It was the best of times.
It was the wurst of times.
Thailand and Phuket
Had we not traveled
extensively through the northern reaches of Thailand with the Overseas
Adventure Travel company (OAT) and only went south to the ‘vacation’ areas of Thailand
we would have come away from our trip to this Southeast Asian country with a
completely different view.
Our ‘Discover Thailand’
tour with OAT had us visit historical places like Kanchanaburi where the “Bridge
Over the River Kwai” was erected and where we toured the Hellfire pass of the
Siam/Burma railway, colloquially called the “Death Railway” and cruised along the
River Kwai in long boats. We got up close and personal with elephants at Eco Valley.
We experienced the night markets in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai when we visited both
cities. We stood at the pinnacle of the Golden Triangle where Laos, Burma and
Thailand meet and learned the dubious history of this once major opium
producing area of the world. In Sukhothai we gave alms to monks on their daily
Bindabat walkabout.
Had we NOT had these
wonderful and lasting experiences in our back pocket of memories and traveled
only to Phuket, a large Thai island just off the Malay peninsula, renowned for its
beaches and nightlife, our memories would have been consumed by visions of
overweight Germans wearing barely there speedos displacing water in the Andaman
Sea and bulging over the edges of their coveted and fought over pool-side
chaise lounges at the resort.
Now, do you get the “wurst”
reference? Russians and Asian Indians and Koreans too were there.
All along the strand of
the Kamala Beach where we stayed for one more week after our tour of northern
Thailand the restaurants displayed their menus in several languages. There was
no Thai culture here, but there were a lot of beach activities.
There were so many
tourists that whenever I offered a Wai as a thank you or greeting to a Thai,
they nearly jumped out of their skin to return this gesture of respect, so
unexpected was it.
People came to Phuket
to loll about and work on their tan and to party.
Mind you, it was
beautiful, but it wasn’t the Thailand that we had experienced for the previous
two weeks.
WHITE LOTUS, LADYBOYS
AND GOLDILOCKS
We stayed at the Sunprime
resort at Kamala Beach in Phuket. Adults only at our resort. It was nowhere
near the opulence of the Four Seasons Resort in Koh Samui where “White Lotus”
was filmed, and it was not even close to the frenetic party scene in the nearby
city of Patong. It was just right, quiet with no kids allowed at the resort,
but still with plenty of families on the strand and beach.
Bangla Road, Patong
Down the road from Kamala is the party town of Patong. We took a day trip down there and walked the Bangla Road, the center of nightlife in Patong. At night Bangla with bars, clubs and "other" entertainment venues, is frenetic. During the day this raucous strip was still open with shills and ladies of dubious chromosomes beckoning us to enter, but we sheepishly kept walking.
We were too old and Kamala Beach was more relaxed for us.
The beaches and the islands are very beautiful, but it would be ludicrous
for us to travel so far to just come to a beach town, but for the Europeans,
Indians and Koreans it was a great destination.
Phuket was always a
dream destination for me. I can’t say I was disappointed, things are much cheaper
in Thailand, and Kamala Beach was beautiful, but it is a long way to come,
especially since we have the Caribbean in our backyard.
Patong Beach, Phuket
It was great being
there for a relaxing week instead of living out of our suitcase. After a while,
we even learned to avert our eyes from the banana hammock parade around the pool.
Speaking of wurst… there
were several restaurant options along the strand, which is a concrete sidewalk
edging the beach, and in town with menu displays in several languages. Foods
ranged from Thai to wiener schnitzel to pizza. We tried all three during the
week whenever we ventured off the resort grounds. Here are our recommendations:
Bella Vista Kamala - Beachfront – pizza.
Comfort food. Sometimes Pad Thai doesn’t satisfy. Sit inside in the air conditioning.
They take credit cards
Blue Manao – Na Hat Road - Thai to
European. We went for the Weiner Schnitzel. Crowded. Recommended by the Scuba
Quest Dive Shop across the street. They should know they are German. The restaurant takes credit cards.
Sweet Dreams
Sweet Dreams
Sweet Dreams Restaurant – Na Hat Road - Thai.
