Chiang Mai- Elephants and hiking

After our luxurious 14 hour train trip we made it to the Northern city of Chiang Mai. Coming into the city the scenery was beautiful, with lush green mountains and hills surrounding us. Getting off the train, the air instantly felt clearer and fresher than Bangkok, and it was a little cooler, at 29 degrees.

We made our way to the hostel, and began making a plan of action.  Like the rest of Thailand, Chiang Mai is well accostumed to tourist, and its an industry which knows its strengths.  It's the base for outdoor activities, mountain climbing, mountain biking, rafting, hiking, elephant training, zip lining, Tiger Kingdom, you name it, you can probably do it from Chiang Mai. So, the problem was trying to figure out what was worth spending my every decreasing budget on. I decided to do a two day hike, and to also visit the Elephant Nature Reserve.

In the two days leading up to the hike, sickness crept in again, nothing serious, but enough to take your enthusiasm for discovering a city in the heat. A trip to the pharmacist, and I was sure I would be able for hiking the following day.

I was up bright and early for the pick up at my hostel, which of course was an hour late. I had braced myself for this hike. My main hiking experience stems back to my trip in South America, hiking in Bolivia and Peru. Hands down, the most grueling, and difficult physical experience of my life. Hiking is not easy. I'm sure if you regularly participate it gets easier, but as a casual hiker, any decent hike will be tough.

So I was expecting the worst. I knew it would be worth it, and I knew I would be glad I did it, but I fully expected to hate it. But this was not South America, it was Thailand. This 'Non-Touristic Hike' was totally the opposite. It was highly touristic.

We didn't start hiking until about 2pm. We drove around picking people up from the hostels, before starting the hour drive to the mountains. We had a good mixed group. I was the only native english speaker, with Austrians, Germans, French, Saudi, Iran and Polish. There was about 14 of us all together. After our drive, we stopped at a market, then onto a village where we had lunch. We hadn't even walked 100 metres and we were already having lunch we joked. It seemed like it was going to be a ridiculously easy day.

Finally we got to the base of the mountain, and we ventured off the road, up a trail that lead very steeply up the mountain. VERY steeply. So after about 30 minutes, I thought I was going to die. I felt dizzy and nauseous, and suddenly thought that maybe I wasn't over my sickness, or ready to go on a uphill hike in the vicious sunshine. Myself and another solo traveling french girl began to take a firm place in the back. One of our hiking guides could see I wasn't feeling the best, so came to me with Tiger Balm, which he put on my temples and under my nose. Tiger Balm is an invention of the Gods. I instantly started to feel better, and stayed better, even though the climb became more difficult. The same could not be said for my French companion, who upon reaching our next rest stop, burst into tears. She sat on the floor and cried, we were all a bit surprised, but I was most surprised to find that I was the only one that went to comfort her. And I don't even speak French.

The first days hiking only lasted about 5 hours, and after the initial sickness, I didn't find it too hard. And it really was beautiful. The only other creatures we saw however were other tourists, and a giant spider.

Our camp for the night was in a very small village where we would stay in a giant bamboo hut, sleeping on the floor. It might not have been much, but we were happy to see it all the same. We had a 'shower' which was really just a tap, and watched the sunset while our guides prepared our dinner of vegetarian sweet and sour with rice and soup.

Over dinner we talked to our main guide about life as a guide. He said he didn't take days off, the day he'd get back from a hike, he'd leave the next day for a hike. He explained how he'd been in the Thai army which is why he found it so easy. They would have to walk every day for 13- 16 hours with one army flask of water to last for three days, and this was for drinking, cooking with and washing, all in the 30+ heat. It seems impossible. He also told us the only time he'd taken off was recently when he contracted malaria. It took him 6 months to recover and lost half his body weight.

After dinner they entertained us in old fashioned riddles which they made with match sticks on a piece of cardboard, the kind of riddles that your dad would have tormented you with as a child. It certainly worked, we sat up for hours trying to figure them out.

