A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Chang Mai, Thailand

For Amanda and Geoff's second day in Chang Mai, we decided to eschew culture and dignity and embrace Thailand's cheesiest offering -- the Elephant Ride. But just an elephant ride wasn't nearly cheesy enough for us -- for about $16 we piled into a minivan and managed to complete four cheesy tourist activities in a single action-packed day.

First, the minivan. We were picked up at 8:30 and introduced to the seven other tourists. Remarkably, five of them were American (there are few Americans travelling these days in Asia) and even more remarkably, four of these were from Washington state (Anderson Island. I had never heard of it, but from their description it sounds like a rural flyspeck of an island in Puget Sound south of Takoma). Anyway, 10 tourists, seven from Washington state, and an eighth from Washington DC. Very strange.

After an hour's drive south, our first stop was the elephant ride, or "Elephant Trek" as they bill it on all the tour posters around town. Geoff, cynic that he is, thought this would be one of those deals where they put you on top of the animal, snap a photo, and call it a day, but we did in fact go on an honest to God elephant ride, sitting in pairs on a series of five lumbering elephants, precariously balanced on an inadequately cushioned metal chair. Thankfully, the ride was uphill through the tropical forest, as we learned to our terror that "downhill elephant ride" effectively means "hold on for dear life or you will slide right off". The ride was fun but uneventful, so there's not too much to say, but I do have Five Fun Facts About Thai Elephants as a result: 1. They start "training" for work at age 7, and live to about age 85; 2. An elephant eats one tenth its body weight per day, so a one ton elephant is eating about 200 lbs of greenery daily; 3. The elephants are set free to roam the forest and graze at night, and are rounded up each morning by elephant keepers who wander around and listen for their bells; 4. Many elephants have half their tusks missing. This reportedly makes it easier for them to work (and surely makes it safer for their handlers), and the ivory is made into art objects for the Asian market, since it's illegal to import it into most western countries; 5. Elephant crap is HUGE! Seriously, it's enormous, frequent, and pungent. Do not stand behind an elephant.

After the elephants we hiked up the hill to Cheesy Activity #2 -- A Visit to a Traditional Hmong Village. I suppose the billing might be true if in fact most Hmong villages are set up like malls. I've been to a number of Hmong villages in Vietnam and Laos, and this was the least "traditional" yet. Not too many people around, apart from the women selling handcrafts and Cokes. I did manage to do an ultra cheesy thing while in the village -- I paid five baht (15 cents) to shoot a homemade crossbow at a piece of fruit attached to a target that was thankfully not placed very far away. You'll be happy to know I hit it. I may have found my new calling -- professional fruit markswoman.

After another cheesy village (Karen Tribe this time, and this one had a gorgeous house made entirely of teak, for crying out loud. I don't think these one-day tours even try for authenticity anymore) we hit Cheesy Activity #3, which really wasn't so cheesy, but a bit cliched. A visit to a waterfall. In normal circumstances we would have been encouraged to frolic and soak ourselfves, but as it was pouring down rain most of us made do with taking some damp photos and cleaning the caked mud from the Karen Village off our shoes.

Our fourth activity was arguably the cheesiest of them all -- a Bamboo Raft Ride down a small Thai river. You may be thinking that this couldn't possibly be as cheesy as an "Elephant Trek", but I would have to disagree. In Thailand, elephants really were used for transportation historically, and are still used to work the fields and various other useful endeavors even today. So an elemphant trek isn't so farfetched if you look at it in context. By contrast, I would be willing to bet that bamboo rafts were never a primary means of transportation at any time in Thailand. I'm not saying they never existed, but since they'd be hopelessly inefficient in transporting goods, it seems highly unlikely that they were at all common before the Age of the Backpacker descended upon the country.

The setup was thus: one long raft, made of 7-8 bamboo logs lashed together with pieces of old tire; one thai raft driver standing up front with a long pole, most either smoking or drinking Thai whisky in preparation; one foreigner raft driver standing at the back, given no training and a pole so short as to be close to useless; and 2-3 foreigner passengers sitting in the middle, sometimes on a wooden crossbar, sometimes wallowing in a few inches of water.

On our raft, Geoff was our rear driver, and every once in a while his pole could actually touch bottom. Up front our Thai driver, if not drunk, was extremely high-spirited. Amanda and I, seated side by side in the middle of the raft, were attempting to stay as dry as possible given that it was raining and we were floating on a very sketchily constructed bamboo raft less than an inch above the murky brown river water. Sadly, our efforts were destined to be thwarted.

It seems our fart driver was quite the practical joker, which perhaps inevitably led oto very wet reprisals from his victims. Our driver would maneuver over near another raft then step on it, practically sinking it on one side and causing its passengers to partially submerge and/or fall off. The other drivers tended to ignore him, probably a bit tired of his antics after a full day of carting foreigners down this stretch of river, but the newly-drenched passengers on the other rafts were rather laess tolerant. Soon we were victims of crossfire in a war between our driver and a cop from Pierce County, each doing everything possible, including hand to hand combat, to capsize the other's raft. Despite our valiant efforts to hold on, both Amanda and I were drenched by the end of the ride. Don't get me wrong -- it did turn out to be lots of fun, but the ride back to Chang Mai in wet clothes was decidedly uncomfortable. Actually, the whole day was fun, though I'm pretty certain Amanda would have skipped the raft, if given the option. Hooray for Cheesy!

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 2:38 AM