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We arrived in Chiang Mai where we had booked a three day mini tour as a little treat. As this was a 'standard' rather than 'basic' trip, we were collected from the airport and dropped off at our rather lovely hotel. We spent the afternoon exploring Chiang Mai, which has somewhere over 300 temples. We got lost multiple times and came across several temples that were not on our map. After an early dinner of Phad Thai we headed to the hotel bar to indulge in some over budget cocktails.
The following day was our big day with the elephants. We went to the Elephant Nature Park, which houses injured and abused elephants, over 30 of them. We knew that we would enjoy ourselves when none other than Tom Oliver (Lou Carpenter from Neighbours) was the presenter of the safety video. Bonza! We spent the day up close with the elephants, learning all about their stories and watching the mischievous babies causing mayhem. We saw elephants that had been blinded by their previous owners for not behaving and elephants who'd lost large amounts of their foot/leg after stepping on landmines. The most injured elephant we saw was one who's hip had been broken during a forced breeding programme when she had been forced to mate with a bull elephant that was too heavy for her. Obviously there are no hip replacements big enough for elephants and so she had been forced to drag a useless back leg around with her ever since. It was amazing how she had taught herself to swing the useless leg so that it kept up with the rest of her body. Needless to say the elephants at this park would not be suitable to be reintroduced to the wild due to domestication, injury and mental trauma (a significant problem in elephants who have been through an abusive past). The aim of this sanctuary was to give these animals somewhere peaceful to live for the rest of their life. They are not ridden or forced to do tricks (which many of the other 'sanctuaries' in the area do to attract tourists) but just fed, washed and cared for.
It was the elephant with the broken hip that got the joy of us bathing her, she just stood there while we threw water all over her, she loved it. Being up close to the elephants was really fascinating and on occasion a little scary, especially when they decide to start a little jog in your direction. When so close you realise lots of things about elephants, how big their feet are, their poor field of vision and how their mouths look very much like female genitalia. At our final feeding of the day we could choose which elephants to feed. We found a little corner of the feeding platform where two old elephants were patiently waiting. Claire & Greg grabbed the bucket full of watermelon and started feeding one, her name was Mabel Ma and we had her all to ourselves.
More cocktails that night? Oh go on then, it was our last night in the posh hotel after all. A swim you say? Don't mind if we do.
North Thailand was previously part of Burma, therefore has a lot of Burmese culture, hence the heavy Buddhist population. It was monk time and there were just the two of us on the tour with a local guide. At 6am we headed to a market to buy food to offer to the monks before heading to the streets. Monks live off offerings, they do not buy anything for themselves, so everything from their food to their washing powder is given as offerings from local people, in return for good blessings. We each found a monk, took off our shoes, gave them a bag of food and then the monk blessed/chanted to/at us. A very strange experience on the side of a dual carriageway. Then we went to a temple, to give some more offerings to monks and watch them at their breakfast ceremony.
Our guide filled us in on some of the important points about being a Buddhist monk. They only have three pieces of clothes to dress in, they're not allowed to touch or be touched by women (there are no female monks) and they're only allowed to think about the present - no worrying about the future or dwelling on the past. In total they have 227 rules to abide by, if they break the rules four times they're de-monked.
We then went to another temple where a monk had set aside some time to talk to us - 'monk chat' it was called. He was a young man (we're getting old so we're now allowed to refer to people in their early twenties as young) from Bangladesh, and was in Thailand studying a masters in Buddhism and spiritualism, run by the temple. He talked a little about his decision to become a monk before teaching us some basic meditation. It was not something we were used to, sitting down doing nothing, and frankly it was just a bit boring. Claire couldn't help but think about all the lists of things she had to do while Greg just felt it was exactly the same as yoga and hypnosis and a good excuse to nap. We had a very interesting morning learning about Buddhism and the life of monks. Greg's not sure it had the intended effect on him though as he came away thinking what a selfish life monks lead. In relying on the charity of those in the community in exchange for blessings they take money and food away from poor people who happen to be devoutly religious. Also they do not (from what we learned - I'm sure someone can correct us) do much to give back. They only think about the present and how they can personally achieve mental and spiritual nirvana while sitting in a trance like state for most of the day. A very peaceful existence but not particularly selfless or charitable. But Greg does like to rant.
That afternoon we checked into a hostel before heading for a Thai massage performed by ex-prisoners who had learnt to massage as part of their rehabilitation programme. It was similar to the Cambodian massage but much more active and much less relaxing as you were in a room with everyone, with the masseuses talking to one another and various people vocalising various moans and groans. We were pushed and pulled into some of the most bizarre positions with every bone in our body cracking or clicking at some stage. It was a strange sensation and Claire felt at one point like she was acting out the entire Karma Sutra with an ex-prisoner. We wondered what wrong doings they had done but knew better than to ask (a habit we've picked up from work).
For our final night we met up with Kat (from the Cambodia tour) who happened to be in Chiang Mai, now on a different tour, and wandered around the huge night market whilst munching on the various street foods available. We rounded the night off with a few beers before getting an early night - we had a 6am flight to catch.
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