Thailand, the land of painful things (day 5-9).
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Loeka
25 Juli 2013 | Thailand, Chiang Mai
Because Thai massages and elephants.
But maybe I should start off with the day after I arrived in Chiang mai. In a nutshell: I did a Thai cooking course, learned how to make my own curry paste, coconut milk soup, red chicken curry, steamed spring rolls and mango with sticky rice. The location was awesome, on a biological farm 15 km out of Chiang Mai, where we cooked with home grown veggies. It was so, so nice. Except for the fact that everyone was French in my group except for me so they pretty much only spoke French because a few of them did not speak any English, with a few translations for me in between the conversations to keep me engaged, but I can live with that.
Then, another day in Chiang mai, with a lot of markets and stress because I decided last minute to go to Koh Tao for scuba diving, and I still had to book transport, a hostel and a diving course. But, that worked out (I’ll keep that for another blog). This was also the day I got my first Thai massage. I decided to do it properly now I was in Thailand anyways so I chose a pretty fancy but not too fancy spa thingy, where I got an hour long full body Thai massage for 5 euros. All I could think was ‘oh my god why am I so relaxed when she is doing things to me that my body does not allow her to’. As in, imagine this: Sitting in the lotus position (kleermakerszit), hands behind my head. Her sitting behind me in the lotus position with her arms through my arms and her hands also behind my head. Bending forward together, “Relax!”, doing some twists and turns and snap, pulling me backwards/upwards/sidewards with my back making the loudest cracking noises ever. And it was só relaxing. I don’t know why. Also, her elbow pressing on my groin for about 15 seconds. Also, pulling my fingers and toes one by one to make them crack. Also, rolling her thumb over my femur bone. All pretty painful.
But I was as relaxed as can be afterwards.
In the evening I spent some time with the hostel owners who thought my eyes were extremely interesting because they were blue ánd black instead of just black. Yep.
Then, the next day, elephants. Woop! I’m spending 2 days in an elephant park (writing this blog on the 2nd day) and a 3rd day is filled with swimming in waterfalls and white water rafting.
Day 1 was a very typical touristy day. I got picked up from my hostel and we drove off to the elephant park, where they take care of abused elephants. We changed into our uniforms (because we’d get very dirty, they said) and off to the elephants. Even just the feeding was so much fun. Whole bunches of 20 small bananas were no issue. After that we got to ride them for a bit, just to get used to the whole idea of being on top of a goddamn elephant. Then lunch, and then off for a ride around the park. To prevent them from getting too fat and just to keep them in shape they walk for about two hours each day, separated into two rounds around the park of an hour. We got to do one of those rounds, on top of them, with the mahout (trainer) next to them. It felt majestic. This is where painful thing nr 2 comes in: I got pretty bad burn marks on my knee from trying to get off, their skin is very thick and because my elephant liked it to cover herself with sand, it became like sandpaper. She also liked to flap her ears but apparently they have a pretty thick bone or so in the top of their ears that kept on hitting my knee, so they are now covered in bruises and burn marks. They saved the best part for last: bathing. So much fun. From 4 til 7 we had some time to relax, then dinner, and then awesome card games with the others that stayed the night.
Day 2 was very, very interesting and I can definitely say it was a once in a lifetime experience. On the park they have an elephant that’s not used to being in a group, named Nambun. They bought him from a factory where he worked (I think), so he was all by himself for about 20 years. He’s been in the park for 6 years or so but is still very socially awkward, he doesn’t know how to handle other elephants very well (especially other males, luckily there are only 4 more on the park and 22 females). Therefore he needs alone time in the jungle every day. Which meant that I had to ride a happy lonely elephant that was about two times as tall as me (he was huge, note how my feet aren't even peeking out behind his ears on the picture) to the middle of the jungle for an hour, with his mahout and a guide, chill out and have lunch (existing of fried rice, pineapple and freshly barbecued chicken cooked on an open fire) in the middle of nowhere surrounded by birds while Nambun’s pulling down some trees and being happy, and ride it back again. It. Was. Awesome. Good thing they didn’t tell me that just one week before he attacked a different male elephant. Apparently he tends to get a bit aggressive every now and then, even passing by is too much sometimes, which is another reason why he’s alone. But besides that he’s an extremely gentle giant, pretty much hand picking all his food and stuff. They all have their own little personality, very cool to see. I also did not know that I’d be gone for about 3 hours this day so I forgot to bring sunscreen, which resulted in a sunburn on places where I did not know it was possible (top of my fingers and underneath my hair..). Again, pretty damn painful.
Next day was slightly disappointing, I must say. I really don’t like crowded tourist spots and this day was filled with them. With the two days at the park came a day with some company, so the plan was to walk to a waterfall, have a swim, visit hilltribes, do white water rafting, bamboo rafting and visiting some paper factory or something. So first of all, hilltribes and waterfall was one thing. On the way up we saw about 3 to 4 wooden houses with some people living there who were selling drinks and showing off a huge beetle which was tied down with a piece of string, not kidding. That was it for the hilltribes. The waterfall was good but so crowded that I could barely make my way to the pool at the bottom so I didn’t swim. Rafting was the bomb so that made up for a lot but the bamboo rafting was about 200 meters, literally, and then we were done and off to Chiang Mai again. No factory. The way back was interesting, as I was the only one who did not stay another night at the elephant park so I was the only one in the truck. Halfway on our way into the city we suddenly stopped to get the car fixed so I had to wait at the garage for about 45min. Yeh. On this day I busted my pinky toe when I slipped and cut myself several times on what not. I am too clumsy for Thailand, I can conclude.
So right now I’m at a McDonald’s on Chiang Mai airport on my way to Bangkok (and Koh Tao) and they seriously have rice and chicken curry.
