The Lizza Blog

Thursday, May 7, 2009

At the beach!

We are in Phuket and our hotel is awesome. We'll put up some pictures later, but since we have no internet in the room, don't expect much out of us over the next few days.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Yesterday we woke up bright and early, again before dawn, to get ready and have breakfast before the guide from the Elephant Nature Foundation picked us up for our day at the park. Around 7:30am, a Thai who introduced himself as "Brad" arrived to collect us. We were sort of expecting another truck with bench seats in the bed but he was in a nice van, and most importantly, an air-conditioned van. We drove into the city of Chiang Mai and picked up seven more passengers - three Aussies, two Brits, a young Thai girl and another girl (not sure where she was from). We started our 1.5 hour journey towards the mountains of northern Thailand. Brad then began talking to the group to explain a little about himself and the Foundation. He began by saying, "I am Brad... Pitt. I am a legend." We immediately knew he would be good entertainment for the day. We actually never found out what his real name is, but he said it means "mammoth" in English. He's from the "hilltribe" in northern Thailand, and grew up in a village that borders both Burma and Laos, and so the area is called the "Golden Triangle". It's a small village of 145 people.

Our Asian Brad Pitt:

Brad then put in a DVD (yes, there was even a drop down TV screen in this van!) to give us an introduction to the Foundation's cause. We learned about the sad fate that many elephants have as they are trained to do shows for tourists or to be working elephants (working in the logging industry or as trekking elephants, etc). Many are beaten severely while in training in order to break their spirits and make them submissive to their masters, or mahouts. Then if they refuse to work at some point in their lives, they are beaten very badly and oftentimes blinded or killed by their masters. Some of the stories we heard were incredibly sad.

The Foundation rescues these elephants by purchasing them from their masters and taking them to their park, which is a huge natural area where the elephants can roam free and just be elephants. They receive veterinary care and each elephant here has a mahout too, though these mahouts are kind and use a positive re-enforcement system rather than negative tactics to acclimate the elephants to their new lifestyle.

Once we were close to the park, the main road we had been driving along was closed for paving, so we veered down a dirt path. Apparently it had rained quite a bit recently and the path had turned to mud - so we ended up muddin', Thai style. After a few times trying, we finally got past a curve/mud pit and saw an SUV stuck in the mud ahead of us, so we had to turn around and go back the way we came. We ended up moving the barrier (several tree branches) on the street that was being paved and drove down it anyway. There were several people working on the road, but the pavement was actually dry so it wasn't a problem to drive down it.

Once inside the park, we were given a safety lesson (things like "don't approach an elephant if her mahout isn't nearby"), and then we ventured out to see the baby elephant who was born in the park just two weeks ago. She was so small and cute and she didn't know how to use her trunk yet to suck up water, so she stuck her whole head in the bucket to drink.

Baby elephant:

Then it was lunch time for the elephants, so the mahouts called them to a platform, where we fed them whole bunches of bananas at once:

We then took the elephants down to the river to help bathe them. I rolled up my shorts and got in the river with a bucket and a scrub brush, while Jeremy stood on the shore to photograph the scene:

We then ate a good buffet-style Thai lunch, watched a documentary about the Foundation, then fed the elephants a snack (more bananas), bathed them again, then headed back to our hotel.

More elephant pictures:

Brad asked us a couple of "trivia" questions:

1. Why do elephants trumpet with their trunks?

...

Because it's too hard to learn to play the piano.

2a. Why do ducks have webbed feet?

...

To put out forest fires.

2b. Why do elephants have flat feet?

...

To put out burning ducks.

BA DUM CHA!

We would have loved to spend more time with Brad, but alas, today we must move on from Chiang Mai and head down to the beach at Phuket!!!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Chiang Mai

We flew into Chiang Mai last night on a jet that sat 146 passengers, but there were only about 30 on board. Peter, the owner of Secret Garden, picked us up a few minutes after we landed and we were on our way to the hotel in his 2-door red BMW. Secret Garden is a beautiful place a little ways out from the hustle and bustle of the city. The grounds consist of 6 guest bungalows and the family's home, a community dining area, open-air kitchen/bar, and swimming pool. It's run by Peter (a German ex-pat), his wife Pai (born and raised in Chiang Mai), and their 16 year-old daughter, Isabel. The family is so nice and gracious, and extremely accommodating to their guests. They have community breakfasts and dinners here (similar to a bed & breakfast), so Jeremy and I joined in on the dinner last night. We had my favorite Thai meal - coconut soup and green curry, with crepes for dessert! The coconut soup was *really* spicy and had the back of my throat burning, but it was delicious, as was the rest of the meal. Peter had American blues music playing and later put on a BB King DVD for everyone. We were pretty tired and went back to our room around 9:30 to conk out. We woke up before sunrise this morning, rested a little longer, then ate Peter's homemade breakfast with the group.

