Mae Taeng Elephant Camp -- not so good

We are so very grateful to Lisa for telling us about Mae Sa Elephant Camp. And we are very glad we visited Mae Sa first. Otherwise we would have thought that all the elephant camps were like the one we visited today. And that would be a bad thing.

Today we took the Safari Tour with Journey Tours. The tour guide was very nice and a good guide. The van was comfortable and fairly new. They were prompt and followed the schedule pretty well. But we did not enjoy much about this tour. We visited Mae Sa on our own with the private taxi for about half the cost of the Safari Tour; and Mae Sa was infinitely better.

It was more than an hour's drive from Chiang Mai to the Mae Taeng Elephant Camp. The guide said we were only about 100 miles from the border with Burma (Myanmar). He also said the Mae Taeng Elephant Camp was connected in some manner with the brother of the King of Thailand. I'm not sure exactly what the connection is -- whether he provides money for the camp or if the tourists visiting the camp provide money to him.

First we rode small bamboo rafts down the river for an hour. The jungle and hillside scenery was pretty. We saw elephants bathing in the river and one small crocodile on the bank. Zachary poled the raft for awhile and BeBe also had the opportunity to try it. Thank goodness there was a man on the back who could steer the raft back to the middle when needed. There were 2 low wooden benches where we sat for this river ride. This turned out to be the best part of the tour.

The van met us when we finished the rafting and brought us back to the elephant camp. Then we spent several minutes touching the smaller elephants and interacting with their mahouts. Then we all walked down to the river bank and the elephants walked into the river for their daily baths. Each one laid down in the water and was scrubbed by his or her trainer. They appeared to really enjoy playing in the water. This bath is their treat before they perform in a show.

The show was very, very disappointing to us after seeing the show at Mae Sa. There were very few elephants to perform in this show. The elephants were not as well trained and did not appear to be as content with their lives in this camp. It was a big disappointment.

Only one elephant had been trained to paint. Her name was Suda. The painting she did was not as impressive as the ones we had seen painted by the elephants at the Mae Sa Elephant Camp, although to us any painting done by an elephant is unique because we had no idea that elephants could be trained for such a thing. For an elephant to be able to select colors and to arrange those colors with brush strokes into a recognizable pattern or form is absolutely amazing. The gift shop at the Mae Taeng camp had many paintings supposedly done by Suda, but those were far more elaborate than the painting she did during this show. I have strong doubts as to the authenticity of those gift shop paintings. One of the reasons we only bought paintings that we had watched being painted by the elephants at the Mae Sa camp a few days earlier.

Now it was time for the obligatory elephant ride. Neither Bill nor I wanted to ride an elephant; but this was a longer ride and part of the tour, so we didn't really have much of an option not to participate. We did not want the kids to ride off unattended on an elephant into the jungle for an hour. I rode with BeBe and Bill rode with Zachary. Our elephant was in front of Bill and Zach's elephant on the walk.

The troubles started almost immediately. There was a slope from the boarding platform down to the river that we were to cross. The slope did not seem that steep, but as the elephant descended both BeBe and I started slipping forward until our feet were on the elephant's back instead of on the foot brace of the passenger seat. I felt like I was going to slip right through and down onto the elephant's back. Consider this one grandmother who was not a happy camper.

Once the elephant reached the shallow river, we were able to straighten ourselves back correctly in the passenger seat. Going up the steeper opposite bank wasn't a problem. The mahout turned and told us several times to move either right or left in the seat; obviously attempting to get the weight properly distributed. The seat continued to slip throughout our entire ride.

We progressed down that side of the river for a distance, then angled back across the river to the original side. The mahout was having difficulty controlling our elephant. The elephant would stop and refuse to move (like a darn mule) and he would try to go off the beaten path. He just did not want to follow all the other elephants on this long walk. We made it up the opposite side of the river on a steeper bank.

Here there were a couple of vendor stands selling bananas and sugar cane sections to feed the elephants, but I did not have any money to buy any. Maybe the lack of treats at this point of the walk is what pissed off our elephant, because from that point onward he was very contrary and refused to obey the mahout. The other elephants continued on the walk and our elephant walked away down near a building and stood in the shade......while BeBe and I wondered what the heck was going on.

And that is when we received our first shower of elephant snot.

The elephant would gather liquid in its trunk and then turn its head to the right and put its trunk up toward us and blow hard.......covering us with a shower of what could only be described as elephant snot. This happened over and over again during the remainder of our walk.

