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Chiang Mai, our next destination is one of those places you read about in guide books and travel magazines. With its location in the north of Thailand near to the Burma border, it is surrounded by forests and mountains. The city itself is the second biggest in Thailand and is a previous capital city, surrounded by a moat and the rebuilt red brick wall, destroyed by the Japanese in WW2. It sounded like the best get away for Christmas in Thailand, especially when the beach resorts are so expensive.
The real Chiang Mai has been greatly exaggerated, as we realised after our 5 hour bus journey from Sukhothai. The area around the city walls is covered in McDonalds, Burger King, neon lights and industrial buildings. Not the sight you expect for a historically walled city. Inside the walls there is no particular hub of shops or resturants, but the resturants provided are the 'Fat Elvis' or 'Bobs Cafe' type. The city seems to have been taken over by tourists and expats, mixed in with the grubby local shops and stalls. Luckily the city keeps in culture in the amount of Buddhist temples and monasteries in the city walls. Monks collect their morning Alms off locals and walk around the city in their bright orange robes. You even see the robes drying outside of dry cleaners.
The most interesting parts of the city are the markets in the morning or the Sunday night market. Stalls cover streets selling tourist trinkets, mostly from China, mixed with local delicacies such as fried cricket or sticky rice with mango. On Sunday the local drama school performs on a set up stage, with girls and boys singing and dancing the night away for fund raising. Every other evening the street vendors fill a small park at the Chiang Mai Gate with crêpes, sushi dishes, barbecue, curry and salad, sadly Nicole couldn't try this food with the use of peanuts and cashews in nearly everything.
With Chiang Mai being a tourist hub for the backpackers to 5* resort goers, lots of people visit the area for local tribe visits, elephant rides, forest trekking and more. Sadly this means that any activity costs a fortune to the budget backpacker, our elephant rescue park cost £40 each and the cooking class £20 each. Of course there are cheaper tours and experiences but we found they weren't what we wanted to do. With all this tourist spending comes the deceit, a high proportion of the tribes you visit are fake or just want to sell you something. The elephants on the tours are worked to the bone, taking groups of tourists on the same walk many times a day, sometimes without a break. The trekking tours charge a small fortune to take you on a 3 hour walk through the forest and the tuk tuks will charge even more for a days hire. It's an expensive place to be for activities and you don't always get what you expect.
After careful consideration we booked ourselves onto a vegetarian cooking class, that was recommended by a lady we met on our Sukhothai bike tour. Duan the chef cooks in her family run restaurant "Morning Glory" in Chiang Mai, she is a vegetarian and a healthy eater. We started our tour of 4 in a local food market full of tables selling vegetables, herbs, spices and sweet treats. Duan showed us all the different vegetables and bought some treats for us to munch on. It was interesting to see all the different vegetables and learn how they are used and grown. After our market tour we got straight into the cooking, using our own recipe guides, we cooked along with Duan showing us how. We had such a fantastic time cooking and made more than 10 different dishes. One major positive was that Duan made the nut based meals with sunflower and pumpkin seeds for Nicole.
We actually returned twice to her restaurant, on the last visit Duan was without her husbands help so she asked us to step in the kitchen and help her cook. It was hillarious cooking up food with her direction and serving it to confused tourists asking if we were the waiters. She was so unfazed by the amount of orders or people being rude. Matt and I where feeling stressed for her the whole time. She just smiled and shrugged it off! We loved helping her out and she was very thankful, though I doubt we helped that much in the long run. It was one of those experiences you expect to happen to the hippie dude who 'totally' connected with the locals. We couldn't stop laughing on our walk home, covered in sweat from the blazing hot woks.
The Elephant Sanctuary we visited was actually an inspiration from Nicoles friends Becky and Georgia, who had previously visited Thailand and spent a few weeks volunteering on a Elephant Sanctuary. When they returned they told us all about the harmful effects of riding elephants and the abuse that their owners inflict on them to "break" their spirit. We decided that if we were going to spend time with the elephants, which are the symbol of Thailand, we wanted to do it in the right way. So we headed to a Elephant Sanctuary on Christmas Eve at 8am by minibus with a small group of tourists. Elephants were used for Thailand's logging of their forests, when this became illegal lots of people and elephants where left jobless. So the elephants were used for begging on the street, for tricks, tourist rides and illegal logging still. To train these elephants into following the commands of their owner, they were abused until their spirit was broken and there were too scarred to disobey. The owner of this Sanctuary was from a hill tribe that grew up witnessing the elephants been abused on the streets and used for begging. She has to buy the elephants off their owners as elephants have their own passport and identity chips they are legally owned by people, even people who abuse them! The government does not sponsor her work or promote animal welfare, even though elephants are Thailand's symbol. Therefore the Sanctuary is funded by educational tourist visits and paying volunteers who stay for weeks at a time. The Sanctuary covers a large area in the hills surrounding Chiang Mai. Some of the elephants are not safe to be with untrained helpers as they are scared mentally and physically by their abuse in the hands of humans. The elephants spirit is not broken here, instead they are given back their natural environment, nutritional food and even their own herd. The humans that work with them have to gain the elephants trust and respect peacefully, sometimes this can take a long time.
