A Day Overflowing with Blessings!

Happy Thanksgiving dear friends and family!  What a day of wonder we've had.  We arranged with the lovely ladies who run our hotel to hire a car and driver for the day to take us to the Maesa Elephant Park, the Queen Sikrit Botanical Garden, and to dinner at Duke's in the shopping mall.

A quick word about elephant parks in Northern Thailand - they're only slightly less controversial than the Tiger Temple in Khanchanburi.  We relied on our travel gurus, Paul and Debbie, for a recommendation and they said:  Maesa.  No question, this is the one to see and they were absolutely spot on!  We didn't want to become mahouts, gambol in a muddy river washing elephants, or mortgage our house to do this . . . this was the perfect choice.

For openers, each mahout has an elephant - for life.  They take them home at night and are totally responsible for their care and feeding.  There is a full-time vet on staff and we saw nothing that made us uncomfortable or uneasy - they all looked well-loved and well-fed (the elephants that is).

We'd planned to get there for the 8 a.m. 'show' but were a few minutes late and to had to rearrange our personal program and take the ride first.  That turned out to be a fortuitous turn as there were very few people 'riding' and we had the trail to ourselves.  Our elephant, Mai San, was an 18yo female and her mahout was Nichan (my spelling is creative here).  We actually rode in a howdah!  Not bareback

, ala India.  View from the howdah.

We get to the top of this long hill, and Nichan hops down - with the help of Mai San's trunk - and says, 'See you later!'  Then he asks me to hand him my camera and voila!

Everyone knows that an elephant without a raised trunk, well, you don't want that . . . neither do we.

Nichan figured out how to use the telephoto feature for a great close-up!

The trail through the dense jungle was beautiful and uncrowded.

This pair really touched me . . . they are eating specially chopped-up greens.  They're old and their teeth are so bad they can only 'gum' their food.  Mistreated - I don't think so!  They're good pals and are inseparable.

Back at the riding station, we bid goodbye to Mai San and Nichan.  What a lovely experience!

Off to the baby elephant area.

Babies stay with their mothers until age 2 when they start training.  Bananas are always welcome!

The tenderness between mother and baby is evident . . .

The early part of that training is becoming familiar with and comfortable around humans, lots of them.  Comfortable includes 'kissing' tourists . . . felt like a giant, hairy vacuum cleaner hose!!

'I think you should have a hat on and I'm going to put it on!'

'I think it's too big - ha ha ha!'

'Oh, I like this game!'

Don't ask . . .

Time for the 'show' . . . no idea what to expect but we've been very impressed so far and have read that the 'show' activities are stimulating for the elephants.  Ok, Ok, maybe stimulation is not what we need right now (I have no idea how Tim got this photo!)

The stands are packed for the show and this pair gets to lift off the sign and carry it around the arena on their tusks.

The mahouts demonstrate how the get on and off their elephant.

This is all done with voice commands which were so quiet we didn't hear them - and we were in the front row of one of the stands.

Who knew elephants love music and love to dance!  This youngster was a hoot - he 'danced' all the way out of the arena!  The crowd loved him.

An exercise in trust - the elephant places his foot just over the back of the fellow on the ground, never touching him.

And there was some soccer/football . . . with an elephant-sized ball!

I'm skipping over some of the 'athletic' events because the thing that left both of us gob-smacked was the painting.  The mahouts set up an easel for each of four elephants who carried their own paint/brush container.  As soon as the paper was placed on the easel, the elephant began to paint.  It was hard to see much at a distance, but there was no 'faking it' - these elephants were painting!  We watched them,   Honestly, they each should have had a beret on!!  They would take the brush in their trunk, make a stroke and then stand back and assess what they'd done!  Now here's the amazing part - the paintings in the photos shown below were all done by the elephants in this 'show' in less than 20" - 20"!!

They were all priced and I think the most expensive one was a grand 4000 baht - $130 or so.  There were some in the gift shop for as little as $15!  I couldn't take photos inside the gift shop but did manage to get one from the outside.

The painting to the right was done by an elephant artist and that mural on the back wall was a collaborative effort - the title of the mural is 'Chill winds, still valley, early morning' A group of elephants did this!!!