Near the end of the walk the path diverged. All the other elephants had walked down the left path with the gradual slope. Our elephant instead decided to take the short cut down the steep slope to the right. This was not pleasant. In fact, it was downright scary and very uncomfortable. Our passenger seat slid forward until we were up against the back of the mahout. BeBe and I felt like we were sliding right over the head of the elephant and we were holding onto the seat for dear life. BeBe started crying because she was so frightened and was certain she was going to die falling off an elephant and getting stepped on by the big elephant -- like the baby elephant a few years ago at the Houston zoo that was killed when its mother stepped on it. We did eventually reach the bottom of the steep slope and then it was only a short walk down a paved road to the platform where we were allowed to get off this damn animal.

By this time we had been sprayed by elephant snot at least 20 times and our clothes were wet with it. Oh, I enjoyed this elephant ride ever so much!

Bill said our elephant had blood showing in several spots where our mahout had tried to control the elephant with his hook. This whole ordeal was very upsetting. Elisabeth said she liked the Mae Sa Elephant Camp much better because the elephants there were better trained and weren't tortured like they were in this Mae Taeng camp. I agreed with her. The elephants at Mae Sa seemed much happier. Part of this might be because each elephant was assigned a particular mahout. In the Mae Taeng camp it appeared that the mahouts worked with different elephants more often and not so much with their dedicated animal. This can't be good for the elephants because they can't bond with their trainer as well. At any rate, I was so glad to be finished with elephants at this camp.

Next was our ox-cart ride back to the main camp. Funny thing is that our oxen looked exactly like Brahma steers......or Bremmers as they are affectionately known in Texas. These looked nothing like any oxen we had seen before. All of the ox carts looked like they were being pulled by either Brahma steers or Brahma heifers. While riding the ox-cart back to the main camp we passed an old elephant that was chained beneath a thatch roof. The ankle of that poor animal was deeply scarred and indented by the chain ring. There is no excuse for treatment like that.

After a leisurely buffet lunch our next stop was an orchid farm. Gorgeous flowers. We didn't take any photos inside the orchid farm, but here is a shot of the small orchids they pinned onto our shirts as we entered.

We returned to the hotel for another swim in the pink pool. I will never understand why anyone thought a pink swimming pool was a good design idea; blues, greens, white or even black looks so much better. Then it was back to Miguel's for another Mexican dinner. We were going to eat Mexican food until we were burned out since there is none available in Malaysia.

Another day in Chiang Mai

Today was our "city" day.

Chiang Mai translates to New City, yet the city is 714 years old -- more than 3 times older than the city of Bangkok. Northern Thailand previously belonged to the Lanna people, and Chiang Mai was the capital of Lanna. The word Lanna roughly translates to "many rice fields" although we haven't seen very many. Southern Thailand was literally filled with rice fields; there were virtually none near Bangkok; and only a few near Chiang Mai. Maybe the "many rice fields" are farther north. The original inner city of Chiang Mai is square and had walls on all 4 sides. We are sick to death of temples and have no intentions of visiting the old inner city to see the old temple. There is more than enough to see in the newer part of the New City to keep us occupied and peak our interests.

Today we used the same pick-up taxi that took us to the Mae Sa Elephant Camp and Tiger Kingdom. He is a very nice man....doesn't speak English, but we manage to communicate okay. And he hasn't tried to gouge us on taxi prices like some of the others. Zach has started a new exercise regime. Every time we enter a pick-up taxi he does 5 pull-ups with his feet on the opposite bench. Most times he does 10 pull-ups each trip and sometimes more. BeBe cannot manage even one pull-up, but then girls are not known for having upper body strength. During the course of today Zach did about 80 pull-ups.

Our first stop was a leather shop that manufactures just about anything you might think of in any number of different kinds of leathers. We looked at handbags and belts made from leather of rays, elephants, goats, cows, water buffalo, crocodile, kangaroo and other animals that I forget at the moment. The elephant leather was especially soft. Elephants are not killed for leather in Thailand; this leather is made from elephants that have died from old age or accidents. BeBe loves elephants and wanted a small elephant handbag for her birthday. This cost more than we had intended to spend for her 9th birthday next month, but it is a unique item so we gave in and bought it for her. It should last her for years if she takes care of it. Or maybe her mom might want to borrow it.