Monique and Andy, the owners of Scuba Quest recommended Sweet Dreams next door.
The exterior of this second flood restaurant was enveloped by vines, making the
atmosphere as lovely as their food. Cash
only.
NUDIBRANCHS
We are scuba divers and
Scuba Quest had a dive shop on the Sunprime Resort. They were apologetic when
they found out most of our diving has been in the Caribbean. The water clarity
in Thailand doesn’t come close, but the crew took us on a two-tank dive where
we had a school of fish swirling around us, and we got to see several Nudibranchs
which are sea slugs.
Diving in Phuket
I had told Andy my dive guide I was interested in seeing
this elusive and colorful creature and he made sure to point them out each time
he saw one. Don’t see Nudibranch in the Caribbean.
Over saturation of
tourism can be detrimental to an environment and after “The Beach” came out in
2000, starring Leonardo DiCaprio people flocked to Maya Bay to such a degree
that the coral reefs were dying. Now, Thailand charges visitors who wish to travel
to this majestic bay and there are still hordes that come for the 20-minute
thrill of seeing Maya Bay.
Maya Bay
We did, as part of a
full day tour that took us by speedboat to the Bay, where we couldn’t swim,
Pileh Cove where we did swim in the turquoise waters, Bamboo Island where we
snorkeled and Phi Phi Island that brimmed with kids ready to party. Island
Dream Exploration was the outfitter and lunch was included.
Bamboo Island
So, in the same trip to Thailand we went from one extreme of experiences to another. Both were rewarding, but only because we experienced both.
The “Discover Thailand”
tour we took with Overseas Adventure Travels brought us from
Bangkok to Chiang Mai, with several stops in between, and then finally Chiang
Rai.
The small city was a
sleepy version of Chiang Mai. The streets were similarly lined with massage
parlors and eateries, both local and western, and bars and like Chiang Mai
there was a night market. There were two stages in two different locales. One
had someone playing a guitar and singing, that was off to one side. This
section was more formal and was tree-lined with tables serviced by restaurants
surrounding the little square.
Then there was the main
area, lined with eateries of all sorts of Thai foods like mango and sticky rice
and seafoods and everything in between with tables filling the center. At one
end there was a stage where there was traditional music and apsara dancers.
Chiang Rai Night Market
In this section of the
night market all the restaurants were all self-serves. You order your food and then
find a table. Everywhere there were kiosks selling everything from art to
clothing. There were a lot of westerners milling about.
We had ample time to
walk through the market and get something to eat, but OAT used the town as a
jumping off point for our last side trip of the tour.
DOI TUNG AND THE PRINCESS
MOTHER
From the mountain top
of Doi Tung you can see Burma and Laos and it was here where Princess
Srinagarindra stared down the opium drug lords of the Golden Triangle and
helped to push Thailand into a sustainable economy featuring cash crops and
aiding the once overlooked hill tribe people.
Doi Tung Villa of Princess Srinagarindra
She is revered. The
hill tribe people call her Mae Fah Luang or “The Royal Mother from the Sky”. It
is a proper moniker as her efforts in not only pushing for sustainable cash
crops, but also education, social welfare and public health and environmental
conservation have aided Thailand immensely, and her Royal Villa at Doi Tung and
the surrounding grounds are now a tourist attraction. We took a self-guided
audio tour, after first removing our shoes, as is the Thai custom and learned
how she helped the country. If you visit, make sure to get a coffee at the Doi
Tung coffee shop. Through the efforts of the Princess Arabica coffee and macadamia
nuts were part of the cash-crops used to replace the opium trade that had
gripped the area for decades.
In 1971 at a press conference
regarding the proliferation of opium coming from the southeast Asian countries
of Burma, Laos and Thailand, a US State Department official referred to the
area as the Golden Triangle. The name stuck and though the “golden triangle”
covers a large area between the three countries it is possible to “see” the triangle
at the confluence of the Mekong and Ruak Rivers in the town of Ban Sop Ruak in
Thailand. This is where Burma (Myanmar) and Laos and Thailand abut. There are
several monuments there along the plaza of this ominous area as well as a
massive Golden Buddha statue.