We were both struck by the Japanese-influence, both in composition and brush strokes.  Well, surprise, surprise, a Japanese brush painter was brought in to help the owners develop this program.  In 2000, a group of artists/businessmen from NY came to Thailand to 'develop' an elephant painting program.  Apparently, they went to every elephant camp (and there are a lot of them) except Maesa.  No explanation as to why they left this camp out.  So Maesa decided to try their hand at developing a program of their own and the rest, as they say, is history.  It's worth a visit to their web site to check out these works of art.

Colin has told us that Thai has no grammar and no verb tense.  This sweet sign is testimony to that and what we felt here today.

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Just a few km up the road is Queen Sikrit's Botanical Garden which appears on a few lists of things to see in and around Chiang Mai.  The Cat Cafe (complete with 17+ cats wandering around the eating area) was in the Top 10 but we decided to pass on that . . .

 The Glass House of the Gardens which was all cacti!!  It had the most amazing array and described them as the 'dinosaurs of the plant kingdom', many specimens having been around since that era.

Just down the hill was a series of greenhouses, each containing one variety of plants.  One was 'Carnivorous plants' another was all bromeliads and yet another was all orchids!

Some of the carnivorous plants . . . 

 Unfortunately, almost all the text was in Thai!

These reminded both of us of condoms!

 The biggest leaf we've ever seen!

This was one orchid plant!

 And yet another . . .

 One greenhouse was all water lilies . . .

The orchids up close . . .

 And the cacti in the Glass House.

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And last but most definitely not least in this day of wonders, our Thanksgiving dinner!

All the trimmings but not a candied yam in sight!!  I guess they don't get marshmallows in Thailand!!

We brought home two enormous 'goodie bags' which are tonight's dinner.

We wish you all a very 'Happy Thank Giving'!

Tomorrow we're off to Cambodia with Siem Reap/Angkor Wat our first stop.  Planning to wear a lot of clothes to be sure we're under the 7kg carry-on weight limit on Asia Air!!

The Warorot Market and a Search for Turkey Dinner

It's almost Thanksgiving, and we're feeling nostalgic for the table full of long-familiar, once-a-year foods, followed by football games . . . a quick search reveals a couple of places here in CM that actually serve Thanksgiving dinner!  Are there a lot of ex-pat Americans here or what??

Decide to check out Dukes's which appears to be the most authentic menu-wise, and head out of the old city to the banks of the Ping River for the local Duke's.  Alas, of the 4 available seatings, the only one left is 8:30 at night - way too late for these two.  On our return walk, we detour through the Warorot Market which Colin and Winnie have told us is 'the' market for locals.  And it is!!  Reminds us of the gigantic indoor market in Merida, Yucatan . . .

The flower vendors are right on the street - block after block of them.

Aisle, upon aisle of food, clothes, take-away . . . 

And the ever-present stuff on a stick . . . 

We haven't found a place for dinner tomorrow but we sure are hungry after this walk-about!

Back home, we learn that Duke's has a second location - an upscale shopping center (no reservations necessary) so we'll give that a try tomorrow.  But first on the schedule tomorrow, our last excursion in Thailand . . . 

The Pink Blouse does the White Temple, the Giraffe-Neck Women, the Golden Triangle, and Almost Goes to Myanmar

I keep saying I have to retire this pink blouse but I think it has a few more adventures in it . . . today was certainly one of those!  Jake has invited us to go with him on this all-day tour which will take us to the northern-most part of Thailand with several stops along the way.  So at 7 a.m. we're waiting outside our hotel for the van.  I am so grateful we were the first of 12 passengers as we got to sit right behind the driver and guide, and I got to sit in the middle.  (Colin had warned us that it was a carsick-inducing ride up the mountains and he was spot on!).

First stop, the hot springs.  The parking lot reeks of sulfur and we're told we can 'soak our feet' and 'take a shower' - huh?  With 14 of us (including driver and guide) in the van, sulfur would not be my choice of air freshener.  We opt for coffee (wretched) and Jake bargains with a bracelet seller and ends up with adorned wrists!

On to the White Temple.  Think Walt Disney meets a demented wedding cake designer who's had way too much espresso and suffers from delusions of religious grandeur and has had really bad dreams of dragons for years . . .

Actually, the pink is a lovely counterpoint to all this white!

And there is one golden structure - a temple?

and what I can only describe as silver ornament tree/shrub things.  A picture of one . . .

Each one of these wee dangle things is an ornament (a couple will adorn our tree in 2016).  View from underneath . . . when I look at this now I'm thinking bats!

