Toward the end of my time living in
Thailand my parents called and invited themselves to visit during my mom’s
Spring Break. I finished my contract at
the end of March, but ended up staying a few weeks in April waiting for
them. The first week two of my friends
from Thailand and I went on a trip to Koh Chang and just relaxed the entire
time. The second week I was alone, but
it was nice to have some extra time.
The third week they arrived. They got in late Saturday night, so clearly I
took them out early Sunday morning to adventure around Bangkok. Our first stop was the only essential stop in
Bangkok: the Grand Palace. The day was
extremely hot, as tends to happen in Bangkok, particularly during the hot, wet
season (clearly). The palace was, as
usual, spectacular. I’ve written about
it previously. Mom and Dad were both
duly impressed. That evening I took them
out to eat at one of my favorite sit-down restaurants in Bangkok, called
Cabbages and Condoms. The restaurant is
a charity to help spread awareness about STDs like AIDS and protection to sex
workers. Apparently Thailand has an
extremely high AIDS rate, and the restaurant’s owners are trying to help cut it
down. Not only is it a noble cause, but
also the food is great. I always get the
Masuman Curry because DELICIOUS.
Late that night we jumped on an
overnight train to Chiang Mai, a jungle city up in the north of the
country. The train takes fourteen hours,
so taking it overnight is the best call.
My mom complained a lot about sleeping on the train, and even my dad
admitted that it was difficult for people their age. However, for someone young it worked pretty
well. I slept decently, all things
considered. The train there had compartments
with four beds, bunk style, the bottom bunks of which we used as couches to
play cards with the fourth person in our room, a British guy traveling to meet
his girlfriend. Later on we fell asleep
(at least I did, though they both had a harder time) and when we woke up we
were almost to Chiang Mai. We climbed
down and ate breakfast, and when we were done we had arrived.
My parents had booked a hotel in Chiang
Mai, which I am trying to remember and am drawing a blank on. Not just the name, but also literally
anything about the place except that it was pretty nice. Anyway, first thing I booked a tour to go
elephant trekking. We didn’t have a lot
of time in Chiang Mai (only a week in the country and I wanted to take them to
at least one beach as well) so I wanted to make sure we got the important stuff
taken care of. That afternoon we
adventured about and went to the Chiang Mai Zoo, where I had never been. They had pandas, which I hate but have to
admit were pretty cool. Side note:
people may be asking, “How can you hate a panda?” Easily.
I can quite easily hate a panda.
They are carnivores that are too lazy to hunt and opt instead to eat
only one plant whose nutritional value is such that they have to eat it all day
to survive, to the extent that the planet is running out of that plant. In addition, they refuse to propagate their
own species. If they weren’t cute we
would have let them die a long time ago.
Get it together or get lost dudes, seriously. The cooler part of the zoo (for me) was that
we got to feed the giraffes. At my local
zoo in Portland the giraffes are down low and you view them from above, much
higher than they can reach. At the
Chiang Mai zoo you stand on ground level with them, with just a small but deep
moat between them and the chest-high fence.
They would lean over the fence and you could feed them bananas by
hand. Their tongues are black. Black, you guys.
The elephant tour was the next
day. We stopped first at an orchid
garden and butterfly farm, which had pretty flowers and a cool gift shop, but
was otherwise skip-able. If it weren’t
part of the tour we would have left a lot sooner. Then we went straight to the elephant
place. We went through Jumbo Trekkers
because I had used them before, they are the most affordable, and the extra
activities after riding elephants were good.
The place I went this time was different than the place I had gone in
the past.
The first time I went was with my
roommate, and we had a great time, until the end when a truck came rumbling up
the elephant path and backfired, scaring the shit out of my young male
elephant. He ran (in so much as
elephants can run, which is to say he lightly jogged) down the hill and then
tried (repeatedly) to scrape me off on a tree, finally rearing into the air
when I remained on his back (it was too far to jump or I would have obliged
him). Then when we went to bathe him he
slammed his trunk into our guide, throwing him about five feet against the
riverbank. Still, they took him away and
we washed my roommate’s elephant, and spent time with her because she was
mellower, and all in all it was a good experience. It’s not their fault my elephant got mad.
This time was even better. We had two elephants to split between the
three of us, and we learned all the commands to tell them how to go forward,
backward, stop, and turn. We also
learned how to tell them we had food for them.
Then we rode them through the forest, giving them commands on our own
while our guides took photos of us with our cameras and with their own. Along the path a man from a nearby village
tossed me a bag of chopped up pineapple rinds to feed my elephant, and she
really liked them. The path ended at the
river where we climbing in and washed them off, the elephants occasionally
showering us with their trunks. We rode
back to the start and ate a homemade lunch prepared for us by the staff. There was good curry and sweet and sour
chicken, which is a favorite of mine (the way Thais do it). It was a great morning.
