Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Oh Wendy..

I hope you all arent sick of Thailand because this is taking a lot longer then I thought it would. But I love having it all written down with pictures since I didnt do so well with my journal. So sorry you are all Thailand out.
I would like to start off my post with a HUGE congrats to my big sister.

I seriously just think the world of her, and am so proud of everything she has done.
She went through nursing school while raising 3 kids under the age of 2. She is a stay at home mom, and worked her tail off studying and taking care of her little ones.

Congrats sis, you are going to be an AWESOME nurse.

After a 3 hr drive in the middle of the night (the same drive I took in that dreaded orange bus) I was car sick AGAIN. I was super bummed because I didnt know if I was going to be able to enjoy my elephant day. I had been looking forward to this since the day I bought my plane ticket.
There are elephant tours all over Thailand, but nothing like the one we were about to be apart of. We were about to become "Elephant Owners For A Day". This wasnt just hike up a platform and jump in a basket for a half an hr while someone takes you around. We literally got our own elephant!
Once we got into the big city the elephant farm came and picked us up and took us to the farm. I was so happy I wasnt still sick so I could enjoy the view because we were back in the jungle! It was gorgeous.
We got to the farm and they explained a little bit about what our day would be like. Then they introduced us to our elephants! Everyone's elephants had the coolest Thai name and I couldnt wait to hear what my elephants name was going to be. I was hoping I would remember it.
They called me up and introduced me to my elephant.... Wendy. Wendy? Hmmm, I guess that wont be hard to remember.

Part of being an elephant owner for a day means we had to take care of our elephant.
And the morning routine was checking their feet to see if they had sweat coming out of their feet to show they had enough fluids, checking the wrinkles of their skin, and yes...checking their...doo doo.

We were given a big branch with leaves so we could brush off all the dirt on their backs so we could bathe them.

They taught us commands so we could make our elephants sit,open their mouths, lay down, walk forward, walk backward, lay down and look cute

After we had them all brushed off we led them down to the river to give them a bath. To guide them, you pull on the bottom part of the ear and keep your face close to theirs

We had a little bucket, and brush so I could get her nice and clean!

The farm owners gave us a little cheat sheet in case we were on our walk about and couldnt remember their commands.
Finally we got to take them for a spin!
Two funny things about our elephants, mine couldnt walk 2 feet without stopping for a bite to eat and Russ's elephant seemed to hate walking with us so he was always trying to get his elephant back on the track. It was hilarious

I had no idea how sure footed an elephant was. We were on some STEEP trails and they just took it nice and slow, found their footing and it was 10 times more fun and scary then riding a horse.
We took our elephants up to this amazing waterfall! Elephants LOVE the water. It was so much fun watching them swim and enjoy themselves!

While the elephants swam and cooled off we enjoyed the pretty waterfall


They had packed us the most delicious picnic by the water fall.
Chicken, rice of all kinds! Rice with black beans, mango sticky rice, rice with potatoes...it was delish!

I gave Wendy some of my left overs

And then we jumped in the water for a swim! It was hard trying to stay on them, but kind of a must so you didnt get squished!

After lunch we went back down the mountain and walked along the most beautiful river Ive ever seen. I honestly felt like I was in a movie. It was one of my most favorite times in my life. It was so quiet and there were these black butterflies flying all around us.

Then they offered us to ride "advanced style". We both of course jumped at the chance.
Its riding on top of their heads and holding on to their ears. Now, you might not think this is scary, but that elephant is HIGH! And basically you dont have a lot to hold on to...oh and remember how I said Wendy liked to stop and eat often? Try sitting on top of an elephant head while they are throwing their heads frantically trying to get a piece of bamboo out of the ground. Its scary. But oh so fun.

Yahoo! No hands!

There is only one thing I liked equally as much as Wendy, and thats Russ's V neck


I did not want this day to end!

After,we had to get off and say goodbye...I chose the jumping off barefoot (OUCH!-not how it should be done. Russ chose the ol' elephant ear between the legs dismount (double OUCH!)

Sorry Russ, but thats just too funny.
Then we had to say our goodbyes, by giving them a bucket of bananas.

Ahhhh, one of the best days of my life. Everyone should own an elephant for the day! Even if your elephant has a human name like Wendy!

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Long Neck Villiage

I think at this point in the trip, I was feeling really refreshed and adjusted to their time. I had the best day before on the scooter ride, and was super excited to see the Long Neck Village.
We had a long day ahead, we needed to grab breakfast, head to the village, take few hour scooter ride back to Pai, grab our bags, turn in our scooters, catch a 4:00 bus, and find a hotel.
So we were off!
We couldn't find many breakfast places, but found this one spot that had seating with open windows so we decided to dine there.
Unfortunately it was the sickest meal, and most expensive.
Some highlights of my breakfast was: rolled up fake lunch meat, and a hot dog.

