This was an amazing day! I think we've pretty much conquered jet lag, we all woke up after 5:00. The breakfast here at the hotel is in a very open area, and toward the end of our meal we got a big surprise - - a mahout and his elephant joined us! The elephant was a 3 year old female named Meena. The kids got to touch it, feed it, and even ride on it! Noah was a little wary at first, but he had a great time. We spent a good 45 minutes interacting with Meena. It was so cool!
The hotel here runs an elephant camp, made up of rescued elephants. The mahouts (elephant trainers) work with the elephants, feed them, ride them, etc. There are about 30 elephants in the camp here. They are let out into the jungle in the late afternoon, and are brought back to camp in the morning. It's one of the most highly regarded elephant conservation camps in the country. The hotel guests can go and feed/see the elephants, which we did after breakfast. There were several full grown ones, and one mother with her 10-month old baby (the youngest in the camp.) It was so fun seeing, touching, and feeding her! She didn't yet have very good trunk control, so we had to put the food right in her mouth. One thing about elephants, they're not particularly clean - - our hands were pretty muddy and gross after our encounters!
Through the hotel you can actually do "mahout training" - - you basically work with the mahouts all day, helping to gather, bathe and feed the elephants, and learning to ride them by yourself. There are about 70 verbal commands and other physical commands that they understand. But the cost to be a mahout is quite expensive, so we decided to pass on that. The hotel also sets up tours into the countryside and into Laos and Burma, but again, it's extremely pricey. Fortunately Scott had found a great guide for us along with a driver. For a seven hour day of driving around in a nice large van along with a very knowledgeable guide, the cost was only about $100. And well worth it!
Jermsak, our guide, met us at 8:30 and we started off. He knows an incredible amount about the region - - I wish I'd had a tape recorder so I could remember all the things he told us. We first drove to the border of Burma (Myanmar is the official name now, but everyone calls it Burma). There's a bridge to cross into Burma. Here in Thailand they drive on the left side of the road, but in Burma they drive on the right, so halfway across the bridge everyone switches sides. Also there's a 30 minute time difference (which seems so confusing! Why not make it an hour?) We had to go through immigration and surrender our passports - - they do that so you won't go too far into the country. We were on foot, so we couldn't have gotten too far.
We walked through a typical touristy market at first, lots of Chinese imports, mostly junk. The vendors crowded around us (we were the only non-Asian people I saw there). They were selling lots of playing cards, lighters, cigarettes, and other stuff like that. But further into the market was the "real Burma." It was mostly a food market - - and you've never seen such food! All different kinds of fruit (and Thailand is one of the best places in the world for fruit!) There were live eels in a bucket and live lizards in a cage (plus a really gross dead and disemboweled one.) Also a disgusting beehive things with bee larvae (they looked like maggots) wriggling around in it. One woman had bags and bags of all different spices, another had piles of vegetables.
One woman was selling cakes of the yellow powder that women in Burma use to put on their faces - - they don't rub it in, but just smear it on their cheeks. Jermsak said it helps prevent sunburn and gives them smooth clear skin. And the people we saw did have beautiful skin. I'm sorry I can't say the same about their teeth. Many people in Burma chew betel nuts. It's a bit like chewing tobacco. The betel nut stains their teeth very dark, and combine that with a lack of dental care or good oral hygiene and you end up with some scary mouths. I was sad to see many children with rampant tooth decay.
By the end of our hike through the large market we were exhausted and hot. We headed back over the bridge into Thailand. Jermsak had bought us a bag of mangosteen fruits. They're weird red fruits with white sweet insides (considered by Thais to be the queen of fruit). They were delicious. I've had mangosteen juice in health drinks in the US, but never tasted the fruit itself.
Our next stop was a place where macau monkeys come down from the mountains to eat. I have not had great experiences with wild monkeys, but we went anyway. They're fascinating creatures - - I could have watched them play all day. There were a couple of moms with tiny babies clinging to their tummies. You could walk right among them, but we were careful not to get too close. We bought some tiny bananas to feed to them - - it was fun to see their nimble little fingers peel them. Noah and Ethan especially enjoyed our time there.
We also stopped at a really old Buddhist temple (built about 700 years ago.) This was in the ancient city of Chiang Sen. Jermask (such a fountain of information) explained some of the Buddhist tenets to us. His tribe (Hmong) are animists, which he said is full of superstitious beliefs in spirits. While at the temple we saw a funeral procession (at first we thought it was a parade) for a monk that had died. We also used a very scary bathroom. I hate the "squatty potties." But it wasn't the worst I've used, by far, and I know by now to always carry my own toilet paper on these excursions. Ethan and I also went to an opium museum. Of course this area used to be well known for the opium trade. The Thai government has worked very hard to combat the drug problem here. There are many rehab centers, as well as numerous police drug checks along the road (they leave the tourists alone though, because they want them to return. Jermsak said they know that checks will be done at the airport, so that should prevent some of the drug trafficking.) The museum was very interesting, showed the different stages of the opium plant, lots of weights (opium was used as currency for years) and the distinctive opium pipes. For the previous generations opium was considered to be a medicine, and many people got hooked without meaning to. Opium is a depressant, and makes the people who take it want to do nothing but sleep, which obviously leads to major problems. And morphine and heroin are derived from opium. Jermsak said some people still try to grow it up on the hillsides, but when the plants bloom it's impossible to hide the bright colors from police helicopters.
Next we drove to the banks of the Mekong river, which forms the border between Thailand and Laos. We put on life jackets and took a speedboat across the river. It was blazingly sunny and hot, but at least the breeze on the boat cooled us off some. On the Thai side of the river is a huge casino. There is a 3 ton Buddha there, made for the birthday of the queen a few years ago. The whole thing is covered in gold leaf. Very imposing. We went to a small Laotian market. It wasn't what you'd consider the real Laos, but it was as close as we were able to come. We had to climb some very rickety stairs to get up the bank of the river. The people were friendly, but it was sad to see all the little children holding out their hands saying "5 baht, 10 baht" (34 baht equals about a dollar). There was an old lady sitting and smoking near a couple of kids who were playing. As we approached she said something to the kids and they immediately held out their hands to beg. It's a very hard life over there. We bought a couple of souvenirs, I got a pretty stone bowl and Noah got an elephant carving. He was very excited about it. We chose to pass on the whiskey bottles with snakes in them. Yikes!
We had a short ride back to the hotel and got there around 4:00. We'd been reduced to little puddles of sweat by the time we got there. We immediately took cool showers and got ready to go down to dinner. We've been eating big breakfasts, but it's so hot that we just have a little fruit for lunch. And we haven't been able to finish any of our dinners. The hotel has a very nice Thai restaurant, and an Italian one. They also have a kids menu, so everyone is happy. We ate as much as we could and went to sleep by about 8:00 p.m.
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