Photos of Secret Garden:

The community dining area:

The kitchen in our bungalow:

A fountain in the garden:

Some very vocal birds in a cage beside the pond:

After breakfast, we went to the front of the property to wait for the people from the elephant rescue park to pick us up. Jeremy was really concerned that they wouldn't be able to find Secret Garden and as we waited, I thought he looked a bit like a kid waiting for the schoolbus:

We waited for about 30 minutes before it occured to Jeremy that maybe we didn't have the reservations until tomorrow... and he was right. So we turned around and headed back to figure out a new plan for the day. After talking to an Australian couple who has been here for a few days, we decided to venture into the city of Chiang Mai. Peter drove us to the "bus" stop and explained how to go the rest of the way. We hopped on the "bus", which was actually a pick-up truck with bench-style seats in the back, and rode into the city. We walked around the markets, temples, restaurants, and stores for about 5 hours in some pretty brutal heat, and talked to a few more natives (we came to the conclusion that they just want to speak English with someone). We had a really tasty lunch at a Thai restaurant for about $7 total - we each had a giant beer, I had the chicken coconut curry, and Jeremy had the chicken in a basil sauce. It was delicious! We saw lots of neat things to buy today but didn't manage to make any purchases. Maybe another day.

Here are some photos of things we saw today:

Proof that I'm in Thailand:

Three Kings Statue:

Front of a Buddhist temple:

Another Buddhist temple:

Monday, May 4, 2009

Bangkok

Hello from Bangkok!

We stayed at the Hilton last night (for *free* thanks to the Hilton points I racked up at my last job!), which is on the west side of the river that runs through the enormous city of Bangkok. We woke up at 6:00 this morning and got on the boat taxi to get to the other side of the river. The boat driver was really friendly and let Jeremy drive the boat!

On the other side of the river, there was a little market with several food stalls. We both had an awesome iced mocha (we noticed that the barista added sweetened condensed milk to it instead of sugar... something to think about) and then we bought some little fried dough balls with bean paste in the middle. We recognized them because we get them from a Thai restaurant in Atlanta. They were really tasty and only 10 Thai Baht for 5 of them, which is equivalent to about $0.30.

We then took the subway to Siem Square, which is a big area with tons of stores, all of which opened at 10am or later! So we just walked around and people-watched for a while, then sat in a restaurant to catch some air conditioner. Right when we got back out on the street, a really friendly Thai man stopped us to chat for about 20 minutes. He couldn't believe we came all the way from America.

Jeremy found this sign hilarious...

If you can't read it, it says Happy Virus.

When we had our fill of walking around that area, we came back to this side of the river and found a really neat Thai market next to our hotel. We had some good food there for really cheap - I had grilled chicken on a stick for 25 Baht and Jeremy had a really good dish (we don't really know what was in it) which is pictured below. His lunch was about 49 Baht. There was a side of a really spicy sauce that he put on it - when the wind blew it in my direction, it burned my eyes!

We only had one day in Bangkok and are about to catch our flight to Chiang Mai, which luckily is only about an hour long flight!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Travel Day(s)

We arrived in Taipei after a very long couple of flights - Atlanta to San Francisco (which was delayed and caused us stress) and then San Fran to Taipei. We were on airplanes for about 18 hours - needless to say, our butts are sore. China Airlines has really friendly staff and most of them speak English pretty well, though the girl who brought our breakfast had a pretty thick Chinese accent and I had no idea what she was saying to me - so I ended up with rice porrage for breakfast. Jeremy was smarter and got the scrambled eggs.

I thought it was worth mentioning that 12 of the 13 hours from San Fran to Tapei were in the dark, since we were basically flying away from the sun the whole time. That was weird.

Jeremy has asked me to tell you that he watched Frost/Nixon and Dean Spanley on the flights. I watched part of Frost/Nixon and then fell into a very deep sleep (there was drool involved on at least two occassions).

We just had a second breakfast at the airport - I had a ham and cheese croissant and a mocha, and Jeremy had the "chicken rice" which was actually a piece of chicken and some rice. Both were tasty.

Next stop: Bangkok!