I guess the secret is out! Yesterday was a very action packed day that started at 8am when we were picked up at our hostel by our guide for the day, MooMoo Jr. We did a quick trip to some other hostels to pick up a few other travelers and we were on our way to the Chiang Mai jungles. It was quite a multicultural group with one guy from the Netherlands, two girls from America, one girl from Germany and another from England as well as ourselves. All sitting in the back of a covered pickup truck, we took turns singing our national anthems for each other.
Our first stop was an orchid farm. It was beautiful! My interest in flowers isn’t particularly high but this was a sight to behold. There were so many colors and patterns and they are grown in a hanging position, not in the ground. There was also a room called a butterfly farm but I only saw two butterflies... I saw 5 times that on our 30 minute walk in the jungle later that day.
Next stop, elephant camp! We were with the elephants for half of the day. First learning the Thai commands to tell your elephant to stop, go forward, backward, left and right. I promptly forgot this as I was holding on for dear life though and let the mahout (elephant trainer) do the work for me.
First we fed the elephants. They eat an alarming amount of food every day, about 550 lbs. We fed them bananas but during our ride their only concern was eating. They were constantly grabbing branches and leaves to snack on. Oh, and an elephants tongue is very large and very slimy.
In order to get on the elephant, you order it to kneel – when it does so, you step onto it’s bended leg, grab it’s ear and hoist yourself upwards. Now, either I don’t have the upper body strength or I’m just challenged, but this was more like a 3 person job to get my ass up there. Once up there, you have to use your legs to clamp behind their ears as it is VERY unsteady. It was seriously terrifying. I had to do controlled breathing to keep calm. You could get seriously hurt on one of these things... as we found out when B jumped off of one.
Now that we’ve learned the proper way to mount an elephant, let’s learn the proper way to dismount an elephant. First step, don’t jump off. The easiest way to get off an elephant is by swinging your legs over the top of its head. The elephant will then lower its face to the ground so that you can slide off. B didn’t quite understand the directions so she didn’t wait for it to lower its head far enough. She jumped and heard a crackling noise, immediately knowing that something pretty serious was wrong. She’s a trooper though and didn’t let it ruin her time with the elephants. We rode them to the stream where we dismounted (properly) and bathed them.
The other people took a longer trek into the jungle but we decided to split the day half with the elephants and the other half white water rafting. First, MooMoo Jr’s brother took us for a 15 minute hike through the jungle (B used a giant piece of bamboo as a walking stick,) to see a beautiful waterfall. People were sliding down it but after B almost breaking her foot we were feeling pretty cautious. We then went to visit a hilltribe... I thought it would be the Karen Long Neck tribe (they have the rings around their necks) but unfortunately it wasn’t. This part was pretty disappointing since really, we were just dropped there to buy their crafts and I didn’t need any kazoos.
Off to rafting! We were given helmets and life jackets – my helmet was two sizes too small and my life jacket was two sizes too big. I tried to trade to a different helmet but the others were cracked basically in half so I stuck with my yarmulke sized helmet. We were one person short to fill our 4 person raft so someone from another group had to join us. I felt so bad for this French guy. Not only was he separated from his group, but we were essentially useless to him. When we brought the raft into the water, he dragged it 90% of the way entirely by himself since we didn’t want to walk bare foot on the rocks.
When we got going, our guide was completely silent. He sat on the back giving zero instruction. B had to talk control of the situation, having had some experience in kayaks and what not. She was shouting, “ROW! DIG! LEFT! RIGHT! TOGETHER!” and we were doing pretty good. At one point we were completely beached on a giant rock. I turned around to look to our guide for, y’know, guidance, when I saw him sitting and staring into the distance looking entirely unphased. It was then that I knew we were in this alone.
We were cruising down the river now, gaining speed when disaster struck. I remember hitting a rock hard on my side and sliding down into the raft between the two seats. I was lucky to land there. I looked up while I slid down and saw B in literal mid-air. It was complete chaos but Frenchy leapt into action... he dropped his oar and with on hand grabbed B’s arm and shorts and pulled her back into the boat. It was SERIOUSLY lucky that he has cat-like reflexes because mine are akin to a manatee.
After that, the guide got pretty lively. He was not pleased that we lost his oar so we went full speed ahead to try and get it. We paddled and paddled and paddled straight into a very tight squeeze between three rocks. Stuck. Majorly stuck. Our guide had to get out and yank on the ropes several times while we all piled into one side of the boat to adjust the weight. It was absurd. Especially since every other group was having the most leisurely time! We had so many rafts pass us and I’m sure it took about half an hour longer for us than the other group with us.
It wasn’t over yet though. We parked our boat at a bamboo raft... we all sat on this and it immediately started sinking to about mid stomach level. Seems like a rather pointless mode of transportation if you’re trying to keep anything dry. They are steered by large bamboo stick similar to a boat in Venice. Frenchy handed me the stick at first but seriously, we all know how that would end so I passed it off.
What a day, what a day.
We got back to our hostel and almost immediately passed out. At this point B was pretty certain that her ankle was broken or fractured but we figured with some ice and a good night’s sleep we could better assess it in the morning. I think we fell asleep at about 8:30pm. Oh, and all this cost us 50$ each. I love this place!
S.
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