We met many elephants in the open space of land they own, they are free to roam around in their make shift herds while they are looked on by their trusted human. We fed many elephants and heard their story from our guide, the oldest is 80 years old and the youngest 2. We met a elephant who stepped on a landmine and has lost a large part of her leg, as well as blind elephants who had been abused by owners. Some of the older elephants had broken hips and shoulders due to carrying tourists up and down routes all day every day. It was sad to hear what happens to them, but very enjoyable to see how visibly happy they are now, running around and playing in the mud. It was amazing to touch and watch these huge peaceful animals interact with each other and people.
The one thing we did notice, and have in nearly ever tourist attraction is the importance of a good photo. Sadly a good photo, to some people, means more than respect and safety. In this particular incident we where informed of rules about where to touch and stand near elephants, they are animals after all, but some people just could not follow these rules. They had to push the boundaries just for that selfie, these people nearly got charged at by a very angry grandmother elephant as they wanted to touch and take a photo of the baby, they wouldn't listen to the guides advise to stand back or move. It's such a shame as it just shows a lack of respect to the animals and the guides. We've seen this in many places now, climbing on temples, take photos of things that are clearly signed not to, pushing people out of the way and standing on dangerous cliffs or sections of building. We love taking photos and documenting the moment as well, but not an the expense of disrespecting someone or something. On a positive note we loved meeting and learning about these majestic creatures, especially washing them in the river, seeing them roll in the smelly mud and hunt for a good post to scratch on.
We also met another of Asia's most talked about creatures, though these guys aren't as popular as elephants. We had three nights of spending quality time with these guys. Bed Bugs! Although they are found all over the world, they are very active in Asia for many reasons. At first we assumed mosquitoes, though it was odd only Matt was being feasted on, we popped up our mosquitos net and we happened to switch sides of the bed. Well Nicole received some quality attention from the suckers this time. The hotel moved us to another room but claims it was mosquitos, even though we had a net, or ants, that we never saw. We were glad we got moved and didn't meet them again!
Christmas day arrived! It was a day we were dreading, as we are very close to our families, how would it live up to the expectation of a normal Christmas day. Well it didn't. It wasn't going to we had missed the build up of songs and events, we had no delicious Christmas dinner to tuck into, the weather wasn't cold and we had no family or friends in sight. But it was our choice to be away for this time of year, so we dealt with it the best we could. We got out of bed slowly and watched the only Christmas film on TV in English we could find "The Holiday" and went to have breakfast. On our way to the Cinema Plaza we stopped off at our favourite cafe and treated ourselves to a cinnamon swirl and a Danish pastry. The walk to the Cinema down a long duel carriage way was a dusty and exhausting one, but we made it! The afternoon was spent watching Star Wars for £3.50 each in a plush cinema with popcorn. One interesting addition to the start of the film was a dedication to the king of Thailand which everyone in the cinema stood up for, even us. Our Christmas dinner featured some fried Dory fish and chips and a taxi ride back to the hotel. It was the most un-christmassy day we have ever had, it was so strange to see how it wasn't important here and how much of a focus it is at home.
We learnt one big lesson though, Christmas for us is only about the family. We didn't miss the food or the presents. We didn't miss the parties or markets. We missed our loved ones and being with them is what makes Christmas for us.
- comments
Liz & Chris Silver Wow what a fantastic journey. We did not know you had a blog until Pat told me on the phone last night, I stayed up late and read it all. Sorry we are not very tech minded us older ones. In Venice do not eat or drink in St Marks Square the prices are unbelievable the restaurants in the back streets are much cheaper. Hope to see you at Michele's. In Vien the prices are OK in most places. We shall be following you both from now on.