That night the temperatures plummeted, as you would expect in the mountains. Unfortunately I didn't have sufficient warm clothing for it, and ended up with a cold the next day. A cold in the sunshine! I didn't think it was a big deal, but it would haunt me later into my trip.

The next day we began by a short walk to what we were told was a 'Bat Cave', not the Batman kind. We only saw one bat... and three monks.

Then,  another downhill walk to a waterfall. Downhill by the way, although less exhausting than uphill, is tougher on leg muscles, and balance. We got to swim in the waterfall for an hour before another walk to lunch and then a drive to an elephant ride. I'd heard mixed things about the elephant 'hiking' and I have to say, I didn't really enjoy the experience. Not the riding the elephant part, but seeing the elephants chained when they weren't being ridden, with chains that were only about three meters long. I could only speculate how long the elephant was chained there each day, but they were rocking back and forth on the spot which was uncomfortable to watch.

We then went rafting down the river before heading back to Chiang Mai, all exhausted and smelly. It was a good experience, but not the best hike I've ever been on. I was still glad I did it.

The following day I went to the Elephant Nature Reserve, which is a rescue center for elephants that have been abused. Before the logging ban in Thailand Elephants were used to move the heavy logs from forest to road. After the logging ban it left a lot of tamed elephants 'unemployed', not only that, but much of there natural habit had been destroyed, ironically, by the work they helped participate in. This lead to elephants for tourism, i.e. the type of elephant hiking camps that I'd been to the previous day. While some camps treat the elephants well, tragically it is not always the case. A problem is also elephants being used for begging in streets in the cities of Thailand. There is also still logging going on in neighboring Miramar. Many of the elephants in the ENR had come from these backgrounds, but not just that, had been horribly abused by there mahoot. Each elephant will have one person that they are trained to obey, this is the elephants mahoot. Unfortunately, the traditional method of training an elephant, and ordering an elephant, is through excessive physical abuse. Some elephants were blind, one had one broken hip and one broken leg, others had infections were there tusks had been cut off. There are 35 elephants in total, and they each had there own story. And its true what they say, elephants never forget, which meant that some of them have psychological damage thanks to the abuse they have suffered.

While the price of visiting the Reserve was high, it felt worth while cause you could see how well the elephants were treated. We fed the elephants their breakfast, visited baby elephants and other elephants in the park, and bathed the elephants. We also watched a video about the Reserve and the treatment of elephants in Thailand. It was hard to watch, it really does seem hopeless when the government are doing so little to help the problem with 'unemployed' domestic elephants. And while there are many domestic elephants, the number of elephants in the wild has plummeted, thanks to the decreased forestlands.

It was a fantastic day, you really got to understand the elephants and see their personalities. My favourite was a tantrum throwing blind elephant, who had only been in the park three weeks. She stomped impatiently waiting for her breakfast, and then when her food was all gone, began trying to steal others. Like all of the elephants, she wasn't violent, but very amusing when she grew impatient. They really are giant creatures, and unbelievably silent when they move, so you really have to keep an eye on them at all times, you do not want to get in there direct path, they cannot see in front, as their eyes are on the sides of there head.

Next stop in Northern Thailand was Pai, a mere three hour drive away from Chiang Mai.

