Dear Family and Friends,
Monday, July 23, Dani was up at 6 AM to put together her day bag and prepare to put our valuables in the lockers by the main lobby, switching their location once when she realized that the floor of the locker above was removable. We had breakfast together in the S.K. House restaurant as we waited for the bus to pick us up for our day trek; we each had the omelet with ham and cheese with a strong coffee for a total of 130 baht.
From the hotel lobby area, we were picked up almost on-time, about 8:35 AM. Our day was supposed to officially run from 9 AM to a little after 5 PM, and Dani commented that this was her kind of work day! Three groups were already in the open saung thaew cab: three Dutch guys on two-week holiday, a Jehovah’s Witness couple from Australia, and an Italian couple 
known henceforth as ‘the Italian Birds,’ Marco and Chincia. We finally left town around 9 AM, stopping next at a local market in case anyone forgot an emergency poncho or bug spray or to buy souvenirs to carry around all day. Martha and Dani bought gum and stayed around the van, finding the stop an unwelcome distraction and wanting to get on with the day’s fun.
By 9:55 AM, we were finally headed North into the wilderness of the green mountains. The roads became narrower as we climbed; the air-conditioned van carrying all of us had to stop at a couple of spots to let another vehicle squeeze past. We passed unexpectedly well-groomed and decorative houses and resorts in the mountains. Poverty did not seem to be an overwhelming force along the main roadway.
At 10:15 AM, the four mountain bikes were offloaded from the top of our van and three young women from Ireland started their mountain-biking excursion with a guide who exited our company. From our van-tage-point, we wondered how well these ladies would do speeding through the wilds as they poked and squealed at some unknown oddity by the side of the road! By 10:45 AM (Dani made notes on timing for us for par
t of the day), we had balanced across a small stick-bridge and along the narrow footpaths of a rice field to arrive at the elephant riding center and were told that there were four elephants for the lot of us. One would have to ride on the shoulders of the elephant, and a Dutch guy offered so that he could still ride along with his two buddies. Usually, the elephant tamer would ride in that spot, but he followed along behind instead, carrying a hooked tool to manage the young elephant as needed, but mostly using verbal cues to guide the beast’s path.
The Aussie couple was first off of the platform and up into the forest overlooking the rice fields. The Italian Birds and Dutchies were off next, as we awaited our elephant’s approach to the platform, guided with words to do a wide turn and come up alongside the elephant-level wooden structure. We climbed onto the seat across the elephant’s back, made just for two, and our guide hopped onto the elephant’s head. We were off … at a 
not-so-brisk speed. Up we climbed, watching the elephant’s feet splash into the monsoon-soaked holes of other elephant feet along the well-used paths where the elephants did their daily work. Elephants used to be used for transportation or to carry commerce, but they have lost those jobs in recent history to trucks and cars, so the ecotourism trade of elephant riding is less demeaning than it may seem 
because it gives these smart animals a job … as long as the trainers treat them well, which is not always the case. One of the Italian Birds later confirmed for us that we had scored with the tour group we had chosen (which we still don’t know the name of, but we procured our ride from the Chiang Mai KK Travel LTD travel agency) as they are recommended by the Lonely Planet and seem to really take care of their animals.
As the tons of elephant lumbered up the mountain, Dani adjusted to the ups and downs of the great body’s movement. As we climbed down the mountain, Dani would let out little “Woa” sounds at being pitched forwards a bit. Our guide found this to be amazingly amusing, letting out little giggles, mimicking her sound, and then meowing to help calm her down f
rom the forward pitches. Martha had gone on an elephant ride her previous exploration of Thailand, and enjoyed this renewed relationship with one of the earth’s most impressive beasts. She loved every pitch of this grand lady elephant’s frame, every step, every swish of the elephant’s ears, and every peek at the bristly hairs that numbered on her gloriously large head.
Our guide, named Ka, seemed to sense the comfort that Martha felt with his lady elephant friend, and soon pointed to the back of the elephant’s head and said, “Put foot here.” Before Martha really knew what was going on, SHE had taken the spot of the guide on the elephant’s shoulders! Ka hopped into the seat next to Dani and continued his verbal com
mands, teaching us also how to say “go,” “left,” and “right.” He was wonderful, recognizing how important our photos were to us; he was the only of the guides to hop off of the elephant to take some pictures of us with our camera. SO KIND.