The Golden Triangle Left to right: Thailand, Burma, Laos
Just seeing three countries
in such proximity is breathtaking. Leisure and working boats ply the river with
the hotels and casinos on the Laotian side rise dramatically while the finger
of land separating Thailand from Burma (Myanmar) snakes to a point where the
silt choked waters of the Ruak slowly mix with the clearer water of the Mekong
that flows all the way through Cambodia and Vietnam and into the Mekong Delta
before meeting the South China Sea.
Map of Golden Triangle
Given the infamous
history of the Golden Triangle it may be difficult for some to fully appreciate
the beauty of this point.
As a reminder of the
history OAT had us visit the House of Opium, a private museum a short walk from
the point. There we learned about opium cultivation and how the workers extracted
the sap from the poppy plants for opium. Also included in the tour was a collection
of the special cutting tools used to scour the opium and the ornate weights
used in the commerce of this illicit trade.
Afterwards we boarded
colorful trucks that had to be hand-cranked to start and we chortled up into
the hills for a lunch.
Thanks for reading.
Love Janet and greg
House of Opium Museum
Doi Tung
Doi Tung gardens
The Mekong River with Laos in background and the Golden BuddhaOur ride through the Golden Triangle
You saintly readers who
follow our adventures around the world through this blog know that I really
like Aloha shirts. Some call them “Hawaiian” shirts, some call them “Bula”
shirts as they do in Fiji. Some call them “Postcards you can wear”.
I call them necessary.
Janet may argue against
the “need”.
She is a party pooper.
We had visited Lahaina
years before the devastating fire there and I had picked out 250 Aloha shirts
at the Salvation Army thrift store. They even had a special, separate room for
these remarkable shirts
She made me whittle my
selection down to one.
I even had an Aloha
shirt made for me at a tailor in Hoi An Vietnam last year, although I had to
bribe her with jewelry purchases, massages and alcohol!
Thai Silk VIllage
And, so, when we
stopped at the Thai Silk Village factory as we left Chiang Mai on our way to our final
stop on our “Discover Thailand” tour with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT), I HAD
to buy a silk Aloha shirt.
Silkworms before
selection
Surprisingly Janet didn’t
make me beg too much, but I had to endure a tour of the village and watch the
process of retrieving silk from the cocoons and the weaving and the etc. etc.
etc. before I could shop.
Then Janet had to
approve the selection. I wanted one with elephants and she told me to get one
with palm trees. ‘Yes Dear,’ I said.
Even before we got to Thai
Silk Village we all had to sit through an informative “chat” with a monk at Wat
Suan Dok. OAT arranged for a private chat for our group and the monk, who wore
sunglasses indoors for street cred I guess, told us about Buddhism and this way
of life that teaches patience and acceptance. Then he took questions.
Janet elbowed me when I tried to ask how long this was going to take?
We opted to take a day
trip to hike at Thailand’s Doi Inthanon National Park rather than explore the
city of Chiang Mai, even though it was an added excursion. Overseas Adventure
Travel (OAT) arranged for us to travel to Thailand’s most popular park with a
guide for $210 for the both of us.
Famous for its
waterfalls, vistas and birdwatching, the nickname of Doi Inthanon National Park
is “the Roof of Thailand”. The park is part of the Himalayan mountains, with
peaks ranging from 800 meters to Doi Inthanon itself at 2,535 meters in
elevation. In comparison, Mt. Everest rises to 8,848 meters and so our hike, which
started at a much lower elevation, was just a walk in the park, and thankfully mostly
downhill.
walking sticks Doi Inthanon
The trail was
well-marked and maintained and before we headed off, we had our choice of
bamboo staves to use as walking sticks. Our guide spoke with an American accent
and the first thing he pointed out was it will be safe. No longer will there be
men with machine guns guarding the opium trade that flourished here for
decades.
This was a bit unnerving at first but armed with this good news we proceeded.
