Where do I start….sigh? We are in Chiang Mai, Thailand and today was one of the days I was most looking forward too. According to our (private) tour itinerary today we would take a group elephant ride through the jungle followed by an elephant show. From there, we would visit 5 of Chiang Mai’s Hill Tribes (mostly boat people from Burma who fled across the border to Thailand seeking refuge). The Hill Tribes are known for their silver work and their textiles. And at the end of the day we would take a “bamboo raft tour” of the Ping River….. This is how our day was “supposed” to go but here is how it actually went….We were picked up by Tom around 8am and we head out for the “Elephant Centre”. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Elephant Centre had been removed from our itinerary because of an email I had sent prior to our arrival in Thailand. See…I had heard that some of the elephant camps use hook training to control their elephants; the Manhoot (elephant jockey) will hit the elephant with a hook, breaking its skin and causing it pain as a way of managing the elephant’s behavior. Upon learning this I immediately sent an email to our tour company requesting that we NOT have a hook trained elephant but rather a voice trained elephant. (If you know me at all…then you know I am a true animal lover and could never knowingly participate in animal cruelty which is what I consider hook training to be). OK…moving right along, the tour company assured me that this particular elephant camp didn’t use hook training so we kept our reservation. So we arrive at the “elephant camp” which is really just a house in the middle of the jungle with one elephant….just one. I decide I should use the facilities before we embark on our journey. Of course the toilet (and I use this term loosely) is typical for this part of the world, a hole in the ground with treads on either side so you don’t slip. Let me start by saying “treads” made of porcelain really don’t provide much holding power…..you know where I'm going with this right… So mid-pee, I slip on the “treads” and proceed to pee all over my left shoe and my undergarments…I call out for Angie and despite her hysterical laughter, she provides me with some wet naps… I realize my panties simply must go…so off they come and into the jungle they are thrown as there is no trash can and I'm not really comfortable handing my wet underwear to the Thai guy who is impatiently waiting for me to get my ass on his elephant. I cant help but wonder what this guys wife said when she found my undies lying in thier yard...
Going commando is not normally my thing but what choice do I have?? So I make my way over to the elephant platform which is at least 250 years old. The wood is so rotten its see through! I ask our tour guide what happened to the elephant “camp” and he says; “you wanted a voice trained elephant, this is the only one we have”. So no elephant show, no camp, just a work elephant owned by a single guy. Our Manhoot is literally 12 years old and he has obviously just woken up as his bed head is in full effect, oh, and he speaks absolutely NO English. So it’s going to be Angie, me and this kid on a voice trained elephant. (read: not a very obedient elephant) But first, I have to climb the 250 year old rotted wood platform to board our jimmy rigged elephant. The platform is barely hanging on and speaking of barely hanging on our elephant “seat” is held on to the elephant by a single piece of rope. Needless to say, I am scared shitless…and pantyless. So we begin our trek & within the first 5 minutes I drop my water bottle on the ground ….because that’s how I roll. The infant Manhoot jumps off the elephant to fetch my water and the elephant starts to take off ….with me and Angie still on the barley hanging on seat. I scream and the Manhoot realizes what’s happened and yells, the elephant stops thank God because I was this close to shitting my underwearless pants! So we continue our ride, the whole while I am convinced the jimmy rigged seat is going to slide off the elephants back landing us in one of the many dump truck size shits he has taken along the way…somehow, we safely arrive at the first Hill Tribe Village. Of course I am now faced with another see thru 250 year old platform and once again see my life flashing before my eyes…somehow I manage not to hurt myself getting off the elephant and we press on. The first 4 Hill Tribe visits were great. We brought candy for the kids so we are like Santa Clause handing out goodies as we go from village to village. Finally we reach the fifth village and it is clear they do not appreciate tourists in their village. The previous 4 had items to sell (textiles etc.) but this last one did not. They were rude, and were too busy beating a dog to pay us any attention...which of course made me want to beat them like they were beating the poor doggy. I cant help but wonder why the hell a tour company would send us to a village where they clearly don’t want any visitors?? So we left and headed to our bamboo raft tour. Once again, our “tour” is anything but… we board a flimsy bamboo raft with a 15 year old “captain” who again, speaks not a word of English. Our tour guide doesn’t join us because he’s a lazy bastard and wants to sleep in the van (which he had done most of the day) So we board our “boat” (see photo) and our teenage guide starts pushing us down the Ping River. After about 5 minutes we hear rushing water…Angie and I