Our plans have been washed away these last two days due to late evening monsoons. They offer a wonderful relief after horribly hot days, but both last night and tonight the vendors at the street bazaars have packed up their goods early and headed in for the nights. We've found some good deals, even though we're not sure how we're going to get everything home. Definitely shopping for smaller things, but weight is the issue, so we'll see how we'll manage.
Yesterday we took the advice of a college friend who had visited Chiang Mai and took a day trip out to an elephant sanctuary. I'd love to post some pictures, but I don't have access to them here in the internet cafe. The sanctuary was just amazing - about 150 acres in a valley 35 miles outside of town. For centuries elephants in Thailand have been brutally trained, ending up in the logging industry or even performing tricks on city streets to earn money for their owners. The sanctuary outside of town works to raise money to rescue elephants - either taking on elephants where the owner can no longer care for them, or buying them from the owners in cases of extreme brutality. In addition, the local communities around the park were very poor, and didn't really trust the owner of the park when she wanted to open up the park. As a way to build their trust she gave them seeds to plant fruits and vegetables, and promised them that she would buy the produce back to use for feeding the elephants. She even agreed to pay market rates. It has taken time, but now the villages which were once subsistence farmers are now seeing the quality of life improve as a result of their agreement, and the park now has a lot of support throughout Thailand.
As you can tell, the visit was largely educational, and of course we learned the individual stories of elephant after elephant. It was just amazing being out in the park; at first we got to feed the elephants from a platform, then later from ground level. After a great (and giant) Thai-vegetarian lunch we got to walk through the park down to the river to help bath the elephants. Later we were allowed to walk among a small herd with two babies; feeding them, petting them, receiving elephant kisses, etc. Really, that doesn't sound like much, but words can't really describe the experience - we hope the pictures we just hope they will do it justice once we can get them posted.
Few other highlights - the sanctuary is also a dog sanctuary. Quite the mix to see all these dogs running around with the people and elephants. Also met some very cool travelers who were "finding themselves" in SE Asia. Their six-week to eight-month vacations made our trip home seem a lot shorter and like much less of a big deal.
What else...lots of cats around here. I caught a glimpse of a Siamese cat the other day, just one. It seemed worth noting.
We were tempted to go to a place that would let us hang out with tigers. Something like $15 for 15 minutes with a baby tiger or $10 for 15 minutes with a juvenile or adult tiger. I was so excited to get a picture cuddled up with a baby tiger, but after spending a day at the elephant sanctuary and then seeing pictures of the tigers' small steel and cement enclosures just made me feel bad for the tigers, so we skipped that.
Miranda tried a Thai massage today. Not so much of a massage, more bending and stretching with lots of pressure and elbows. I opted for the American-style oil massage. No complaints here, but I might have to try a Thai massage tomorrow.
Not much else for news. Tonight's Sunday bazaar was supposed to be a big deal. Street vendors everywhere, live music, fireworks, probably more that we didn't even know about. We got a few good deals, but about 75% of the vendors closed up early due to the rain so we weren't able to shop around much. With so much variety in the market, I'm sure we completely missed out on a ton of things we wanted to buy. The only down side of buying things here is the bartering. Lucky for us, Miranda hims-and-haws a lot, which often brought the price down 30% before we even started trying to bargain. At that point we'd be arguing with the seller over 10-50 baht, which is between 30 cents and $1.50, and on a $5.00-8.00 purchase, the bartering just didn't seem worth the effort. Often it could be a matter of arguing if a nice necklace should cost $1.00 or $1.50...which would have cost $10.00 at home. You get the idea.
In case you're curious, here are two links to the elephant nature park:
http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/herd/index.htm
http://www.elephantnaturefoundation.org/
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