Tim and Jake checking out the grounds . . .

This was one decorated tree I really didn't get . . .

Next stop the Karen Hill Tribe village. . . a wee bit of history about the hill tribes of No Thailand.  There are approximately 30 distinct tribes, each with their own language, customs, religious rites, etc. and a good many of them are refugees from neighboring countries like Myanmar.  To their credit, the Thai government is doing the best they can to offer them sanctuary, including putting places like this on the tourist circuit.

But their persecution long predates the unrest in Myanmar, and, in fact, the US military has a particularly poignant chapter in their story.  The Hmong, one of the hill tribes, lived in Laos (which we're very close to at this point on today's tour) and parts of Vietnam and cooperated with the US against the Viet Cong in the 60's and 70's.  Once the US left SEA, the Hmong were considered enemies of the Vietnamese government and applied for political asylum in the US.  Here comes the remarkable part of this history lesson - it wasn't until George W. that they were granted asylum and approximately 250,000 came to the US!!  Most of them settled in Sacramento, thanks to the efforts of then-Governor Schwarzenegger.  The rest went to a lot of cold places in MN and SD.  Amazing!

Here's the actual village area (don't know why this is coming up so dark) and following is the tourist plaza.

We've heard that Thai tourism had failed off but this is so sad . . .

Our perpetual consumer, Jake, is doing his best to bolster the local economy!  I'm beginning to think he's got a bracelet fetish :)

No, you can't wear a brass neck collar Jake!

About these collars - they are solid brass and weigh a ton!  At age 5, every Karen tribe girl has a collar put on (your basic 5-ring starter kit)  and one ring added each year until she reaches puberty.

This is incomprehensible to me - it almost never comes off!  I read a posted monograph by a Belgian orthopedist who spoke the tribe's language.  Here's roughly what he wrote:  the collar does not elongate the neck, it makes the shoulder muscles collapse (he had a photo of a young woman who had the collar removed and then one 6 months or so later which showed the (slight) rise of her shoulders. )  But most remarkably, it changes the structure of the rib cage.  He took x-rays of 'collared' rib cages and the ribs had moved downward and grown at an angle.  They appeared to have an added growth where the ribs attach to the spinal column, allowing the ribs to slope downward.

The Karen women are famed for their weaving . . .

I couldn't find an explanation for the brass rings around the upper calves . . .

There's another group living in this village - I think they're called the Nayah.  They've skipped the brass neck collar and gone for big earlobes . . . really, really big earlobes!

Two pink blouses across cultures!

This photo won't show what we were seeing . . . this young woman was texting while weaving!!  She slipped the phone off to the side when she saw us approaching.

Our tour guide didn't have a satisfying explanation why/how this brass collar thing got started . . . all you mothers reading this, can you imagine yourself agreeing to be the first one to offer up your baby girl to the brass collar experiment??  I couldn't figure out how the first Mayan mother was persuaded to have her baby's head put in a wooden vise to make it long and pointy!!

Anyway, I leave you with these photos of the village . . .

Next stop - The Golden Triangle.  This is actually an island, in the Mekong River, between the Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, and it's a no-man's land.  It's not a part of any nation and was a haven, until recently?, for drug smugglers who didn't use any currency except gold, hence the name (and the island is shaped like a triangle)!

You can just make out the island in the enlarged inset on the lower left.  And the red in the big map is China!

A number of people on our tour opt for the one-hour boat ride on the Mekong and a stop at the island.  We take the time for a wander around the GT tourist area.

And, finally, we almost get to Myanmar.  Our last stop is the customs house on the border between Thailand and Myanmar.  The ornate arcade says it all!

We try, unsuccessfully, to make our way across the bridge and set foot in Myanmar . . .

We have to satisfy ourselves with a walk through the stalls at the customs house and are stopped in our tracks by this display . . .

Yes, these are avocados!!  Definitely the biggest we've ever seen.

We head home - a 4-hour drive back to Chiang Mai with, mercifully, a potty and snack stop at - are you ready? - a 7-11!!  Thailand is full of them and we are very grateful.  Tomorrow will definitely be a kick-back day for us.  Jake is headed to Hanoi and a couple of weeks in Vietnam.   We say goodbye at 11 pm and are grateful for having had such a delightful 'playmate' in Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand - happy travels, Jake!