Between trying to learn Thai and trying to speak Thai at my home stay, between biking to school and having my hair braided, I had a fair amount of free time during my two week home stay at Mae Rim.
Some of that time was spent doing yoga and reading and catching up on journaling, but much of it was spent off adventuring.
Two full weekends without classes were filled to the brim with all sorts of fun stuff.
Bright one Saturday morning, I biked with the group to the market in Mar Rim. The big one goes from 6 am to 8 am everyday and this is when local farmers sell their produce. Unlike the markets I'd seen in Chiang Mai, this one wasn't touristy at all. The little crafts and clothes stands selling the sort of Asian looking good that us westerners love were nowhere in sight. Instead, it was food and more food things ranging from fresh fruit and veggies to chickens and catfish.
i got to try a number of new \yummy things that day--freshly made waffles and freshly squeezed coconut juice. Coconut sticky rice, Thai rice krispies and all sorts of new yummy fruit.
We sample a lot on that morning, but mostly bought food for that afternoon--this was when I went to the forest wat and meditated surrounded by red and gold Buddhist decorations.
The next day my have been my favorite of all the days spent in Mae Rim. We spent it at a waterfall. Mae Sa Waterfall--Thailand's most accessible large waterfall It was a day of swimming and sunning on the rocks by the river, stuffing ourselves with fruit. WE listed to music and ate ice cream, next to the roaring water falls.
Finally, a day was spent at an Orchid Farm and an elephant camp. This is a funny story.
We got into the orchid farm for free because our Thai Language teachers are really well known in the area and really well loved by the people in the community. We spent an hour or so looking at the beautiful orchids, but it was a pretty small set up and wouldn't have been worth the visit if we'd paid the entrance fee.
And then, this is hard to right, it makes me cringe to think about it, we biked to the elephant camp. Or at least we tried to. What we didn't know what that the road to the camp at ALL uphill. And most of that was a windy mountain road that is as close to a high way as you get in rural Thailand. And we were making out epic ascent during the hottest part of the day.
WE didn't make it on our bikes to the camp. Instead, halfway up the mountain, three painful, sweaty and grueling kilometers from our destination, we chained our bikes to the barrier on the side of the road and caught a Sung Tao the rest of the way.
The first on that stopped for us was already half full with ordinary Thais that just wanted to go about thie daily business, who, I am sure, weren't all that thrilled to have ten apparently crazy Americans pile into the back. We were sitting on each others labs and on the floor, two of us hung on to the back of the Sung Tao, standing n the little platform and threading their arms through the ladders on the sides of the rear door.
But we made it to the elephant camp. There I loaded up on fresh pineapple and coconut ice cream for lunch.
The camp itself was an interesting experience. It's a huge tourist dray in the area--it's easy to see why people like it. Elephants are unbelievable creatures and the chance to ride them or feed them bananas or have of of their trunks gibe you a big hug is worth the trip for many people. Not to mention the chance to see them perform with their mahouts--toss soccer balls, paint pictures, lift their mahouts up and down.
And here, during the elephant show is when my disquiet began to make itself known. I can see the merit in training animals--house pets or work animals. Elephants, inquiringly enough, have been used for hundreds of years in this part of the world for building things and moving things. So, although it's hard for me to think of them as anything buys a wild animal, here, they've been sort of domesticated, in the sense that they've been working with humans, for a while. And I'm okay with that, I guess.
But There at the elephant camp, I saw the mahouts and their little training sticks with a real sharp hook. And I was reminded of Like Water for Elephants, where the elephant is abused. And watching the show, yeah, I guess it was fun, but it also felt a little sad/ Whether these animals are treated well wasn't clear, but watching their antics, I'm pretty sure no elephants would choose to bend their legs or rear up in those ways. The elephant camp was interesting, and if not a one hundred percent pleasant experience, it was informative.
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