The next stop was a silk factory. This was a smaller version of the silk factory that we had visited several months ago in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Zach and BeBe saw the entire silk process:

1. silk moths lay eggs on paper and die

2. worms hatch about a week later

3. worms change from green to light brown and then stop eating

4. worms build cocoons; then they hatch and that part of the process begins anew. At this silk farm the cocoons are made in a shallow basket.

5. after the hatched moths emerge, the cocoons are harvested and soaked in hot water
(in Cambodia the cocoons were brought to a boil and simmered, often in dyed water)


6. silk strands are drawn up from about 50 cocoons at once as they soak in the hot water, which twist together to form silk thread

7. the thread is rolled onto spindles or spools

8. many threads are stretched taught on a frame to form the warp of fabric

9. the warp is mounted on a weaving loom and more thread is rolled in a shuttle

10. the shuttle is used on the loom and is woven as the weft through the warp threads to create silk fabric

I was glad they got to see many different colors and patterns of silk being woven on the looms. Now they know how labor intensive hand-woven silk is and why it is so expensive for good quality fabric.

Next was an umbrella factory. Every component was manufactured on site. Couldn't believe they even made their own paper for the paper umbrellas. This was not something any of us were particularly interested in, but it was different and something to do. Zach found a gift for his maternal grandmother and a small gift for his father -- neither gift was an umbrella. Other items were also manufactured here.

It was time for lunch and we tried to ask the taxi driver if he could take us somewhere for the kids to eat hamburgers. He repeated it and seemed to understand. But he took us to a restaurant that served us a set 7-course meal. For lunch!! We don't normally eat that large of a meal during the middle of the day. But everything was great and even BeBe enjoyed her big lunch. There were some tiny chicken pieces wrapped in palm leaves and cooked over charcoal that were very good. Too spicy for BeBe, but the rest of us enjoyed these immensely.

Then it was back to the hotel for a leisurely dip again in the small pink swimming pool. Then back to Miguel's Mexican restaurant for another meal for Texans homesick for a taste of our normal regional fare.

Mae Sa Elephant Camp -- FANTASTIC!!!

After visiting Tiger Kingdom (and Zachary getting bitten by a baby tiger), our next stop was the Mae Sa Elephant Camp. Zachary wanted to write the blog entry for our day with the elephants. He asked me to edit it. I found very few mistakes. Here are his thoughts:

We first fed the elephants and while we did that an elephant put a hat on and off my head. Then that elephant stole all of my food. The elephants like to eat small pieces of sugar cane and lady finger bananas. They sell bundles of bananas and sugar cane real cheap so people can feed the baby elephants. The baby elephant takes a small bundle of sugar cane pieces in his trunk and puts it into his mouth and crushes the sugar cane to get lots of sweet juice. Then he spits out the hard sugar cane. When we fed them bananas the elephants would eat the whole banana including the peelings. The elephant that took all my food ate the whole bunch of bananas at once. He must have been really hungry.

After we finished feeding the baby elephants we took an elephant ride on a big one for 30 minutes. Elisabeth said it was her dream come true to get to ride an elephant. At the last 5 minutes the elephant gave us and himself a bath when he walked across a small river.

Then we went to eat in the elephant place and I had a feast of fried rice. Tu-tu ate green papaya salad that was so hot she said it took the top layer off her tongue and the inside of her mouth. But she kept eating it! I wouldn't have. Papa and Elisabeth ate food that was not spicy.

After that we went to the elephant show and the first act was some elephant acrobatics like in a circus.

Next we saw the elephants play soccer! Two elephants kicked huge soccer balls and another elephant played goalie in front of a big net. One of the elephants could drop-kick the soccer ball! He did that several times. They only made one goal. At the end of the soccer game the elephant that drop-kicked the ball went up near the goal and did a sideways kick into the goal net. Then he bowed and walked out of the show area.

After that we saw the elephants make paintings! The trainer of each elephant placed an easel with a large blank canvas in front of his elephant. Then he put paints and brushes on the ground in front of the elephant. The trainer (mahout) would hold up a paintbrush with paint on it and the elephant would take the paintbrush and hold it in its trunk and paint a picture. Two of the elephants made simple brush strokes all over the canvas with several colors of paint. All the other elephants painted real pictures just like a human might paint. Some of the elephants painted pictures of flowers or trees and one elephant painted a picture of himself! I don't know how that elephant could draw an elephant picture with the brush! The mahouts did not help the elephants at all. The elephants painted all by themselves.