The other elephants were everywhere, some were young and less likely to listen to verbal commands, so they spent more time than ours eating vegetation along the way and more time being pulled and poked by the hook-shaped tool. Ka would simply say, “Hungry” and let our elephant, a beautiful lady elephant named Yai, take a few moments to break off some chow as we lumbered on.
Martha continued riding on Yai’s shoulders, which massaged her rump quite nicely. It was a balancing act to stay centered on her shoulders, though, and quite a bit of energy (with a little pain to her injured thigh) to not feel like she was hurting Yai by being too far onto her neck while not falling off! To thank Yai as we went on, Martha massaged 
her head and the backs of her ears as she knows her dog, Willow, likes to be rubbed! Dani laughed at Martha and continued to “Woa” instinctually on occasion. At one point, Ka responded to Dani’s “Woa” with “Oh my God!” and we imagined that he heard that expression quite a lot in his work!
The ride took an hour and a bit, returning us to our original launching space. Martha grabbed the poles of the platform and managed to pull herself off of Yai’s head without injuring her (or herself). Dani hopped off of the seat; we gave Ka a small tip to thank him for his kindness and for the photos that he had taken of us along the way. He looked around and slid the money into his pocket without anyone else noticing. Then, he let Ya wander around the grounds; a woman approached with bananas for 20 baht to feed to our friend, which we purchased and split in half to share with her. Nothing in the world is quite like an elephant eating out of your hand!
It was neat to see her reach over, grab the banana with her trunk, throw it into her mouth, and chew, skins and all. Martha found that Ya also enjoyed it if you just placed the banana directly in her mouth so her trunk could get a rest! Dani, on the other hand, was quickly surrounded by trunks, as Ya was not the only elephant requesting bananas anymore! Dani is so popular, and squealed like a little kid as the trunks came attacking her, tossing the remaining bananas to Martha, who fed Ya off to the side, where we both took advantage of a private photo session with her.
Under the straw roof of the open-aired bamboo dining room, our group of nine sat down to have lunch of pad thai, spikey rambutan fruit, fried spring rolls, and sauces, all included with the tour. Yum! As we dined, talking together about our lives beyond the day’s trek and Thailand, the three Irish lasses of bicycling fame returned from their journey. They were tired, but in-tact; it was the guide who had fallen off of his bike and scraped his shoulder! More groups came in, including a large group of multi-d
ay trekkers who were not all pleased to learn that, with only four elephants, some of them would have to wait until the next day for the elephant-ride portion of their trip. We could hear one Brit expressing her discontent of having to wait to the trek leaders. As we all sat to eat, the monsoon visited for the day with good timing as the heavy rains were done by the time we left the shelter of the eating quarters.
By 1 PM, we made our way back across the narrow alleys of the rice patties and to the van, we drove farther into the hillside to take on the trekking part of our excursion to the waterfall. It would be about an hour and a half total to get to and from the waterfall. A new guide took the lead who went by the name of “No Name.” As Dani lagged a bit while changing into her bathing suit for imminent swim time, No Name showed his sense of humor with, “This is only one day trek. Let's go!”
On the path to the waterfall, we stopped at one of the two hillside tribe villages that we would explore in the day. All of us seemed a bit uncomfortable as we entered a woman’s home where someone was sleeping in the space designated for resting. Bright Hmong clothing hung on display in the bamboo-walled hut, but the woman of the house wore a skirt and t-shirt. A box designated “Donation for Education of Hmong Children” was placed beneath the clothes display. A small closed clay fire pit sat on the floor with a tea pot on top of it. No Name worked to light the oven as o
ur group (now without the Aussies who were older and guided on an oxen-cart ride while we did our trek) became more and more uncomfortable having invaded someone’s home during naptime. Slowly, we exited the building even as No Name was explaining the items hanging from the wall and their traditional uses in fishing and other hunter/gatherer tasks. Outside of the building, No Name showed us the foot-pedal contraction used to separate the rice kernels from the tops of the rice plant, making Marco Italian Bird showcase it for us, followed by Dani.
Towards the waterfall, we passed a cow grazing along the side of the mountain and managed around him. The waterfall was very pretty, and we snapped some photos by it before hiking down to the pool at its base, where we all donned our bathing suits and enjoyed the water. Here, we got our second “Thai massage,” sitting beneath the water as it splashed on our shoulders an
d backs. Dani let out some more “Woa” sounds as she encountered the mucky bottom of the waterfall lake. There were small swimmy things everywhere, and Martha found one trying to hitch a ride with her as she exited the water; thankfully, it was not a leech but a little bottom dweller that eats muck instead of blood.