THE PLANT OF JOY
Opium cultivation has
gone on for millennia. The Sumerians called the plant “Hul Gil”, or the plant
of joy. Opium had been cultivated in southeast Asia for centuries as well and
was used in moderation by local communities, like the Hmong and Karen, as a
part of their culture. Opium though was the only available cash crop and the
impoverished highlanders and others who migrated into the area began to grow a
lot of poppy plants.
poppy
THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE
This mountainous region
where Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and Laos meet was once the world’s largest
producer of opium. At its height in the 1960s 145 tons of opium were produced
annually. Even though Thailand banned opium in 1958, the illicit trade would
simply shift to Laos, or Burma, or eventually back to Thailand depending on the
political climate. Back then there were more guns and warlords than tourists in
the Golden Triangle, but that has all changed today, at least in Thailand.
FROM POPPY TO COFFEE
Starting in 1969 on the
initiative started by King Bhumibol Adulyade the idea of alternative planting
was begun. Wishing to solve the problems caused by deforestation, because slash-and-burn
agriculture was the prevalent method of opium farming, the illicit trade of
opium production and the poverty that the people of the area never rose above, the
King pushed the idea of replacing drug-crops with legal sustainable crops. Legal
crops like coffee, rice, fruits like pomelo, longan or dragon’s eye fruit,
strawberries and even peaches, and vegetables like carrots, cabbage and
Japanese pumpkin have proved to be as lucrative as the opium trade, but without
the risk of conducting criminal activities.
our guide
Along with this
alternative approach to farming the Royal Project addresses illiteracy and
public health in the remote mountains.
So, indeed the dark
times of the commerce of opium in Thailand were behind us and we were able to
enjoy our hike through Doi Inthanon without fear.
STRAWBERRY FIELDS
FOREVER
After a short up-hill
climb our hike was all downhill. The bamboo staves cut for just this purpose
came in handy as some of the terrain was rootbound and uneven. Some of the
descent was narrow and steep, but there were wooden railings at some of the
more treacherous stretches.
strawberry field Doi Inthanon
Our local guide pointed
out different plants and told us about the animals in the park, including
several species of monkeys, although we saw nothing but the local flora and fauna.
Evidently Doi Inthanon is a birders paradise, but we were just a noisy group
tramping through the forest enjoying the fresh air and several majestic
waterfalls.
We passed an open field
that was being tended to by members of the Karen tribe, but it was strawberries
not opium. We got some samples and purchased some to nibble on as we trekked. One
could easily imagine poppy plants flourishing here at one time.
IT TAKES A VILLAGE
Nearing the end of our
hike the forest gave way to a valley of terraced rice paddies and coffee trees.
The trail followed an aqueduct to our guide’s village. Mae Klang Luang. At a crossroads
an enterprising tourist stand was set up and a woman was weaving cloth using a
backstrap loom while other women presided over rows of the finished product.
Janet bought one to use as a table runner and insisted the weaving woman pose
for a picture with the selected artisan cloth.
Included in the cost of
the excursion was a hearty lunch. We enjoyed our meal while looking out on the
most idyllic scenery. Despite the very rural setting, the restaurant had
pristine modern bathrooms for guests. No doubt this was part of the infrastructure
support given to the hill tribes as part of the Royal Project.
The last stop before we
returned to Chiang Mai was the coffee shop. There were several other groups
enjoying free samples of coffee being brewed by the largest chorreador I had
ever seen. Water was poured over a large sack filled with coffee grinds and
allowed to drip into a pot. We had several cups and then bought a sealed packet
of their coffee to take home. We had so much caffeine Janet decided to run
alongside the van for a while.
One of the day trips we
took out of Chiang Mai, Thailand with Overseas Adventure Travels (OAT) was to interact
with elephants at what they termed an “elephant care center”.
Ever since we saw the
Oscar winning documentary “Elephant Whisperers” about an Indian couple who
cared for an orphaned baby elephant we were enamored with the possibility of
getting up close to them ourselves.
Our subsequent day of meeting
them at the Elephant Eco Valley Zoo was perhaps our most fascinating day in our
travels to Thailand.
Once we arrived at the zoo
we were asked to put on maroon smocks and water shoes that they provided, placing
the items we wanted to keep dry in lockers. The smocks made us look like we
were in a cult of some sort, but they kept us dry when we went to bathe the
elephants.
