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From Chiang Mai we took a two day trip to Chiang Rai
with a company called Chiang Mai Tours, owned and operated by a gentleman
called Sergeant Kai. We had his brother, Pong, as our driver and Nooy, a
lady, as our guide. Although we haven't experienced the services of
another company for a trip like this in Thailand, we would both highly
recommend these guys if you do decide to go to northern Thailand.
We started off by going to the Maesa Elephant Camp
where we saw a two week old elephant calf and were shown the working
abilities and skills of the Asian elephants. Some of the highlights of
the "show" where seeing the Ellies playing
harmonicas and dancing around, playing football and painting. You really
could see that these magnificent animals loved the activities that they
were performing, as machinery has now replaced the work they used to do.
The elephants would dance, swing their trunks and
generally show off whilst playing the harmonicas and it was funny to see
them playing up to the audience. When they played football, they put one
elephant in goal and two others have a penalty shoot out. I can assure
you that if you got in the way of one of these balls when an Ellie
kicks it they would still score, because you would end up in the goal with
the ball embedded into your body! The accuracy and power that these guys
could kick a ball with was incredible.
The most amazing thing we potentially have ever seen
though had to be when they painted! If you doubt me, look at the photos!
The Mahouts, elephant carers, dip the brushes into the paint pots for the
elephants, but the rest is done by them. Anyone who thinks we are
superior beings to elephants want to get themselves here and witness what
they can do with a highly intelligent brain, a very keen eye and an
unbelievably adept trunk.
After the show we fed the elephants some bananas,
coconuts and sugar canes and thanks to Nooy sweet-talking one of the
mahouts, managed to get some great interaction with the elephants. Such
things as being hugged, or rather squeezed to near breathlessness, having
a hat put on and removed from our heads and playing tug of war, which we
lost badly funnily enough!
From the elephant camp we headed up through Chiang Dao
where we went to the Hmong hilltribe village. This was geared up for
tourists as it had a moderate market selling stuff that only tourists
would buy. We headed to the local shop and bought some sweets for the
kids and they suddenly appeared from absolutely every direction you could
think of! I swear blind some of them had the ability to fly! However,
what happened next was great. They all calmly lined up and patiently
waited for us to buy the sweets. In Thailand when people great you or say
thank you they place their hands together like saying a prayer. All the
children before they put their hands out to receive a sweet all thanked us
by putting their hands together and bowing their heads. At first the
children where happy to get a sweet, but by the end of the line they were
getting a bit more choosy and asking Angela for particular ones.
We then headed towards the Chiang Dao Mountains
stopping briefly to be given a guided tour of a real Thai market. The
smells and sights were incredible, including the most enormous Jack fruit
we had ever seen and tasting the sweetest corn, cooked fresh in the
leaves.
The Chiang Dao Mountain has caves which extend into the
mountain for many kilometres featuring huge grottos and amazing rock
formations, as well as many Buddhist carvings deep within the caves.
Outside there are a couple of beautifully ornate temples and a huge pond
with some fish that tourists released which now must be the most well fed
fish in Thailand!
We had two more places left to visit before reaching
our accommodation for the night, both of which were totally non-touristic
and way off the beaten path. Sergeant Kai was in the military for twenty
years before becoming a tour operator and he must have made some good
contacts in northern Thailand. The first reason for this assumption is
that the first destination was an army camp that patrols the "no-mans
land" between Myanmar and Thailand looking for opium smugglers. The
second reason is that the second village we visited was in this no-mans
land and there was not a souvenir, or market stall, in site!
The army camp was a great laugh, firstly we were shown
the key points along the Thai/Myanmar border, and then we got to see the
drug-sniffing dogs and the pups they had just had. However, afterwards we
then sat and had a drink with them, well I had a drink with them! Angela,
Nooy and Pong steered well clear of the "whisky" they offered, although
Pong has an excuse as he was driving. They must have known that I was
daft, as I personally would describe the clear liquid I drank as a cross
between moonshine and potcheen. The first glass burnt, but the second
glass was fine, as I had lost all feeling in not only my throat and
stomach, but also my arms and legs!
The Musur village, inhabited by the Lahu people, is
called "Pah Kooy." These people have come across the Myanmar border to
live and work in Thailand. This was one of the poorest villages we had
ever seen, including some of them in Africa that we have been to. A
shortwhile before we got to the village we stopped at a market to buy some
food and sweets for the village. We spent less than a tenner, but Nooy
told us that we did not need to spend as much as we did! You worry that
you may be seen as "flash" for spending the money you have, however, when
we saw what they normally have to eat on a daily basis you really feel
like you should be doing more. The sweets we bought for the children we
let them pretty much help themselves to and although there was an initial
scramble the children then all made sure that everything had been shared
and they all had an equal amount.