But maybe I should start off with the day after I arrived in Chiang mai. In a nutshell: I did a Thai cooking course, learned how to make my own curry paste, coconut milk soup, red chicken curry, steamed spring rolls and mango with sticky rice. The location was awesome, on a biological farm 15 km out of Chiang Mai, where we cooked with home grown veggies. It was so, so nice. Except for the fact that everyone was French in my group except for me so they pretty much only spoke French because a few of them did not speak any English, with a few translations for me in between the conversations to keep me engaged, but I can live with that.
Then, another day in Chiang mai, with a lot of markets and stress because I decided last minute to go to Koh Tao for scuba diving, and I still had to book transport, a hostel and a diving course. But, that worked out (I’ll keep that for another blog). This was also the day I got my first Thai massage. I decided to do it properly now I was in Thailand anyways so I chose a pretty fancy but not too fancy spa thingy, where I got an hour long full body Thai massage for 5 euros. All I could think was ‘oh my god why am I so relaxed when she is doing things to me that my body does not allow her to’. As in, imagine this: Sitting in the lotus position (kleermakerszit), hands behind my head. Her sitting behind me in the lotus position with her arms through my arms and her hands also behind my head. Bending forward together, “Relax!”, doing some twists and turns and snap, pulling me backwards/upwards/sidewards with my back making the loudest cracking noises ever. And it was só relaxing. I don’t know why. Also, her elbow pressing on my groin for about 15 seconds. Also, pulling my fingers and toes one by one to make them crack. Also, rolling her thumb over my femur bone. All pretty painful.
But I was as relaxed as can be afterwards.
In the evening I spent some time with the hostel owners who thought my eyes were extremely interesting because they were blue ánd black instead of just black. Yep.
Then, the next day, elephants. Woop! I’m spending 2 days in an elephant park (writing this blog on the 2nd day) and a 3rd day is filled with swimming in waterfalls and white water rafting.
Day 1 was a very typical touristy day. I got picked up from my hostel and we drove off to the elephant park, where they take care of abused elephants. We changed into our uniforms (because we’d get very dirty, they said) and off to the elephants. Even just the feeding was so much fun. Whole bunches of 20 small bananas were no issue. After that we got to ride them for a bit, just to get used to the whole idea of being on top of a goddamn elephant. Then lunch, and then off for a ride around the park. To prevent them from getting too fat and just to keep them in shape they walk for about two hours each day, separated into two rounds around the park of an hour. We got to do one of those rounds, on top of them, with the mahout (trainer) next to them. It felt majestic. This is where painful thing nr 2 comes in: I got pretty bad burn marks on my knee from trying to get off, their skin is very thick and because my elephant liked it to cover herself with sand, it became like sandpaper. She also liked to flap her ears but apparently they have a pretty thick bone or so in the top of their ears that kept on hitting my knee, so they are now covered in bruises and burn marks. They saved the best part for last: bathing. So much fun. From 4 til 7 we had some time to relax, then dinner, and then awesome card games with the others that stayed the night.
Day 2 was very, very interesting and I can definitely say it was a once in a lifetime experience. On the park they have an elephant that’s not used to being in a group, named Nambun. They bought him from a factory where he worked (I think), so he was all by himself for about 20 years. He’s been in the park for 6 years or so but is still very socially awkward, he doesn’t know how to handle other elephants very well (especially other males, luckily there are only 4 more on the park and 22 females). Therefore he needs alone time in the jungle every day. Which meant that I had to ride a happy lonely elephant that was about two times as tall as me (he was huge, note how my feet aren't even peeking out behind his ears on the picture) to the middle of the jungle for an hour, with his mahout and a guide, chill out and have lunch (existing of fried rice, pineapple and freshly barbecued chicken cooked on an open fire) in the middle of nowhere surrounded by birds while Nambun’s pulling down some trees and being happy, and ride it back again. It. Was. Awesome. Good thing they didn’t tell me that just one week before he attacked a different male elephant. Apparently he tends to get a bit aggressive every now and then, even passing by is too much sometimes, which is another reason why he’s alone. But besides that he’s an extremely gentle giant, pretty much hand picking all his food and stuff. They all have their own little personality, very cool to see. I also did not know that I’d be gone for about 3 hours this day so I forgot to bring sunscreen, which resulted in a sunburn on places where I did not know it was possible (top of my fingers and underneath my hair..). Again, pretty damn painful.
Next day was slightly disappointing, I must say. I really don’t like crowded tourist spots and this day was filled with them. With the two days at the park came a day with some company, so the plan was to walk to a waterfall, have a swim, visit hilltribes, do white water rafting, bamboo rafting and visiting some paper factory or something. So first of all, hilltribes and waterfall was one thing. On the way up we saw about 3 to 4 wooden houses with some people living there who were selling drinks and showing off a huge beetle which was tied down with a piece of string, not kidding. That was it for the hilltribes. The waterfall was good but so crowded that I could barely make my way to the pool at the bottom so I didn’t swim. Rafting was the bomb so that made up for a lot but the bamboo rafting was about 200 meters, literally, and then we were done and off to Chiang Mai again. No factory. The way back was interesting, as I was the only one who did not stay another night at the elephant park so I was the only one in the truck. Halfway on our way into the city we suddenly stopped to get the car fixed so I had to wait at the garage for about 45min. Yeh. On this day I busted my pinky toe when I slipped and cut myself several times on what not. I am too clumsy for Thailand, I can conclude.
So right now I’m at a McDonald’s on Chiang Mai airport on my way to Bangkok (and Koh Tao) and they seriously have rice and chicken curry.
Reageer op dit reisverslag
Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
