Pai, I don’t know what to say. It’s like this little town with lots of small town culture. there’s music, art, design and love. when I say art, I don’t mean traditional Thai art such as woven bags / pouches / scarves but little modern cutesy etsy styled art that mostly centres around that which is Pai. you have local designers whose craft range from the fact that Pai is 3 hours bus ride from Chiang Mai, 6 hours by motorbike, 25mins by plane down route 1095. or little Pai dolls or little monsters or proclamations that as much as you love Pai, Pai loves you too.

One of the shops near our boutique hotel. I stop by it every day to see what new useless thing I could buy home.

one of the many cafes around Pai. they have this huge menu of 101 things to eat, ranging from Thai food to Northern Thai specialties (you can’t find in any restaurant in Singapore) and Western food. Due to the influx of white people in Pai, you get a few shops run by these people who have decided Pai is the place to settle down and never go anywhere again. I don’t blame them. I don’t mind living here.

A shop of hammocks. was tempted to get the rainbow one except I wouldn’t know where to put it. Maybe hang it over my bed. so in case I roll and fall out of it in the middle of the night, I still have my bed to catch me.

There were stray dogs aplenty in Pai, actually most of Thailand. I can’t figure out why (considering stray cats are the norm in Singapore) but I’m not complaining. I’d run up and hug a dog any day but not a cat. This yellow mongrel on the right had his nose on my banana pancakes so he followed us down the streets hoping for a treat.

Just a short drive away were the hills of Pai. we found this little cafe on the way to the waterfall so we stopped by on our way back for a beer. this man, I forgot his name, runs the cafe and the villas with his wife. his dad is actually Teochew so we got really excited knowing our grandfathers probably came from the same village or something, although he spoke not a word of it. He said we reminded him of his children, who were either living in Bangkok or New York or some far flung city. I think it’s pretty amazing that a small town man like him managed to bring up 3 children who are now in big cities doing big city things.

he said I was like his daughter

at another Thai restaurant where I ordered my favourite steam fish (with lime and chili). the seafood here is so cheap and fresh. one fish like that costs about $28 back home. here? it’s only about $6-$8. I CAN SO LIVE IN PAI!

Basil minced chicken MMMMMMM