Chiang Dao, continued #2
Back in Bangkok.
So, after Tuesday’s delectable dinner we went to bed in our bungalow, resting up for the next day’s tour.
Wednesday
In the morning, breakfast was served – eggs and bacon and so forth. At about 10 am, the two of us hopped in a truck with a European couple and a tour guide. First stop: elephants. The driver took us about 45 minutes into the mountainous forests outside Chiang Dao. On the way, the guide chattered about the various crops people grow in the area (rice, corn, etc.), the trees (teak, rubber, etc.), ecological concerns, and the local mythology of the hill-tribe villagers. I think I understood about half of what he was saying.
We disembarked next to a wooden staircase… to nowhere. About 15 minutes later, two enormous elephants came trundling down a path, driven by two little wirey fellows, each sitting comfortably directly on top of each beasts head. They screamed instructions (go, stop), nudging the animals behind their ears with their bare feet to indicate the direction they wanted them to go. Each pair of tourists climbed the empty staircase to jump into a little bench balanced on a kind of elephant saddle and away we went. “Away we went” has a connotation of speed, with breeze in our hair. The reality was that each elephant seemed inclined to move at their own pace – a ponderous step or so every few seconds, interrupted by as much time as they could negotiate in each shady spot along the trail. The sun was brutally hot. The benches were tiny. At some points on this mountain trail, the elephants were expected to navigate a slanted hairpin turn only a few feet wide, with a steep drop-off to one side. Greg and I commenced strategizing the best way to jump off a falling elephant in such a way that it does not land on us.
Another lovely feature of riding elephants: every minute or two, the elephant expectorates with a loud gurgle and sprays what I can only assume is a water-based liquid on one or both of his ears (presumably to keep cool without sweating). An unfortunate side effect of this process is that any and all riders are thourougly soaked in his elephant phlegm.
After about 90 minutes of beautiful scenery, that healthy bit of nervous fear, and constant attempts to avoid ingesting too much nose-water, we arrived at a small “hill-tribe” village. We rewarded our mount with a few bunches of bananas (he seemed genuinely excited about it – we have pictures I’ll show you all soon).
Next on the itinerary was a “trek” through the forest to another few villages. All of the villages we visisted were similar in a few ways: their houses were simple wooden structures on stilts, the women and girls surrounded us at every opportunity ,hoping to sell us some handicrafts for a few pennies, and there was some kind of Christian mission. In one village, we encountered a little white girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old, squatting beneath a hut in plain clothes, peering at a chicken. The missions were all engaged in various public works projects: water pipes, building schools, etc.
The trek itself was difficult – we were all at the end of our water bottles and drenched in sweat (on top of the elephant phlegm). As the Lonely Planet quips at some point, “if everything starts to inexplicably suck, you are dehydrated.” That about sums up the trek.
After we made it through the forest and rice fields, then a short bagged lunch, we were carried to the third and final stop – a bamboo raft down a river. It was a pleasant ride – our navigator was a 19-year-old university-bound student working a summer job – but like everything on the tour, just a tad unpleasant. Still, completely worth the boiling sun to see the countryside pass by our raft at a leisurely pace, children swimming and hitching a ride for short streches.
We rested, showered off the muck and grime of the day, had an afternoon beer back at the hotel, then sat down for a Thai dinner. The star of the night was a northern Thai dish – slow-cooked buffalo in a dark, salty broth, served in a heated clay pot. Amazing.
Thursday
The next morning, we checked out and hiked up to the Chiang Dao caves – a deep system of caves near town. The legend of the caves is a that a hermit lived inside for a thousand years. There are many buddha images in the front chambers, but the real experience is going with a guide carrying a gas lantern down into the depths… It was the spookiest thing I’ve ever done. Around our feet scrambled spiders the size of your hand, above our heads flew hundreds of bats, one chasm was 70 meters deep, and the darkness was intense – broken only by a tiny gas flame. We walked 800 meters into the dark maze, sometimes crawling on our bellies to get from one chamber to the next. Not for the faint of heart, or anyone with even an ounce of claustrophobia.
Instead of a bus back to Chiang Mai, we opted for a more expensive back-of-truck ride ($20 for the 80-mile ride instead of $0.50 for the bus). A little more time picking up things at the night market, then we collapsed in our suite, nearing the end of our energy.
Friday
This morning, we made our way to the Chiang Mai airport for a short flight to Bangkok. Tomorrow I think we’ll stop by the Jim Thompson house, and maybe a massage in preparation for my 24-hour trip home.
Greg gave me the several hundred photos of our trip on a memorty stick, so I’ll be posting those before the end of this weekend – stay tuned for that.