After the show was over we bought 4 paintings then took a taxi back to the hotel. We did not buy the squiggly line paintings. We bought the flower painting and the elephant painting. BeBe and I bought pretty paintings for our families. It will be cool to have a painting painted by an elephant that we watched. Tu-tu had her photo taken with the elephants that painted the pictures she bought. Elisabeth and I also had our photo taken with the elephant that painted one of the pictures.

When we got back to the hotel we went swimming in a small swimming pool outside on the third floor of the hotel. It was pink! None of us had ever seen a pink swimming pool.

That night we all went to a Mexican food restaurant for dinner. We rode in a tuk-tuk and I got to sit in the front next to the driver on a little seat. The other tuk-tuks we rode in Bangkok did not have a little seat like this in front next to the driver. When we walked inside the restaurant Elisabeth and I told Papa that it smelled just like back home. The food was too spicy for Elisabeth but I liked my food. I had a huge soft chicken taco that had a big butt full of lettuce and chicken. It was too big to pick up and Papa cut it in half for me. BeBe ate that half like a salad. Then I had a huge chicken burrito. I wanted to eat the whole thing but Tu-tu would only let me eat half of it. She said it was too big to eat the whole thing but I know I could have done it.

Then we got a pick-up truck taxi back to the hotel. The taxi driver got lost twice even though Papa gave him a map. The taxi drivers don't speak English. It started raining when we got out of the taxi at the hotel.

Think this should be Zach's new haircut?


(Note by Judy. Here are a few photos. I have some cute videos of the elephants that will be added later. Think this should be Zach's new haircut?)

Bitten by a tiger near Chiang Mai (not to worry; it was a baby tiger)

The train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai was very long and boring. Each train we have ridden this vacation has been different from the others. This particular train was not comfortable. It supposedly was first class, but that was a real stretch in nomenclature. The seats were uncomfortable; the train was dirty and not well maintained; and the air-conditioning was insufficient. For several hours during the afternoon there were also 10 oscillating fans mounted on the ceiling operating at full speed in addition to the air-conditioning system, and the temperature inside that train coach was 90F. After sunset it cooled down to a comfortable 84F. We were so very glad to reach Chaing Mai and get off that darn train. A 12 1/2 hour train ride to cover about 360 miles. At least the scenery was pretty for most of the trip. And for the return trip to Bangkok we will be in an overnight sleeper train so we will sleep through the boredom.

Our hotel in Chiang Mai was a bit of a disappointment. http://www.thesmallhotelgroup.com/smallhotel_chiangmai/index.php The Small Hotel is plenty nice enough, but we had reserved a room with 2 beds and instead were assigned a room with a single extra-wide king-size bed. A bit crowded to squeeze in 2 adults and 2 nine-year-old kids. The first night we were so tired from the long slow train trip that all we wanted to do was shower and drop into a deep sleep. We each managed to sleep well in the crowded bed so I guess we will deal with this room for the remaining time in Chiang Mai. I do not want to separate into 2 rooms if we can manage with the current room.

The hotel tourist desk provided information on many tours available. But all the tours covered at least a full day. Heck, some of the elephant tours required up to 3 days!! We wanted to see the elephants, but not 3 full days of elephants. We don't want to become mahouts! A cousin of a friend lives in Chiang Mai and we had email contact with her several months ago. Lisa had recommended the elephant farm at Mae Sa. The elephant tours the hotel recommended were at different farms. We decided not to book anything today and to contact Lisa for more information. Instead of a formal tour, we hailed a pick-up taxi and asked to go to http://tigerkingdom.com/ This turned out to be a good decision.

The kids absolutely loved Tiger Kingdom. Children are allowed inside the enclosures with the smallest tigers and the small tigers but are no longer allowed inside the enclosures with the medium or large tigers. Maybe this decision has something to do with the fact that a 9-year-old child is about the size of many of the prey of tigers in the wild. The decision also might have something to do with the fact that 9-year-old children might get frightened and frighten or arouse the large tigers. We were fine with not going into the enclosures of medium or large tigers. Not something I had ever wanted to do anyway.

For a very minimal cost we had hired a professional photographer for this once-in-a-lifetime experience. We received a CD of the photos as well as a copy of the CD to send home with the grandkids.