look at each other…what the hell is that?? Of course we can’t ask our tour guide because she speaks no English and the only Thai words Angie and I know are “thank you” and “not too spicy” …we try both of those but get nothing. The rushing water sound is getting louder and louder and we are starting to wonder, is this a white water bamboo raft trip….what about the fact that we both have our feet in several inches of water because the raft is a hundred years old (like everything else here) and not put together very well. Then we see what looks like white water up ahead…if I hadn’t already tossed my underwear …well, never mind….The white water is small and we survive it but overall the tour sucks ass!! It’s frustrating because we can’t ask questions about the things we are seeing; like the graffiti on the side of the river or the kid herding his water buffalos across the river while screaming and beating them with a stick or the piles of trash lined alongside the river…we have so many questions but no answers…..we give our two key phrases another try ….”thank you”??? “Not too spicy” ??? Nothing….. the raft pulls up to the shore and we board our van for the long trek back to Chiang Mai and of course, our wonderful tour guide Tom sleeps the entire time…
Going commando is not normally my thing but what choice do I have?? So I make my way over to the elephant platform which is at least 250 years old. The wood is so rotten its see through! I ask our tour guide what happened to the elephant “camp” and he says; “you wanted a voice trained elephant, this is the only one we have”. So no elephant show, no camp, just a work elephant owned by a single guy. Our Manhoot is literally 12 years old and he has obviously just woken up as his bed head is in full effect, oh, and he speaks absolutely NO English. So it’s going to be Angie, me and this kid on a voice trained elephant. (read: not a very obedient elephant) But first, I have to climb the 250 year old rotted wood platform to board our jimmy rigged elephant. The platform is barely hanging on and speaking of barely hanging on our elephant “seat” is held on to the elephant by a single piece of rope. Needless to say, I am scared shitless…and pantyless. So we begin our trek & within the first 5 minutes I drop my water bottle on the ground ….because that’s how I roll. The infant Manhoot jumps off the elephant to fetch my water and the elephant starts to take off ….with me and Angie still on the barley hanging on seat. I scream and the Manhoot realizes what’s happened and yells, the elephant stops thank God because I was this close to shitting my underwearless pants! So we continue our ride, the whole while I am convinced the jimmy rigged seat is going to slide off the elephants back landing us in one of the many dump truck size shits he has taken along the way…somehow, we safely arrive at the first Hill Tribe Village. Of course I am now faced with another see thru 250 year old platform and once again see my life flashing before my eyes…somehow I manage not to hurt myself getting off the elephant and we press on. The first 4 Hill Tribe visits were great. We brought candy for the kids so we are like Santa Clause handing out goodies as we go from village to village. Finally we reach the fifth village and it is clear they do not appreciate tourists in their village. The previous 4 had items to sell (textiles etc.) but this last one did not. They were rude, and were too busy beating a dog to pay us any attention...which of course made me want to beat them like they were beating the poor doggy. I cant help but wonder why the hell a tour company would send us to a village where they clearly don’t want any visitors?? So we left and headed to our bamboo raft tour. Once again, our “tour” is anything but… we board a flimsy bamboo raft with a 15 year old “captain” who again, speaks not a word of English. Our tour guide doesn’t join us because he’s a lazy bastard and wants to sleep in the van (which he had done most of the day) So we board our “boat” (see photo) and our teenage guide starts pushing us down the Ping River. After about 5 minutes we hear rushing water…Angie and I look at each other…what the hell is that?? Of course we can’t ask our tour guide because she speaks no English and the only Thai words Angie and I know are “thank you” and “not too spicy” …we try both of those but get nothing. The rushing water sound is getting louder and louder and we are starting to wonder, is this a white water bamboo raft trip….what about the fact that we both have our feet in several inches of water because the raft is a hundred years old (like everything else here) and not put together very well. Then we see what looks like white water up ahead…if I hadn’t already tossed my underwear …well, never mind….The white water is small and we survive it but overall the tour sucks ass!! It’s frustrating because we can’t ask questions about the things we are seeing; like the graffiti on the side of the river or the kid herding his water buffalos across the river while screaming and beating them with a stick or the piles of trash lined alongside the river…we have so many questions but no answers…..we give our two key phrases another try ….”thank you”??? “Not too spicy” ??? Nothing….. the raft pulls up to the shore and we board our van for the long trek back to Chiang Mai and of course, our wonderful tour guide Tom sleeps the entire time…
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