One night in Bangkok

Finally I was on a mini bus making my way to the border between Cambodia and Thailand. It took about 4 hours to get the border and then we all piled out to get in a 'queue' at a departure desk. This border crossing is known for being confusing and chaotic, but going in the opposite direction more so. People often get stuck at the border for several hours.
I made friends with three Dutch guys on my bus, who had done the border crossing previously. If I hadn't I'm not sure I'd have had a clue where to go and I what order.
After a long queue at departures, we had to walk through the town to get stamped into Thailand and fill our arrival forms. Then onto another queue to get our Thai Visa. Luckily the whole process only took an hour and a half.
We had been given white stickers in return for our bus tickets and were told that another bus would be waiting for us on the other side to take us to Bangkok. I'd heard stories about people going through and then finding out there was no bus. We found the rest of our buses passengers waiting in a sheltered marque area. They'd asked some semi official looking thai man who had said we were to wait here. After an hour of waiting I was beginning to feel skeptical but then a guy showed up looking for us, the people with white stickers. I thought we might finally be leaving, but he said we were waiting for more people. We waited another hour and a half and then he got a phone call and told us to follow him. We walked to a travel agent where we found the people we'd been waiting for.
We got on another minibus, this one was rammed to capacity. Our backpacks were piled into a dangerous tower on one of the seats beside two terrified looking Chinese girls. I somehow ended up having to sit in the front, between the driver and a Cambodian man, who refused to give up his soft window seat, I had to sit on a hard plastic storage compartment, between the two men, for the 5 hour trip. I tried to force myself to sleep because being in the front seat, I could see every terrifying, erratic overtaking manoeuvre and zig zagging between lanes. And had no seatbelt. We finally made it to Bangkok at 5.30pm. I was going to meet a girl I'd first met in Nang Thrang, in Vietnam. Steffi, had made a reservation in her hostel, on the famous backpacking district of Khoa San road. The driver had pointed me in the direction when I got off the bus, but when I couldn't find the street sign I took out my lonely planet for a map. A tuk tuk driver approached me. 'tuk tuk? Where you going?'
'No, I'm just looking for Khoa San Road, can you tell me which direction?'
He started leading me in the direction I had suspected it was. He began making conversation, where was I from etc.
'where you go after Bangkok?'
'I'm going to Chiang Mai tomorrow'
'ohh, how you getting there?'
'I'm going to get the train'
'have you got you're ticket?'
'Not yet'
The tuk tuk driver suddenly changed direction, back the way we came.
'Actually, Khoa San Road is this way!' he said.
I was completely skeptical.
'I'm pretty sure it's not, my driver said it was this way.' I said and started to consult with my map.
'No, no, is this way. You're map is wrong, you're map is not to scale!'
I laughed out loud at how stupid this man must think I am and then decided to ignore his attempts to help me.
'Is this way, we go to travel agent on the way, you get your train ticket!'
I threw him a dirty look and told him if he wasn't going to help me to leave me alone.
This is one example of many of my experience with tuk-tuk drivers, street sellers and anyone in general on the streets around the Khoa San Road area of Bangkok. Unlike the friendly Khmers, it seemed that anyone in Bangkok that started a conversation with me would ultimately try and sell me something, take me somewhere I didn't want to go, scam me, or try and rip me off.
Khoa San Road has been the main backpacking area in Bangkok for years. Maybe too many years. It is completely devoid of any thai culture. I found it tacky and unappealing, it's full of loud, glaring neon bars and nightclubs, as well as overpriced street food stalls, and sleazy men trying to sell you 'ping pong' shows, or drugs. In case you haven't guessed, I didn't much like it there. Our hostel was amazingly shit as well. Its expensive (for Thailand) to stay on Khoa San Road. And even though I was paying more than usual, the place was grim, tiled walls in the bedrooms, rude staff and cockroaches.
All the same I was determined for a night out to make up for the previous days mess. Me and Steff got ready, all the while I was gradually feeling more ill. I was trying to ignore it. And then, as we walked down the steps of the hostel, I stopped 'Im going to be sick' and I ran up to the bathroom to puke.
Until this point it had occurred to me that I had been remarkably lucky when it came to being ill on this trip. With any trip to far far away lands, with a completely different diet, climate, germs and diseases, you're bound to pick up something, despite all the vaccinations and medications. I had thought I was relatively home free, I had not expected Thailand to be the place where I got sick, it was the most touristic after all. I had no idea what was in store for me.
This time, I was convinced it was probably some mild food poisoning from a street food stall at the border. I returned sheepishly to Steff, still feeling dizzy and light headed. We made our way to a travel agents nearby with the intention of booking our night train to Chiang Mai for the following night. But it was no good. We were in there about five minutes before a cold sweat covered my body. I couldn't concentrate on anything the man was saying.
'Do you have a bathroom?'
'No, there's a hotel down that alley, you can go there.'
I ran out, but didn't make it to the hotel and settled for a puke in the alley. Classy. I gave up on the night. There would be no dinner, no drinking. I went back to our dingy hostel, the only saving grace being that it had air con. The blaring music of one of the many night clubs on Khoa San Road filled our bedroom until 5am. You could hear ever lyric and every note perfectly clearly. I did however manage to sleep through most of it.