We then went to visit the chief, who unfortunately was
sick, but we were invited into his home and Nooy and Pong gave his family
some of the food that they had also bought. I took some photos of the
children that had scrambled into the house with us and they were
fascinated by the fact that they could see themselves on the back of the
camera. After we thanked the chief for inviting us into his home we
walked around the village and tried as hard as we could to give everyone
some of the food we had bought. We had also bought loads of soap bars as
Nooy said they would love the smell of them, but we were more worried that
they might think they were food and try and eat them and end up throwing
them at us because they tasted so bad! The children followed us
everywhere and the chief’s daughter in particular loved playing "tag."
We really wished we had longer to stay here and do
something constructive. These guys were just getting on with life the
only way they knew how, they didn't expect anything from us, they were
just glad to see us and grateful for the little that we had given them.
You really feel helpless, grateful and selfish all at the same time when
you are put into a situation like this one. Helpless because you wish you
could do more, but aren't really sure what. Grateful that they have let
you have a glimpse at their world, but selfish that you have what you have
and the ability to do what we are doing.
That evening, as if to emphasise
the point, we stayed in a beautiful hotel on the river Tha Ton and had a
fantastic meal.
The second day we visited another hilltribe village in
the Mae Chan valley, but this was one set up for tourists and was
inhabited by three different tribes, one of which was the long neck Karen
tribe. The rings that these ladies wear around their necks weigh around
five and a half kilograms! They start wearing them at around fifteen
years old and continue to increase the number until they are twenty-five.
We then moved onto the Wat Tham Monkey Temple. Here
Pong released thousands of small shellfish, which he had bought at the
local market, into the river which is meant to release sadness from your
lives. We, meanwhile, went and bought some bananas and were soon
confronted by some big macaques that were not shy in coming forward!
One particular female macaque took a banana from Angela
and threw it on the floor and looked at Angela in disgust! Thinking it
must have been a bad one Angela gave her another one and she did exactly
the same! At this point Nooy told us that they actually prefer nuts to
bananas! As soon as we got a packet of the nuts we were swamped! It
was like being back in the village with the sweet-seeking children,
although the kids were easier to fight off! They literally chased us
around to the point that we had to just buy the nuts and throw them on the
ground, or get mugged! We wouldn't have minded, but they didn't even eat
them straight away, they stuffed as many into their cheeks as they could
before climbing the mountain to eat them away from other monkeys! There
were a couple of comedians as ever amongst the troop. One who used the
local stores fish tanks to get a drink and another who sat on the back of
a scooter holding his hand out for the monkey nuts. His cheeks were so
fat I have no idea how he didn't explode!
Our next destination was Mae Sai, the most northerly
town in Thailand and where you can cross the border into Myanmar. This
was something we didn't do as we knew we would "cross" into Myanmar on a
long-tailed speedboat later that day without having to pay the immigration
fees! We had a look around the market stalls and had lunch, before
heading off to the "Golden Triangle."
On the way to the Mae Kong River we stopped to look
round "The Hall of Opium" which is built into the side of a mountain and
shows the history of opium growing and dealing in Thailand and around the
world. The gallery of excuses was most amusing!
On our long-tailed speedboat, advertised as "James
Bond" boats due to them being used in "The Man with the Golden Gun," we
headed off to cross into two more countries without our passports being
shown to anyone! I'm getting a feeling of deja-vous here as I'm sure we
were illegal immigrants in South America as well!
Anyway we only stopped long enough to send some
postcards and have a drink, before returning to Thailand and heading to
Chiang Rai for a couple of nights. We bid farewell to Nooy and Pong and
checked into our hotel before deciding that we would venture down to the
night market. We enquired at the hotel about the cost of a taxi to the
night market which was only ten minutes in the car and were told it would
be three hundred baht! After laughing hysterically at the taxi firm and
ordering a TucTuc, at a cost of only fifty baht, we went to the night
market! The fun didn't end there, because as we were walking around, one
of the food stall owners tried to change his gas bottle and knocked the
head off it causing it to explode into the roof of his stall and send
people running for cover! After much merriment with the locals and brow
mopping we continued our quest for souvenirs for our nieces and nephew!
The following day we took another TucTuc and did a
whistle-stop tour of Chiang Rai, stopping briefly to post another parcel
home and take some photos of the statue of King Rama VI.
Our next port of call was Bangkok, although only for two nights as we were
heading to Hong Kong for the 7s. We didn't do much in the day we had in
Bangkok apart from get some laundry done and mooch around a
shopping mall. Although we did have a great meal at a little restaurant
opposite the hotel, where one of the main dishes we ordered were hot and
sour cashew nuts. They were that good we ordered a second plateful! |