An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
We again woke to the fragrance of jasmine emanating from the flower-leis we’ve been presented with at both hotels so far. Breakfast was in our palatial room, then we met our guides for the next three days.
We drove to the Chiang Dao (”city in the sky”) Elephant Training Center for the morning show. These are Asian elephants, as opposed to the African ones we’d been hanging with last month, and were actually noticeably smaller (and of course their ears didn’t look like the continent of Africa). The show consisted of ten elephants being ridden (the rider sits behind their head and steers by using his feet to push behind their ears) down to a river where they bathed and did some water tricks.
Then we, and a few busloads of tourists, mostly French, went to a small amphitheater and watched them move big logs around and up onto stacks and do some other little tricks, including eating sugar cane and bananas from peoples hands. These animals are brought from Myanmar and trained here; they used to do much actual work in the jungle, but as roads have now been put in, the need for their services has waned. After our recent time spent with large herds of elephants in the wild, this was, honestly, rather sad to watch.
We were driving toward Taton, our lunch and launch stop, when we were asked if we wanted to see the Chiang Dao Caves, a short detour. Milton, of course, leaped at the offer. While Wendy waited, Milton, Nok (our guide) and Jeet (our driver) went inside. We had time for only the “horse cave” tour, so called for the large stones resembling horses, as well, actually, as many other animal images we saw. It turned out to be over 30 minutes of cave exploration, as we went from room to room, sometimes having to crawl and squeeze to get from one to the next, all illuminated by only the Coleman lantern the guide carried. Really excellent!! Some rooms were big and some were tremendously big (cavernous, in fact), and all contained fantastic rock-drip formations along the walls or free standing, some looking a bit too much like scenes from the latest Aliens movie. We also saw many resting bats and one quite large spider, and wondered what they found for food.
Then back on the road to Fang. The scenery was wooded, but dry, and we saw the famed Asian smoke problem first hand. Visibility was limited to a few miles or so, due to the smoke/haze from fires set by farmers to clear their land. The road was populated by little motorcycles, which are clearly the transport mode of choice here. We were also slowed down by all the small trucks greatly over-loaded with produce. (despite the apparent affluence of the cities, the rural areas are quite poor - no money for larger trucks, no money for adequate farm equipment) At one point we passed a funeral procession, with a coffin set on what looked like a small mardi-gras float being pulled by about 30 men led by a saffron-gowned monk.
We arrived in Taton, a small town set on the Kok river with several over-30-foot high buddha images sitting up on the hillside. Lunch was a Thai buffet (quite good, including a big and popular platter of french fries!), overlooking the placid (low water season) river, in which many people were tubing. After lunch, we boarded a motorized longboat and set off for Chiang Rai. The 3-hour ride was somewhat relaxing, as we cruised along the water with only the sound of the loud lawnmower-like engine. We saw many locals swimming and net-fishing (catfish, we think), and a few thatch-roof settlements along the banks. The nearby and distant hillsides appeared to be pretty - small, but rising up steeply, but were just too obfuscated to really appreciate. We docked at our modern-looking hotel, glad to get out of the smoke for a while.
Milton then went for a quick drive into town with Nok to peruse the local fruit market. We picked up a few (Washington!) apples, a pomelo, some more of their wonderful tangerines, and a different-looking cantelope. We settled in to our Embassy Suites looking pad, relaxed, and ordered room service. For some variety, we got lasagna and a chicken club sandwich. The former tasted a bit like Chef Boy-ar-dee, but the latter was pretty good. We tried to stay awake, but the Sing-ha and the jet lag conspired to take us out around 9pm.