elephants and more

so what has happened since my last blog? quite a lot! i'll update you on the elephant sanctury shortly.

for our first full day in chaing mai we checked into a new guest house, paid 30 baht to get a kilo of washing done (under a quid), had a wander and then found another guest house with a pool so we went there for a pleasant few hours swimming and sunning before heading back to the night market.

i have a go on a 15 metre high climbing wall and get to 12 metres. no matter how many times i try i just can't get over a certain point. it was great fun and i was dripping with sweat afterwards. it was scor4ching that day and we have been very lucky with the weather so far considering it is rainy season.

we go for some food and as it is a local election the following day (sunday) the markets and bars are not allowed (or supposed) to serve alcohol. they get around this by bringing us beer in a tea pot with some mugs. ideal! more delicious thai food.

we then both get an hour long thai massage. at first i thought they guy was trying to kill me but i relaxed and we both felt fantastic after it. we wander down some side streets to get back to our guest house and stumble across a lovely outside bar all lit up with fairy lights and head in. we chat emily and butrim from australia. they are over promoting australian universities to thai people - what a job! we have a beer with them (that we have to hide under the table). it's an interesting chat as butrim is from thailand originally and he is full of useful info about the history of the country, politics and lady boys! emily lives in melbourne and promises to take us to some local gigs when we get there in october or thereabouts.

we head home after midnight and sleep well.

the next day we move 20 yards along the street to the guest house with the swimming pool. it's 400 baht per night. we spend a very relaxing and cheap day by the pool in the sun reading books and planning our next week. on sunday nights there is a huge market in chaing mai (even bigger than the daily night market) so we spend a pleasant hour or so wandering around before stumbling across a funk jazz band playing outside a bar featuring vocals, guitar, bass, drums, percussion and sax. we find a seat outside and chat to a couple from england (matt) and sweden (lynnia). the band are top class and we have several large chang beers. at 6.4% and at 80 baht they are the dogs bollocks.

on to today. we were picked up outside our guest house at 8.15 to head into the hills and on to the elephant sanctury - our home for the day. on route we pick up mark from australia and a family from canada - husband, wife and 5 year old daughter.

from chaing mai you can book many treks and elephant rides. what you don't know is how the elephants are trained and looked after - not very well let me tell you.

i'll not go into the politics for now - i'll save that for when i get back.

our host for the day is another aussie - michelle. she has been living and working at the sanctury for 4 years with her husband. there are now 32 elephants living on the sanctury - being fed, looked after and allowed to roam the 55 acres of land that they have. they are not 'taught' how to do tricks and they don't have carriages on their backs. they are in as close to their natural environment as possible (while keeping them safe) and they are absolutely stunning. michelle fills us in on the history of elephants in thailand and the politics involved. up until 1989 they were working animals (logging animals) until the thai government realised they needed to keep some trees. elephants were vital to a families income, when they were not allowed to log anymore they had to look to tourism for income - hence elephants were, and still are, beaten and tortured until they lose the will to fight and do what their owners command. having watched a natural geographic documentary on this i can tell you that the treatment is appalling.

anyway, on to the good news. all the elephants in the sanctury have been rescued by an amazing women called lek, including some that were only days old. they are healthy and happy. we get to feed them bananas and watermelon before wandering down to the river to bathe them. it is a truly memorable experience.

we then wander around the park watching them play, feed and relax. i will never use the phrase 'hung like a horse' anymore. it will now be 'hung like an elephant'! i had to laugh when lynn asked michelle 'why has that elephant got 5 legs?' only kidding, she didn't, but this was impressive!

we get to bathe the elephants again at 5pm before winding down and heading back to chaing mai. we've just had some more amazing food from the night market - spring rools, mussells (again), thai red curry and cantonese noodle soup - deeeeeeelicious.

tomorrow we have a day at a thai cooking school for 800 baht each. around 12 pounds by my reckoning.

oh and i almost forgot, we are now the proud foster parents of a young elephant called tong jan! check out the website http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/index.htm to see our elephant!

after our thai cooking school we are heading further north to a town called pai before making our way to the border and crossing into laos where we intend to spend around 10 days.

after that, who knows!

i'll hopefully be able to keep updating my blog every 2/3 days as we go, although as laos is pretty uncommercial i am not sure how readily available internet cafes will be.

check out the photos section.

lots of love
murray and lynn

xxxxx