When sitting down to put her shoes on, Martha managed to create a big dirty spot on her khaki pants, which turned out to be a big mistake for the day. Since she still had her bathing suit on underneath, she walked over to where the waterfall fell to a lower level and sat down to clean off her toosh … and quickly fell backwards drenching herself in the waterfall pond (at 2:03 PM, according to Dani’s notes)! All
of the other trekkers got a good laugh out of it, and Martha didn’t mind being soggy as the day heated up. From their ox-driven cart ride, the Aussies rejoined the group for a swim before all nine hiked back up the hill, through cornfields and by banana trees, and to the van. Of course, Martha DID mind when she hopped over a puddle in the drizzle and fell into it, thereby officially ruining her pants in orange-clay mud! Sigh …
Once again, the Aussies were off to a slow bamboo raft down the river, while we other seven headed, without bags or shoes or flip flops, to the whitewater rafting portion of our day. We received paddles and helmets (and no instruction) before making our way barefoot on a rather steep and treacherous pathway down to the water’s edge. Dani was ahead of the game and waiting in the boat; Martha ended up between the Italian Birds who daintily and slowly made their way down the foot-worn steps, but enjoyed talking about Italian culture (how could we not go to Italy on this adventure?) and travel. We were four to one raft (Martha, Dani, and the Italian Birds) and three to the other (the Dutchies). Our guide was a pretty cranky individual, especially after the first rapid when he said “DOWN!” and no one got down in the bottom of the boat (a new technique for Ma
rtha, and she’s done a bit of whitewater rafting before). Plus, the Italian Birds really didn’t know what they were doing (or have the upper body determination to get in and dig through the water; perhaps it was a language translation issue), so it was not the easiest going “Forward” and “Back” as commanded. The first set of rapids were pretty fun, and turned out to be the only rapids. The whitewater part of the day was pretty quick (the entire trip was at-most 45 minutes), but our two boats did have fun with some splash wars between us and looking at the riversides, complete with some folks out walking their elephants. At the end of the trip, we all hopped into the water, including the Italian Lady Bird, who was pushed in by Marco! (Martha just wanted to get some of the mud off of her pants from her earlier fall!!)
Barefoot still, we disembarked from the boats and waited for the van at the Maentanman Village Resort (not sure of the name on that one) at the top of the hill from where we got off. It was gorgeous, with bungalows built into the sides of the mountains, a river with many bridges to cross, and ponds around the complex. When the van arrived, we were told that we were waiting for three other folks, but they never showed, and we were carted off to an unexpected extra to the day, since we had understood that we had signed up for the whitewater rafting, but NOT bamboo rafting. Yet, we were headed to enjoy a slow bamboo raft down the river.
Dani guessed that someone else on the bus's adventure took a little longer completing their day’s adventure, so instead of having us sit around, the guides took us on a bamboo raft ride down the river, past an elephant park. The ride was so serene that we could hear the birds singing; we caught glimpse of a bright blue bird with a red head and yellow bill. One guide took all seven of us (we were still without the Aussies at this point) down the river, easily pushing the raft along the center of the river with long strokes of his pole alongside the raft. The Dutchies in the back tried to tip the raft one way or another, but we were all wet anyway (especially with the weight of the seven of us on the thin bamboo stalks).
At the end of the bamboo rafting tour, we changed out of our wet clothes where the Aussies joined us once again. Their female guide brought us fruits from the surrounding trees to have us try the local fun fruits, after Dani had found a tree with the longan fruits (grape-ish, melony tasting fruits with pits inside a tough tan outer shell that is pretty easy to split open) that we enjoy and picked a few. The guide lady also overheard us discussing the difference between red dragon fruit and white dragon fruit, so she went to get us some of each to compare.
