Part 5: Chiang Mai

I wasn't quite sure to expect from Thailand, or at the very least, Chiang Mai. Everybody I talked to about Thailand before I left had mostly focused on the beaches, a few ventured as far north as Bangkok, but finding people who had been to the north of the country was few and far between. I did have a few friends who had been to Chiang Mai the previous year and they loved it, but I was still at a bit of a loss as to what I should or could expect. How much like the other places in Thailand that I had heard about would Chiang Mai be?

I found by the time that I got to Chiang Mai that the travel was tiring me out. I found myself feeling listless and bored by everything. Luckily I had booked an overnight stay at the Elephant Nature Park while I was in Chiang Mai, so I had something to look forward to.

My first full day in Chiang Mai I spent wandering the old city and taking in the different temples and places of interest. I found it all rather uninteresting. After all the wats in Cambodia and then even more wats in Laos, the prospect of looking at still more wats was less than appealing. Don't get me wrong, they are beautiful to look at, but they hold no significance for me other than as decoration. Not being Buddhist or having any interest in Buddhism really made the numerous wats in Chiang Mai seem more like an obligation than sites of interest.

The next two days were spent at the Elephant Nature Park, which was an amazing place. To learn about how the elephants are treated in modern Thai culture was a real eye opener. It was also very sad. The opportunity to not only see elephants up close but to feed them by hand, to get in a river with them and wash them, to stand at their shoulder and rub behind their ears was something that one can't truly express in words; it has to be experienced.

The elephant has a complicated place in Thai culture. On one hand it is a sacred animal, much like a cow in India. You find representations of elephants at all the wats that you go to. On the other hand they were traditionally beasts of burden for the people. For much of the previous century (if not much much longer) elephants were used in logging. That all ended in 1989 when the government decided that too much of Thailand's forests had been cleared and a ban on logging was issued. This left the people who owned logging elephants in a quandary; what to do with these expensive animals?

Some were used in illegal logging operations. Some were sold off to legal logging operations in Burma. Some were made into tourist vehicles so that visitors to Thailand could go on elephant treks. Some were trained to perform in shows for tourists. Still others were trained to go begging in the city streets with their mahouts.

The problem with this, and one question that I've never heard a westerner who was interested in visiting elephants in Thailand was, how do you get an elephant to do these things? The unfortunate reality is that they are tortured into submission. Once their will had been broken through day after day of torture at hands of a mahout, they would then be trained for their new jobs. Sure some elephants are born in captivity, so to speak, born to a domesticated elephant, but many are found in the wild and broken.

There was one elephant at the ENP that had been used in an illegal logging operation. She got pregnant and when it came time to give birth her masters would not let her. Instead she was forced to continue working and while dragging a log up a hill she gave birth. Her calf rolled down the hill and died. The mother was heart broken and refused to work. Her mahout shot rocks into her eyes with a sling shot to get her moving again. After a week or two she again refused to work and started lashing out at the humans around her. Her mahout shot out her other eye with an arrow, figuring that a blind elephant would be easier to handle. This is just one story of the dozens of elephants at the ENP. Thankfully there is a wonderful woman named Lek who has made it her life to save these elephants and give them a life.

I don't blame tourists for being interested in elephants or wanting to see elephants while in Thailand. Far from it. I completely understand the attraction, but knowing what I know now, I would strongly encourage anyone who is thinking of seeing these wonderful creatures while in Thailand to do so in a way that doesn't harm them, that doesn't require their torture or continued agony.

For my last full day in Chiang Mai, I went white water rafting. I'd never been and figured that it would be a lot of fun. It was and I'd love to go again. The river I was on was said to be a level 2, so nothing too daunting but there were some fun parts. I even fell out of the boat in the rapids and got a few scrapes for souvenirs. It was a great time.

Having been to a number of cities both during and prior to my travels, I can honestly say that they hold little interest for me. Chiang Mai, for me, will be elephants and little else.

Next: part 6 - Bangkok