Tarzan

 Chiang Mai. Thailand’s adventure playground. From riding elephants, zip-lining through jungle, quad-bike safari to white water rafting (and that’s just the stuff we did) there is something for every person young at heart.

The elephant camp was certainly interesting. They were upfront and honest about the methods of training their elephants. Let’s be fair if you go to one of these places and think that these creatures are naturally inclined to having people fall all over them, you’d be fooling yourself. Like any ‘tame’ animal (in the loosest sense, I wouldn’t call an elephant tame like you would a house-pet), the normal procedure is to teach the elephant from young to obey verbal commands. The re-enforcement of these instructions requires a hook like implement to either aid the instruction or to quickly discipline a mistake. The hook is sharp enough that the elephant feels it so they associate it with their fault and refrain from the action. When they are ‘trained’ then the instrument is blunted so just a tap makes them know their error.

The voice is the main control that we used to get our elephants to go where we wanted. The only problem was that they were trained by Thai commands, so we had 10 minutes to master the language before being introduced to the elephants for feeding time. Of course I was apprehensive being so close to a mammal that could literally flatten me if it so wished but they were more interested in the massive basket of bananas we had with us. Feeding elephants via the trunk was weird, their equivalent of a hand, by which they greedily took the food from our own. They had also been taught a trick use their trunk to ‘kiss’ the feeder… imagine putting a plunger to your face and you get the picture… I didn’t think quick enough to avoid it.

My ride

The elephant ride itself was yes, scary knowing you really don’t have much control over the elephant as you perch on his back/neck, but it was cool at the same time, briefly living your childhood fantasy of being a jungle child-like Tarzan (I’m assuming it wasn’t just me who had these dreams). After our stroll around the fields we gave our ride a wash in the river, something they enjoy though I still had my wits about me (maybe the water-buffalo incident in Vietnam has made me more cautious around large animals).

The other experiences were also good fun, I mean who doesn’t like walking off platforms into 30 foot drops (we also did a bit of abseiling as part of the zip-lining) and going down throwing yourself down rapids (in a boat)… obviously not just me. What made these trips even more fun were our guides who all seem to have a good sense of humour about them making the experience even more memorable.

Swinging through the jungle

We also took a day trip up to Chiang Rai and the golden triangle, where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet at the conjunction of 2 rivers. We boat hopped over to Laos but Burma would charge the full whack of $40 for a border crossing so we were content with looking over the bridge that divides the two countries.

Along the way we stopped by a temple. Ok, so being in Asia a while you’d think I’d seen enough temples… well this one was ‘a bit’ different. Designed by a local modern artist, the outside was whitewashed with inlayed mirror fragments for detail and looked like as if it had being transported from Narnia. The inside (shoes removed) had one wall painted with a Buddha, behind 2 statues of Buddha and a life-like wax monk. The other wall was a huge collage of comic book looking characters (dragon, generic humans… Spiderman, Batman and even an Angry Bird!) I didn’t really understand why, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one leaving perplexed.

The 'ice' palace

From that extreme to something very understandable… Thai Cooking. A popular option in Britain these days and rightfully so because the food is so good! It was a good opportunity to up my spice tolerance (which is gradually improving over the course of S.E. Asia) and also try cooking, something I really haven’t done that much since finishing university. We prepared curry pastes from scratch (and make the curry) as well as prepare and cook a few other local dishes. The best part is obviously eating the food and my lack of practice did not spoil the outcome. Nom nom nom. We even got a cooking book as part of the class with all the recipes that we had done plus others, so start queuing up for when I return haha.

Learning about the different grains and grades of rice 

I must note also the scenery around Chiang Mai is incredible. We took the sleeper train up from Bangkok (straight from a day of travelling from Siem Reap). Aside from the lack of sleep (only 3^rd class left… very uncomfortable to spend the night in but it was only £10) the train journey itself was worth it for the morning views of tidy fields giving way to hills of bright green tropical vegetation, with small corrugated roofed villages nestled in between. The best part was the window could be pulled down (very strange for a train) so picture taking was made easier. However even the train doors were open, which made stepping between carriages a nervous experience.

Beautiful sunrise