Thursday, December 31st

Last night we decided to part from the Thai culture and visited a Southwestern steakhouse for burgers and an Irish Pub for Guiness and Jack Daniels. A little strange in the middle of Chiang Mai, but it was a nice break. In the Irish Pub, there was an Irish band and I started doing my Irish dancing in the back of the bar. An older Irish guy told the band and they asked the proper Irish dancer to come up front. How embarrasing.. but of course I did. :-) Then the rest of the night, people were coming up and telling me "great job". Guess there's not a lot of Westerners in Thailand (even Irish) who have taken an Irish Dancing Class.




Today was abolutely amazing - one of my favorite days thus far here. We went to an Elephant Park that was started by a woman who grew up in a village, seeing how elephants are treated for the tourist trade. 100 years ago, there were 100,000 elephants in Thailand. Today, there are only 5,000. THey were used as laborers for logging, working to kill their own habitats and many becoming severely injured or killed. The logging trade was stopped when they realized the flooding from the monsoons became worse due to logging. However, once it stopped, there were many domestiated elephants who now had no job and no ability to live in the wild. Many, of course died and many have been used for tourism. We learned that the elephants used for tourism, including city street begging are treated extremely poorly to break them of their wild nature and to try to tame them. It is dispicable to see what they villge people do to the elephants, greatly hurting them.




This woman (Lek) "rescues" elephants by buying them from people who would otherwise mistreat them (she's the one in the photo holding onto the baby). She was able to start this center by a donation from a man from Austin, TX and keeps it going by donations and people like us paying to go and visit. She has 34 elephants now that she takes care of, feeds, etc andtries to teach them to live a more natural life and give them healthcare when she rescues them, when often badly injured.




We were able to feed the elephants, pet them, walk with them and even swim with them and bathe them. They are magnificant creatures - I now understand why my Grammy loves elephants so much! They are very gentle, basically just using their strength for protection. They also very much like affection, even from humans. There were babies that just loved to play and be touchd. They even played with a soccer ball!




All of the elephants had at least one human handler (called a Mahoot) to take care of them. The people who end up doing this are chosen because an elephants develops a bond with them. It's very seet to see them together. One elephant, Hope was rescued after he was orphoned when his mother was killed. He's quite a rowdy teenager and actually has to have 2 mahoots. He also wears a bell around his neck so they always know where he is.




Another one, Nokia was blinded when she was used for logging work. She was pregnant when she was brought to do this and was working when her baby was born. She was not able to stop and take care of her baby and the baby died. She was heartbroken and started refusing to work. They were mean to her, poking her and eventually blinded her by harsh measures to force her to work. Thank God she was rescued by this wonderful woman. She is a very sweet elephant.







My favorite was Medo who had beautiful markings and perhaps one of the sweetest temperaments. She was rescued having a broken back because she was hit by a car. She doesn't look quite the same as the othes and likely experiences a lot of pain. However, she is now very well taken care of and is shown lots of love every day. The elephants adopt the new ones who come in and they travel in packs so that there are always ones who are very close to each other and take care of each other.




If you ever make it to Thailand, I strongly recommend making a visit to this wonderful place. It's a great experience and your money goes to such a good cause. You can even do overnight trips and can also volunteer there for a week or two. And of course they take donations so that they can rescue more hurt and threatened elephants.

http://www.elephantnaturepark.org

More on December 30th

We just visited a few Wats in Chiang Mai and it was so interesting! The first one we went to is the most popular in Chiang Mai. There were people, monks and even shops everywhere. There were streams of money flowing down everywhere inside - so much it wasn't easy to see things. After we walked out and around for a while, we heard singing and went back in to see. There were a bunch of monks over to he side while one was singing.

We then went to another, less popular Wat. It was made of all teak and was quite gorgeous inside and out.

We last went to a wat that used to be the tallest building in Old Chiang Mai. It's not as tall anymore, likely due to fire or war, but is still quite impresive. The active temple in frong and some around the back ha what looked like really old monks meditating, but many were in glass cases. We thought they were wax, butthey looked so real! (In talking to a friend of mine who was a monk in Thailand years ago, he explained that they believe in Buddhism that when you die during your heavy meditative state that these older monks achieve, the body does not disintegrate when they die. He said this is one of the reasons that they put them out like this. However, he is not sure if they use some sort of chemicals on the body to keep it from decaying - he said the Buddhists in the temples would not admit to doing this, but he's not sure.) On the way back around, we heard monks chanting and when we went back in, it had beentransformed from very bare to many, many monks kneeling and chanting - it was beautiful and awesome! I just loved sitting in there and hearing their beautiful voices. I can see where that could really help one to meditate. I have so many quesitons now about the Buddhist religion We tried to find a monk to talk to at a monk talk at one of the wats where you can ask them lots of questions, but were perhaps looking on a wrong day. What a great experience to even get to see this different way of life.

