Elephant Parade

Our next stop was the elephant camp. We drove up into the mountains and below we could see many different camps with many elephants. I thought Bailey would pee her pants with excitement and had to practically hold her down for fear of losing her out the window. I had been close to elephants in India, though when given the option to ride one, I opted for a camel, since that seemed more unique to me at the time. We stopped off a small dirt turn-off at a hut where lunch would be served. While we waited for it to be re-heated, I took some shots of the two elephants that were lunching themselves, waiting to ferry us to our next destination an hour's ride away.

We picked our elephant - the biggest one, of course! Bailey said she had a "special connection" with him. She bought some green baby bananas to give as treats during the ride. We got up on a bamboo platform and hopped on. I gave my camera to Bob, who was on the other elephant alone, and asked if he would take pictures for me of the two of us. Frankly, none of them turned out. Bailey sat beside me and the elephant's owner/trainer hopped on the elephant's head to sit. We must have been quite a site! We began lumbering down the dirt path into the countryside. When I say "lumbering," I mean it. If you've never ridden an elephant, the experience is rather rough. The thing has no shocks, and you get tossed from side to side, though not violently, with each step. You're right above his shoulders and you feel every move. The guide was enamored with my video camera and jumped off to film us (we'll see if he was successful, as he spoke no English and had never used one before). He took some pictures with Bailey's camera, which again, were mostly failures. Not much you can do about it, since you're busy actually having the experience! After awhile, the guide prompted Bailey to slide off the seat and sit on the elephant's neck. She looked like a kid in a candy store :)

We rode for awhile like this, with the trainer hopping off and on the elephant's face and shouting directives in Thai. The elephant clearly understood that he really meant it when his voice rose! Periodically, the elephant would stop completely and raise his trunk above his head demanding a banana. Usually, he wasn't satisfied with just one...

When we began heading up a hill, I got my turn riding bareback. I was a bit shocked at the prickly hairs on the elephant's head that poked me through my pants - didn't expect that one! When you ride on the neck, you use all your core muscles keeping your balance as you ride. There were two loops that we could hold on either side behind us that were rooted in the seat. It was difficult re-adjusting, as Bailey crawled off the head and up, we traded water bottles, cameras, etc. Then, I slid down with the elephant still walking, and at once I could feel my stomach muscles compensating for my being tossed from side to side. I actually was quite proud of how well I balanced and had relatively little difficulty sitting comfortably. The elephant's ears, as they flop to and fro, actually grip your legs to its head. We had a nice ride and finally had to get off onto another bamboo platform. We mourned the loss of our leathery friends as we recognized that the end of our ride signified the beginning of our hiking. And, they were cute!

We went down a path (let me clarify: this wasn't a path in the sense you're thinking...because it's a "Thai path,"  which means it's used a lot but probably shouldn't be, for safety reasons) to the water. We had to have someone help us because we were basically sliding down loose dirt and walking down very steep rock faces. When we got to the water, we were sent across in a cage on a zip line. The man in charge of it was so excited for our glee over the concept that he sent us early, without closing the door.

When everyone had crossed, we started walking up a fairly steep hill. The dirt was dry, dusty and red and quickly coated our feet and stuck to our sweating bodies. We weren't feeling too bad, though! We'd had a nice ride, knew we had to walk a bit, and actually were sharing our path with a naked, freshly washed elephant who walked beside us. But then, we started feeling the sun, as it was 2:30 during the hottest part of the year, and the hill got steeper. I made the mistake of asking how long this walk was - 2.5 hours. All straight up. Now, I'm usually a smart person, but when I saw the word "trek" and looked at the brochures, I was thinking we were going to walk a lot through the jungle, but as it was family friendly, it couldn't be that difficult. I was sooo wrong!

Only a half hour in, I could tell my calf muscles had been overextended and began to be concerned about the ever-increasing steep hill ahead. To add to my dismay, I began to recognize that this hike was going to force me into continual overly-strenuous exercise and I'm asthmatic. I didn't have an inhaler, because we were winging this trip and everything we were doing on it (when we left, we thought we'd end up in Laos or Cambodia...you see what I mean). "Thankfully", Robert had had two heart attacks previously and had been given an inhaler to help with his exercise. He shared it with me, and my airways loosened a bit.

I can't remember a time when I've been so hot, so sweaty, so very...miserable. Every step was a challenge. When we'd rest, we'd sit in the dirt on the roadside where the elephant poop often landed, and tried to catch our breath while dung beetles and cockroaches hopped around us. People passed us on motorcycles, making the hike feel unnecessary. Our water was warm, and we were soaked. Robert and Bailey were way ahead of me, and Robert was at least 60, so you can imagine how I felt! I was very out of shape and he was very "in shape", and I felt horrible making them wait for me. The bugs love you when you're sweaty, and I swear they can feel your annoyance, so they swarm around your head as you walk. To top it off, there was no end in sight, and every time I talked myself into getting to the top (that I could see), I'd get there only to realize that there was an even steeper part ahead. 

When the road finally leveled off, after two hours, I was so relieved I almost cried! Finally, road that is walk-able. Nope. We left the road and went up the hill next to it, where we walked on another "Thai path" with loose stones and overgrown trees, and it was the steepest climb yet. I slipped in my flip flops and landed on a broken stump, and though it hurt like a *#&$^ to walk, we were close, they told me. We got out of the woods and back on to the road, and we saw a house seated on the very top of the mountain, just 100 yards away. We made it! our guide said. We made our way sluggishly to the house and collapsed on the seats outside. No, actually, he told us, we are staying on the other side of the village, so we needed to get up and keep walking. We did make it to our building and when we did, I sat on a broken bamboo beam and stared straight ahead, not moving for an hour. There's my complaining...I'm done. But I was justified - believe me.

When I finally came around, we sucked down the drinks they had for us and took turns "showering." The bathroom was a hut down the hill with an Indian-style (hole in the floor) toilet and a container of water. You dump the cold water on yourself with a bowl. The bathroom door was held closed by a rubber band, and the walls were so slatted that I could see all the chickens outside the bathroom clearly. We had only one bar of soap among the three of us, but this was not the time to be picky. We took a gander around the tiny town of the Lahu people of Burma, a hill tribe situated on one of the peaks of the Mae Tang mountain region where we would be staying tonight. It's incredible how quickly you can forget serious effort when surrounded by distracting new things. My body didn't let me forget that climb for days, but I was quite entertained with my new surroundings. 


These people raise a lot of livestock, and every person's house was surrounded by at least 10 roosters, 15 chickens, and a dozen or so chicks. They had a few pigs too. I saw one unlucky chicken get plucked from the pack for dinner, and later saw a woman pulling feathers from the bird. I was glad not to have seen what happened in-between. We made dinner in our house and sat by candle light as the sun went down (there is no electricity here). Women came by to sell their jewelry and massage services, but none of us were awake enough to notice. We played logic games with twigs and learned how to blow bubbles out of leaf stems, which the village children had discovered (a video of this is posted on our shutterfly site). We clinked our plastic glasses with a local whiskey, made of rice...it was terrible! Our guides finished it off.


As the night closed in, the village children came by and sang us songs. Dressed in traditional clothing and singing Christian songs in Thai, they were a sight for sore eyes! The missionaries have told the people about God, and they are collectively a Christian group. We played cards until we couldn't keep our eyes open, and whoever lost had to be drawn on by the others with the soot from the kitchen pan (not my idea!). We slept under mosquito tents and it was a restless sleep...the roosters can't tell what time of day they are supposed to crow, so they do so, all together, at 1, 3, 3:30, 4, 4:15, 5, 5:20 am....you get the picture.