There were no newborns in Tiger Kingdom at the moment. The newborns were recently moved to the smallest tiger enclosure. The smallest tigers are 2 to 3 months old. Zachary and Elisabeth were allowed to pet several tigers in the smallest size enclosure. One had just been fed and was sound asleep. Tigers are nocturnal animals and the young ones spend up to 18 hours sleeping. When their little tummies are full, these animals sleep like the dead. You can pick them up and move them about and they do not awaken. Just like newborn babies.

Zachary and Elisabeth petted them; laid down with their heads on the little tiger bellies and listened to their heartbeats; and even kissed tigers on their foreheads. This certainly is not something someone does every day! The photo CD should re-enforce their memories for a long time.

One of the tigers was a female that was quite frisky. She had been playing with various other tigers and was quite the cut-up. While Zachary and Elisabeth were sitting on the floor petting the sleeping tiger, the frisky female came over to see if they would play with her. She crawled into Zach's lap and let him pet her. Then she suddenly lunged at his right forearm and took a big bite! She really clamped on! The photo at left shows the little tiger looking at Zach's arm a split second before she lunged and clamped onto his left forearm just below the bend of the elbow. At first she wasn't going to let go of his arm, but the trainer rapped her head with a small bamboo stick and then she quickly let go of Zach's arm. The baby tiger still had her milk teeth as she is still being fed from a baby bottle. But those milk teeth were still hard and sharp enough to soundly bite Zach's arm. It was funny that Zach was wearing his Star Trek Expendable shirt that particular day. (The guy in the red shirt is always the one who gets killed in any Star Trek show -- he is expendable.) The photo on the right shows the female first approaching Zach to play.

The bite did not break the skin; and we always say "no blood; no foul." But it left a solid red welt shaped of the entire mouth of the baby tiger. The photo doesn't do it justice. Ten hours later only the bottom half of the mouth-shaped welt was still visible. By bedtime the only remaining visible indication of the bite was a light bruise in the shape of the lower jaws with a tiny red line running through the center. We told Zachary that he is the only person we have ever known who has been bitten by a tiger. Bill told him that will be a great pick-up line to meet girls when he is older, and he won't be lying.

Both of the kids got to kiss a live baby tiger on its forehead. How cool is that!




Next were the small tigers. Tigers in this category are 3 to 5 months old and there were 3 tigers in the open air enclosure on the day we visited. The interior of the enclosure was separated by several electric wires to keep the tigers segregated. Two of the tigers were asleep in one section and the third was separated. I don't know why. The kids got to pet all of the tigers in both sections of the enclosure.

Bill and I stayed outside this enclosure. This visit was really for the kids; not for us. There were several trainers inside the enclosure with the kids, as well as the photographer. There were enough people in there to keep the kids safe if one of the tigers acted up. Nothing unusual happened.

The photos of Zachary and Elisabeth lying next to and on top of sleeping tigers that are almost as large as they are should be good souvenirs of their vacation to Thailand.

Next we visited an elephant farm and THAT was really interesting. Will write a separate blog for the elephants.

July 4th in Bangkok

Elisabeth declared this a day to do nothing. If we had been back on the boat it would have been Pajama Day. But since we were in a hotel without room service, we were required to dress for the day.

The kids played trying to pick up tadpoles and tiny fish from the little ponds on the ground floor of our little hotel. All that vegetation harbors insects and they received several mosquito bites in spite of the insect repellent studiously applied.

I brought the laptop down to the dining area and uploaded photos while sitting directly in front of fans to keep the mosquitoes away from my legs.

The kids also brought their journals and updated entries for what they have done and seen since leaving the boat 5 days ago. Then they retreated back to the hotel room to play DS games and read.

Late in the afternoon Bill could not stand being cooped up another minute. He insisted both kids needed to go for a long walk and get some exercise and they reluctantly agreed. They returned with a freshly baked loaf of some type of sweet bread filled with raisins.

Pretty much a do-nothing day. Tonight I will pack up the duffel bags and have them brought down and stored near the hotel office. We need to take a taxi early tomorrow morning to the train station for our trip to Chiang Mai and I don't want to wake up all the other hotel guests hauling luggage down 3 flights of stairs at 06:00. The train departs at 08:30 and I want to visit the Advance Booking Office first and have our return tickets to Penang changed to July 13. It is supposed to be a 30 minute taxi ride to the train station, but we have seen rush hour traffic and think it might take up to an hour. Better to arrive at the terminal early rather than late. Should arrive in Chiang Mai around 20:30 tomorrow night.

Happy Independence Day to everyone back home!