Wednesday, December 30th

We are leaving Mae Hong Son now after a few days here. The most shocking thing when first coming here was the single engine plane that carried around 12 of us. We were right up with the pilots. A bit freaky, but beautiful views since we didn't go very high. When landing, we saw a guy standing there with a fire extinguisher - not sure how often planes burst into flames, but I guess they want to be prepared. :S



We stayed at the Mountain Inn in Mae Hong Son an were very happy with it. It had gotten some bad reviews, but we thought it was fine. We were in a corner room on the second floor and had a nice view of the courtyard with tons of plants - it was as if we were sleeping in the trees. The place also had a lot of Thai influence in the building, style, etc. Mae Hong Son is a very beautiful place with lots of trees everywhere. There are many more Asian-styled buildings and much less English. We actually only saw a handful of other Westerners while we've been here - the tourists are mostly from Thailand. The food was different up there too - Northern Thai and much more similar to Chinese. Mae Hong Son is right by the border of Myanmar (formerly Burma) and there is a lot of Burmese influence in many things here. I have to say that the Southern Thai food is much more my style. We went on a tour on our second day that went to most of the tourist spots around. It was a guy drving Scott, myself and a Japanese girl all around. I think Scott and I were the only English speakers, so it wasn't much of a tour, as it was a shuttle service to different spots. It was a quiet day, due to this.







We first went to a very beautiful park. There's a small cave where fresh water flows out, feeding the fish that live there. These types of fish (a type of carp) only live in this region. There was a Hindu statue set up, which is supposed to protect the fish. We then went to a waterfall, which was also part of the park. They said that this is the dry season, and it's apparently like a white wash in the rainy season.











We next went to the tow of Ban Rak Thai, which was established by Yunnanese KMT fighters who fled communist rule in 1949. The town is very Chinese, in which Chinese is written almost everywhere - along with Thai with almost no English. Their main industry is tea and you can walk around tasting different teas and purchasing. It seemed like they may have been charging Americans higher prices, but it's hard to do anything about it. We'll have some yumy tea to take home with us now!



We next went to a mud spa and had mud masksput on our faces and soaked our feet in a hot water bath. It made our skin very soft, which was nice. Again, I think we were the only Westerners. Oh, at the fish cave, a Thai couple came up to me and asked me to be in a picture with them. I think maybe they had never seen anyone so white before - too funny!





Next, we went to a refugee camp of people who had to flee Myanmar. We were not initially interested in going here, but the Japanese girl we were with wanted to go. The women are calld long-necks and in fact, all over Mae Hong Son, there are statues and tourists things you can buy with these long-neck women on them. It's very strange to pay to get into a refugee campe and then just look at the people and their homes. THey did have souvenirs they were selling, which is likely how they make their living. Theh women wear heavy brass rings to push down around their collarbones and make their necks appear very long and stretched. It's speculated that this tradition was actually dying out, then then with the money from tourism, the government keeps it going - quite sad that they do this for tourist dollars only.











Lastly we went to a Wat (temple) up on a hill that looks down onto the city. There were beautiful views and statues and best of all, we din't have to walk up 1200 steps! The whole tour was a little strange because we were just trying to figure out things on our own - the tour guide was really just a driver and crazy driver he was around mountain roads! We did see many farms and farmers with the typical Asian hats you think of from Vietnam in rice fields. Pretty cool to see. Yesterday, we slept in and had a very lazy day, which was nice. We did go to two Wats in town, which were beautiful. We just become more and more confused by, but interested in the Buddhist religion. I'm not sure what I'm saying in the picture with the Thai wording around me, but it's something to the gist of driving around 1800 turns. Pai is a city that has become very popular and touristy (we didn't go there) and between Pai and Mae Hong Son there are that many curves to go around. We took the sketchy flight instead.








We also went to the Wat in town. This is probably one of the most photographed places in Mae Hong Son and is absolutely beautiful right on the water. Something we began to notice is that women are not allowed in certain parts of the temples. I, of course complied.








At night, the wats are lit up and look so beautiful against the water in the lake right next to them. After dinner, we went over and bought a thing where a long-burning cancle is lit and sent up into the sky in very thin paper (like a lantern). We've seen them all over since Chiang Mai and find them very beautiful. The first time we saw them, I was wondering why there was fire in the sky. Scott thought they were just planes, but I was convinced if so, the planes would be on fire. Then, the first night in Mae Hong Son, ther were a bunch let off from the Wat up on the hill. A picture can't really describe how beautiful they are - you'd just have to come and see it. When I asked what they represented, I was told that it's supposed to bring good luck. We've love to do this in the US, but think the FAA may have some issues with it. Now we're about to get back on this tiny plane again (if you take a cheaper airline in Thailand, this is what you get!) Fingers crossed!



Okay, these last two pictures are just to tell interesting stories. Scott and I were having lunch at a place in Mae Hong Son and there was a dog that belonged to the owner of the restaurant. It kept going out into the middle of the street and just lying down and watching traffic go all around it. It was crazy and the dog was not at all phased by all the cars! We thought he must just be very intelligent to choose the one space in the middle where cars never went.
The picture of the king is to show you just one example of thousands that are all over the country. The people of Thailand really look up to their king and every place you go, whether a hotel, restaurant, bank, home, tuk tuk etc. you always see a picture of the king. Additionally, when driving around you see huge pictures like this all over the country. One reason he's so well respected and known is that he's ben king longer than any living king today. His primary purpose is to help keep the Buddhist religion alive in the country. And since 95% of the population is Buddhist, they have every reason to love him! He also has done a lot to help less fortunate people, etc- we heard great things about him.