Our guide at the zoo
spoke perfect English and told us about the care of these intelligent animals
and how they could be extremely skittish. i.e. They are very frightened by bees
and could get nervous with loud noises.
There was a large field
sectioned off by wooden fencing and at the far end similarly dressed cult
members (joke) were feeding elephants, something we would be doing soon
ourselves.
He walked us around to
meet an elephant and her mahout. Her name was Tata. She was 40 years old. Asian
elephants are smaller than African elephants and my height reached Tata’s eyes.
With the help of her mahout who will be with Tata for the rest of her life, she
showed us her feet, her trunk and we each got to pose for pictures with the
seemingly docile elephant.
UNETHICAL?
Now, if you read about
PETA’s thoughts on these “zoos” the elephants are extremely nervous and
worried. PETA claims the animals are abused and beaten by mahouts and though
they seem placid they are anxious and worried they may be subjected to more
abuse.
Tata and her mahout
Well, Tata posed with
everyone and endured all the petting we gave her and used her trunk as an
elevator to lift her mahout so he could show how one would ride her. She then fetched
the flip flop he dropped and “handed” it to him with her very tactile trunk.
Riding elephants
happens at many places in Thailand. It you do a quick online search you will
find seemingly countless other such “elephant care centers”.
They don’t ride
elephants at Eco Valley, and neither should you, but other places allow. PETA
feels that elephants should only be observed and not interacted with, as we did
on our visit.
While conversing with
Tata a much larger bull elephant with tusks that nearly reached the ground
thudded past us into the field. Several other elephants followed. It was a new
group coming in for their feeding, and these elephants do eat a lot.
SO, YOU WANT TO BE A
MAHOUT?
Elephants are
herbivores and a bull elephant will consume nearly 500 lbs. of food per day and
will excrete about 50 lbs. of dung. Undigested fiber passes right through the
elephant.
What's brown and sounds like a bell? Dung
In the wild elephants
will not eat in unclean areas and need to roam for food; sometimes they stray
onto farms. This obviously is a pain for the farmers, and they dissuade roaming
herds with loud noises and even electrical fencing. It’s a delicate balance as
the elephant is considered the royal symbol of Thailand and hurting an elephant
is probably not a good thing.
Domesticated elephants
like those at Elephant Eco Valley don’t have to roam vast areas of forest to avoid
eating where they poop. That’s because part of the mahout’s job is to collect
the dung.
(Insert joke here.)
This keeps the captive
elephant’s areas clean, and the fibrous dung is used to make large sheets of
paper. The mahouts process this poo and wash out all the bacteria and the fibers
are dried out onto large screens in frames. The resulting paper is then fashioned
into notecards, etc. The paper doesn’t smell.
Everyone in our group
politely declined when given the chance to help in the process.
As a gift for our visit
to Eco Valley we were given picture frames made from poo paper. Now we tell
friends who visit how shit-faced we are in the picture, with Tata looking on
approvingly.
HAPPY HERD
Making Elephant vitamin pills
We were then led to a
large mortar and pestle to pound ingredients into a nutritional herb and fruit
vitamin ball. One person would operate the hinged wooden pestle as it crushed, and
another would poke at the contents with a stick to ensure everything got all
mixed up well. We then molded the mash into large hand-sized balls.
Later, at the field we
got to feed them. Five or so came right up to the fencing and begged for the “vitamin”
pills and sugar cane and bananas that we obligingly fed them. Elephants are
strong and intelligent. They understand words and if we said, “Ba” instead of
reaching for the food with their trunks, they would lift them and open their
mouths so we could feed them directly. None were aggressive, but you could see
them watching us as we reached for more food and they wouldn’t leave until our
cache of edibles was gone.
It was truly a great
experience.
SONGKRAN FESTIVAL COMES
EARLY
In Thailand the lunar
new year is celebrated with water fights. For three days in mid-April massive
water fights break out throughout the country and crowds of people will squirt
water pistols and toss buckets of water at each other. Songkran is Thailand’s
most important festival and it’s all about purification.