Next we went white water rafting down a
river, which was entertaining. The
rapids weren’t very intense and large portions of the river were mostly just
floating, but it was nice. At the end we
got out of the boats and onto a bamboo raft, where a man took us down the now
calm river using a long pole, gondola style.
It was relaxing and easy. At the
end was a little shop where we bought bottles of water and popsicles to help us
cool down.
For the end of our trip we hiked up
into the jungle. It was just a young
couple, our guide, and us. As we hiked
my mom and the guide talked about the local flora, much of which mom grows here
at home, only in pots. The hike wasn’t
too long, and it ended at a small waterfall that fed a pool, with a stream
trickling gently out the other side. We
stripped down to our swim gear and climbed into the refreshingly cold mountain
water. It was a great way to end the
tour.
We only had one more day in Chiang Mai,
so we looked up different things we wanted to see. We went to the Chiang Mai palace, which
wasn’t that impressive, and through much of the old Chiang Mai. Then we decided to go to the Tiger Kingdom.
I’ve done tigers in Thailand before and
it was depressing, so I wasn’t very excited about this part of the trip, but I
was willing to keep an open mind. The
Tiger Temple I’d gone to in the past was a Buddhist temple turned tourist trap
where the tigers were obviously drugged to the point of lethargy. Their excuse was that cats sleep most of the
day, but even my housecat would react if I slapped her in the face to wake her
up (which I saw them do to one tiger, which barely reacted).
This place was different. It was set up as a place for tourists to go,
and planned accordingly. All the tigers
there had been raised by hand from the time they were cubs, and were extremely
accustomed to people because of it. Some
websites claim these tigers are also drugged, but it didn’t seem that way to
me. My mom and I both went to play with
the baby tigers, and one of them was extremely playful with my mom. However, the moment he got too physical one
of the workers jumped in and calmed him down, saying it helped keep them more
docile and better trained when they were older.
We fed them with a bottle, and played with babies ranging in age from
three months to eight months. After that
they are moved to another area with tigers their own age and size. Then my mom went to the big tigers. I didn’t have enough money, so I just watched
her. It was her, the tigers, and about
five guys taking pictures and keeping an eye on the tigers. With one of the large males my mom started to
rub his belly, because the guide said his fur might be less coarse there. The tiger immediately rolled over onto his
back in ecstasy, pinning my mom’s legs to the ground. But he was happy, so she was happy. It was great.
On our way back into the city we
stopped at an area where you can visit local tribes. This was another example of a place that had
once perhaps been real, but had turned into a tourist trap. It was interesting to see all the different
clothing worn by the different tribes, and the women who wore rings around
their necks, wrists, and ankles to make them longer and thinner were
interesting. However, the entire way up the
women were sitting on their front porches, which they had turned into
shops. There were all sorts of trinkets
you could buy. My mom loved it, but we
were out of cash so we couldn’t buy anything.
It also just seemed a little awkward, going to gawk at these women and
then giving them money and taking little things we didn’t need just to make
ourselves feel better about it. I didn’t
enjoy it.
We took the train back to Bangkok that
night, and this time the set-up was different.
It was more like a regular train car, with seats that converted into
full-blown beds at night. I liked it,
but not as much as having a compartment.
My parents didn’t appreciate it at all.
The next morning we got up early and
hustled across town to catch a mini-bus to a ferry so we could go to Koh
Samet. Koh Samet is a little bit lesser-known
island that near Bangkok, only a three hour bus and a short ferry ride
away. There isn’t much to do on the
island, so it’s often frequented more by locals and English teachers than
tourists, though some do go. The beaches
are all white sand, with hotel restaurants right there on the beach. Our hotel wasn’t the nicest by my parents’
standards, but I was fine with it. We
went in the ocean and applied sunscreen a thousand times and still got burned
and the water was too warm so it wasn’t refreshing but it was still fun. Did you like that run on? I did.
We ate good food and watched a fire show on the beach, then slept in
late, took a quick dip in the morning, changed, and took a speedboat back to
the bus to Bangkok. When going to Koh
Samet one small pointer: take the speedboat, not the ferry. The ferry is very, very slow and there is no
regular schedule, they just wait until it is completely full of goods and
people. There is no fresh water on the
island so they have to bring it in from the mainland, and they take a while to
fill the boat. The one time I took the
ferry I had to wait over an hour before it was full enough to leave. Just take a speedboat for like, $10 more.
We got back to my
apartment that night and crashed, then they woke up early and flew home. I finished packing and flew back the next
day. It was a great, though admittedly
hectic, trip. I just figured that with
only a week it was better to be exhausted and do a lot than to sleep the time
away and only see a few things.
I’d rather be busy
than boring.
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