The ride back was quiet and contemplative as each of the 16 of us (including the driver and two guides, two Aussies, three Dutchies, two Italian Birds, three Irish lasses, one Japanese lady, and the two of us) were dropped off at our individual guest houses. We ended up getting back to the hotel around 7:30 PM (here we are putting in overtime AGAIN)!! We were tired, hungry, sore, and filthy, so you know we had a great day!! We showered and went out to find something to eat. We ended up at a food stall on the street about 8:30 PM. (The restaurants here are pretty expensive [about 15 USD for the two of us to have dinner if we order beers] so the locals have a ton of stalls on the street with plastic tables that they stack up at the end of the day that offer just a few specialities and are very cheap.) Martha ran to the 7-11 to grab a beer and was back by the time our dinners arrived—big bowls of noodle soup with pork for Martha and with fish balls for Dani. It had started to sprinkle a bit, 
so the husband of the lady who was cooking brought out some umbrellas to set over the table, and they opened the awning in front of the cook’s table.
Just about the time they finished, the storm really opened up— they know their timing. We scooched our table inwards, but the winds were blowing the rain sideways into our faces, so we scooched the table inwards some more. The kind couple held the umbrella down for us so that the winds wouldn't carry it off and we could cover our dinner and mist-facial. We finished our yummy dinners as quickly as we could, paid the 50 baht (1.75 USD) bill total, bringing our entire dinner, with a refreshing beer, to about 100 baht (3.25 USD). As the rains kept crashing down, we stood under the awning of the 7-11 for a few minutes until the heaviest of the downpour passed—how did we manage to leave the hotel without our umbrellas?
We returned to the hotel to refill out water containers and hop online to confirm that Martha was going to the next day’s cooking class and to let Sheila know we’d likely show up Wednesday morning after an overnight bus back to Bangkok. Neither of us had any trouble falling asleep after the long day of fun and sun!
In love and light,
Martha and Dani
Dear Family and Friends,
We have managed to have a bit of fun along the way, however—an evening (Friday, July 27) at the Suan Lum Night Bazaar where we did some shopping and then were shocked at Sheila joining us! She had locked herself out of the apartment and, instead of waiting until our return, tried the off-chance of finding us among the many rows of the bazaar. She found us pretty quickly, actually. When she asked, “What are the chances of that?”
We had a great night out (Sunday, July 29) to dinner at Rasayana’s raw café—where none of the food is cooked or meat-based—with Sheila, Chris, Chom, Sara, and Ty. It was a great night together once again, eating eggplant lasagna, zucchini spaghetti with nutballs, a sun burger of mashed almonds and coconut, Thai spaghetti made of coconut, a great papaya ring with guacamole, and sushi that was truly raw (but fishless). The kids were not fans of the food, but were fans of the fresh orange juice and mango smoothie that they enjoyed!
That same night, we even explored the Little Arabia part of Bangkok, sitting among the locals and smoking apple tobacco from a hookah for the experience (and the taste … really very apple-flavored!); one round cost us 50 baht at the Alif Laila restaurant, which also serves some fantastic Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine! We watched Middle-Eastern MTV and chowed, then walked through the diverse and enticing wares in the stalls that lined Sukhumvit, the road along which Little Arabia resides (it begins at Sukhumvit 3, for those who want to stop by ...).
And, Martha got to try out her new Thai cooking skills on Monday, July 30, making a completely-vegetarian green curry for the three roommates to enjoy over some rice. Mighty spicy, but also edible! (SCORE!) Chris joined us later to complete our viewing of the YouTube Democratic Debate! (Told you we were having fun!)
Today, Tuesday, July 31, marks our last day here in the Bangkok apartment. Our gut feeling served us well in choosing to live with Sheila here at Bangkok Garden. Her company has been amazing; we have enjoyed every day with her and her harmonious spirit. It has been a pleasure to share in this experience with you and engage in such lively and jovial interactions. We look forward to watching you do great things in life (but no pressure). We’ll miss you, Sheila, very much, and thanks for the great Indian curry tonight! (But, yes, we really are leaving tomorrow, no matter how much you ask, “So, we’re going to the Vietnamese place for lunch tomorrow, right?” Denial is so cute.)
And we cannot say enough about the kindness and generous assistance of our Palang Thai neighbors. Chris and Chom, your help has been indescribably invaluable to our getting around this large city. We wish you both blessed good health, calm, and success in life … and the same for your two wonderful children. Thank you so much for sharing yourselves with us. We’ll miss you all, too!
the East and cross into Cambodia. We will be on the road for about two months with limited access to the Internet. We will post as we can, but the style may be less ‘every little detail’ since we’ll likely be posting from Internet cafes. (I know for some, this is a relief after reading the other days’ postings!!)