After choking down my breakfast we headed out to find the village. We found some great things along the way.
We saw our first elephant! At this point we didnt know much about Elephants. We didnt know that if their ears are perked up, that meant they are angry and could possibly charge. I just thought it was cute :)

I had no idea I was traveling with a real live Tarzan.

I thought this was hilarious. What a smart little ele

We ran into this amazing bridge. The jungle was so beautiful. I loved parking the scooter on the side and exploring.

These cute little kids must have been in school, and were taking a break to cool off.
I wanted one of them so bad, haha they were so cute!

We had to cross all these rivers, which was so so fun...until we realized the bottom was full of moss. I almost crashed my scooter! But FUN.


This sign was kind of cool.

We entered the village and it was nothing like we expected. It was amazing just as we thought, but we later read things from a travel book about the village that made me feel strange about being there.
We read that the government wouldnt let them leave the village because they brought in so much money from tourist.
It was kind of strange just walking through their homes, and lives and taking pictures of them.
We used my zoom lens so it wasnt as invasive.
We also bought things from them, to help them, and not make us feel as bad for asking for pictures.
This lady had post cards made of her. I think she must be the most well known.



She put these rings on my wrist. They were $3 which was probably a lot to them. Her sales strategy was a good one. Put them on dumb blonds that cant get them off so they have to buy them.

Here is a younger girl. I believe the older they get, the more rings they wear.

This is a young girl without her rings on. You can see how long her neck is already stretched.

I really love this next picture. They didnt have one word in common, but still managed to interact so cute. They were both smiling and laughing without saying a word.

These 2 little girls were my very favorite of the whole trip. They were so precious.


A few others photos from the village



Whenever I visit different countries, I always like to think about their day to day lives in comparison to mine. I feel incredibly lucky, and grateful for all that I have.



These ladies were sitting in this spot when we arrived and hadnt moved when we left. I wondered about what their lives were like and had been like. I wondered if they were happy, and if they knew how different life was outside of the village.

As we left the village we realized we needed to get on the road. We didnt have a lot of time.
We didnt have the time to stop for lunch so we stopped at this little stand on the side of the road that was selling fried bananas and fried sweet potato wedges.
We filled up our tanks and started up the steep steep road.
We were really excited for our scooter ride back. We had a blast the day before and looked forward to it.
Russ scooter kept dying and we just thought it was over heating. He had to keep pulling off to the side of the road, and restarting it.
Until....nothing. It would turn over at all. It was TOAST.
Here we were, off the side of the road 20 min from where we had just left and about 5 hrs to where we were going. We waited a bit and tried to start it again. Nothing.
He pulled it off the side of the road.

While pulling it off the road, he also stepped in a thorn bush and had hundreds of tiny little thorns in his foot. Poor guy.
He whipped out his knife and was scraping all the thorns out.

We loaded everything on my trusty pink scooter when a truck full of Thai people pulled over and started talking to us in Thai. They didnt speak one word of English and we only knew how to say hi, and thank you in Thai.
After a long time of them trying to talk to us, and after a lot of hand gestures we finally figured out they were saying it was a fire hazard having it off the side of the dry dry road.
So they loaded up the scooter and went back to where we just came from.

I followed...laughing.

You never know how people are going to react when things like this happen. Especially when you are in a far off country, not speaking their language and a bus to catch. But I was very impressed with Russ and how he kept his cool. I knew he could possible lose it at any moment...scooter broken down, thorns in the foot, bus to catch. But he just looked up at the mountain, shook his fist and said "well, you got the best of me this time mountain" with a big ol smile on his face.
We left the scooter with a very small little repair shop and loaded up on the scooter.

I decided to be his Ipod, which Im sure made the LONG trek home even longer, but we laughed a lot. Mostly because we didnt know a lot of the words we were singing.
The hills were so steep Russ would have to get off and walk to the top and hop back on. It took ALL day.
We did stop for a sweet photo opp though

LONG story short.
It took us forever to get back.
The scooter rental place was PISSED.
We missed our bus.
So the scooter rental place made us hire a truck taxi, drive all the way back which was about 2 hrs in a car both ways. We didn't get back until almost 2 in the morning and we had to be in Chiang Mei by 7 in the morning and no one was leaving Pai that night.
So we had to hire a taxi to come pick us up at 4 AM to so we could be to Chiang Mei for our big day with the elephants!
Looks like another night of just a couple hrs of sleep!