Well, part of the visit
to Eco Valley was to bathe elephants. Armed with buckets and pulverized sugar
cane stalks that served as brushes (and were later eaten by the elephants) some
of our group waded into the water and tended to the appreciative beasts. One
even lay on it side, sprouting water in the air like a fountain. (We were
cautioned to stay to the back side of the elephant, not by the feet. Earlier
this year at another care center a woman who on the belly side of the elephant was
killed when the elephant abruptly moved.)
We were told the
elephants loved the bathing and it was wonderful to caress their bristly rough
skin as we scrubbed and tossed buckets of water on them. At the end they
gobbled up the brushes.
Janet and I were the
last ones out and the elephant who had been lying in the water stood up and
started spraying us with water. Of course, his mahout was telling him to do so,
and you can see the handler motion for the elephant to give us a good soaking
in the attached video. The beast shrugged off my counter- attack.
We may have been “purified”
in a Songkran festival at Eco Valley, but the shower was very necessary. Don’t want
to have that elephant water on your body for too long!
Afterwards we were
served a very large lunch and given the poo paper picture frames as parting
gifts.
THE DARK SIDE
There is estimated to be
3,500 wild elephants in Thailand, and about the same number of domesticated
elephants. This is down from the estimated 100,000 elephants in the country at
the start of the 20th Century. Wild elephants need space to roam and
forage for food, but the habitat of wild elephants has been greatly diminished
through logging and human encroachment and now there are protected areas for
elephants. Their numbers dwindled enough to place them on the endangered species
list.
These intelligent and
strong creatures are important to Thailand as the royal symbol of the country. In
many Asian cultures the elephant is considered sacred. Buddhist texts describe
one of the Buddha’s past lives as an elephant.
They have been used in
war, transportation and before logging was banned in 1989 used for manual
labor, dragging logs through the forest. This was the elephant’s primary “occupation”
but afterwards mahouts, whose skills as handlers have been passed down through
generations, and their elephants turned to the entertainment industry and
tourism to earn a living.
During the pandemic tourism
collapsed in Thailand and caused severe hardship for elephants and mahouts, making
it difficult to properly care for the animals. Now, with tourism returning, questions
are growing about the ethical treatment of the elephants. Elephants are a matriarchal
society and form strong social bonds within their herd that transit generations.
Even grandmother elephants help with the care of their granddaughters.
After our visit to Elephant
EcoValley, I read up on the industry. All the “activities” we did at the zoo,
like feeding and bathing them, is unnatural. Overfeeding leads to obesity,
bathing is a social activity for the elephants, and they cover their skin with
mud to act as a sunscreen and insect repellent. Repeated baths throughout the
day can lead to skin afflictions.
The best eco-tourist
activity is to watch the elephants from afar, like at the Elephant Nature Park,
down the road from Elephant EcoValley, where rescued animals are kept in
spacious areas and tourists are invited to watch the elephants as they go about
their lives. It would be difficult to release formerly captive elephants into
the wild because they haven’t learned to cope in the wild.
There are several other
similar eco-friendly elephant places to visit. Here is a list compiled by a website
“Responsible Travel:
Before we went to the
zoo, we first visited the Huay Pa Rai Hilltribe Village. It is a Karen tribe. The
diverse ethnic groups of people known as Karen mainly reside along the Myanmar
/ Thailand border. Many in Thailand are refugees, fleeing the ongoing conflict
in Myanmar. They are poor and rely on tourism dollars. Some say these people
are being exploited, that this is unethical, like being in a zoo themselves.
All we saw of the
village really was the line of ‘shops’ with Karen women selling trinkets, cloth weavings and t-shirts. The
women all wore large bands of metal around their necks giving the appearance it
was elongated. Some of the women were very demure and sat, their eyes downcast,
while others were engaging and offered to pose for pictures and even offered to
place the neck bands around some of our group. Some women were weaving cloth
for sale, others were selling everything from keychains to t-shirts. I felt
awkward about being there, but I knew they relied on our tourism dollars.
We then rode in pickup
trucks up a rugged road to reach the Elephant Eco Valley Zoo.
Thanks for reading.
The trailer for the Elephant Whisperers on Netflix.
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