The next day I felt much better and we got the hell out of hot, polluted Bangkok and got our 14hour sleeper train to Northern Thailand to the beautiful Chiang Mai. I wish all transport was like sleeper trains. We were only in 2nd class but it felt like luxury. The beds start out as seats, until around 8 or 9pm when our camp little host came around and quickly transformed the seats, into two full sized,bunk bed style beds. They were amazing and comfortable. They each had Clinical blue curtains to block out the outside light and aisle.
The train also had a bar which was the funniest train experience I've ever had. You wander through the trains carriages until eventually you open the door to one and are greeted with blaring thai dance music, a dimly lit carriage, decorated with fairy lights. Your options are beer or beer. It's full of tables and chairs and friendly dancing staff. It was also full of drunk middle aged French who hung dangerously between carriages every now and then, opening the outside door to have cigarettes. It was all a far way from Iranrod Eireann.

Siem Reap- Part 2, Orphanages and absent buses

While in Siem Reap I did a lot of drinking coffee and doing yoga. It was all very chilled and laid back. I had heard of an Orphanage in the city that concentrates on looking after children and providing them with a good education. I decided to email them and see if there was anything I could do to help out. They invited me to spend a day in the orphanage to play with the children.
Anyone that knows me will know that I don't consider myself to be particularly maternal, or good with children in general. I have little to no experience with them. Why was I doing this, I kept asking myself. I couldn't really come up with an answer other than someone had told me what a great experience they had doing it. So I was a bit anxious arriving. The head of the orphanage, Sok, a lovely guy, picked me up from my hotel and we got chatting about Cambodia and the political situation there, as well as the poverty. Like all of the countries I was visiting, corruption was a big problem. There is a massive gap between rich and poor, the poor as a general rule being the country people. The rich living in towns. He told me that the government did nothing to deal with this problem. He said that while some of the children were orphans alot still had parents in the countryside who had to give up there kids as they couldn't afford to look after them. What a terrible situation to have to be in. Others have disabilities and again, need extra care which their parents can't provide.
When we arrived to orphanage in the afternoon the younger children had finished school for the day, and the older ones would be back in an hour of so. As soon as I got out of the car, children began appearing to steal curious looks at me. Then two little girls of about 5 approached me and told me we were going to play. From that moment on I didn't sit still in my whole time there. Theres 35 children in the orphanage ranging in age between 1 and 19. They can all speak English, some better than others. The girls in particular wanted to play, while the bous played soccer amongst themselves. I joined in on skipping, jigsaws, and strange card games I didn't understand. They were all far more adorable and loveable than I could ever have imagined. The two youngest girls, one was 1 and a half, the other two, latched onto me and didn't leave my side the whole time. They wanted to be picked up and carried and kept giving me hugs and kisses. It was clear that all any of the kids wanted was some individual attention. They were all fascinated with my lip ring and kept staring and asking questions about it. I don't think they'd ever seen one before. I had brought some sweets for them, and when I opened them to give them out they all lined up and said thank you after getting them. They were all so polite and clearly well cared for. I gave them my camera to take photos with and the youngest kids wanted to look and the photos and videos on my phone. The favourites were, a video of Denis singing George Michaels 'Faith', which they played on repeat about six times. The other was a video of me and a Halloween skeleton that moves and howls when you touch it. I lost count of how many times that one was played.
They asked me did I want to stay for dinner, which was a meat and veg watery stew and rice. I chatted to Sok about volunteers. They get several at a time who come from all over who stay to teach English and help out. They also have 9 permeant Khmer staff.
After the girls wanted to bring me to see their bedroom. Girls sleep upstairs and boys downstairs. It was a large enough room with four large double beds. 'oh your beds are big!' I exclaimed.
'yes, five are in this one, six in this one...' They suddenly didn't seem like so big. They each have a small shelf with their personal belongings. They decided they wanted to do my hair. They liked playing with my 'yellow' hair. One girl plaited a very impressive French plait. They kept asking would I come back tomorrow, which broke my heart.

After, it was tv time. 35 kids all crowded around one tv with a Cambodian ghost film. To me, it was hilarious. The 'effects' were so crude and unbelievable that if I hadn't known better I would think it a spoof. But the kids were clued to it, the younger ones a little scared. The eldest orphan, a 19 year old disabled boy explained that ghost films are very popular in Cambodia. The people are very superstitious.

After, it was time for me to go. I was sad to leave and to say goodbye to the kids, they were all so amazing. The experience stuck with me for a long time after. It's possibly the most rewarding thing I've done since I got here.

The next morning I was up bright and early at 4.30 am to wait for a bus to The capital of Thailand, Bangkok, that was to pick me up between 5.30 and 5.50. At 5.50 there was still no sign of the bus. I've been in Asia long enough to know that buses are never on time here. However I decided to ring the travel agent where I had booked the bus just incase. He said he would ring the bus driver to check where he was. Five minutes later he hadn't rang me back so I ring him again. He says the driver is on his way. Ten minutes later, still no bus. I ring the travel agent again. He says he'll ring the driver again. Driver says he's on his way. This process continues for another half an hour. It gets to 6.40 and I'm getting increasingly frustrated. I know something's not right. Eventually I ring and he says I need to get a tuk tuk to his office. I ask why, he tells me the driver came and picked up the wrong people, I'd been waiting in the reception since 5.15 and no one had come, so I'm pretty sure that they just forgot me. Not that it makes a difference. This is the point where, for the first time in Asia, I completely lose my patience and temper. I went on a rant about what a bad service it is and what am I supposed to do now. He says he'll put me on a later bus, but I know this means having to wait even longer at the border crossing into Thailand, plus, after the previous drama, I know longer have any faith in the company. I tell him no, I want my money back and I'll get a different company.

There are times when traveling alone is amazing, and times when it's pretty shit. This was one of those times when it was shit. I went to the reception of the hotel and desperately asked did they know of any bus companies leaving for Bangkok later that day. They told me they all leave at 7. That wasn't enough time for me to get my money back from the other company and catch a bus that day. I asked could I stay another night and leave the next morning. The guy, with broken English, looked frustrated, sighed and told me he would have to check. Only he wasn't checking, he started to ignore me and serve other guests. It was Chinese New Year, so high high season and I knew that almost everywhere in the city was full up. In the mean time, a tuk tuk driver with no English had arrived. Another member of the hotel staff told me he was from the travel agents and I had to go with him to get this later slow bus. 'no, I don't want to go with him, I want to know if I can stay another night!'.
'you must go, everything's alright, no worry!'
'no, I don't want to go, I need to know if I can stay!'
'no worry, you go, no worry!'

Imagine being at your most frustrated and upset in a foreign country, alone, and three men are telling you not to worry. I was worried. I was angry and getting increasingly upset. This charade went on for 20 mins, eventually the tuk tuk driver left. Still the receptionist was refusing to tell me if I had a room. Finally another staff member showed up and I practically begged him for a room. 'yes, no problem! No worry!' he said, without checking. Relieved. I had to wait a half an hour while a room was cleaned, but I finally got to my room and slept. Later that day I successfully got a refund for the failed bus, and booked a bus for 7am the next morning. I ate icecream and watched 'Ghost' in my hotel. It was Valentines Day after all!