TammyLee: Jungle Treker!

Now I have always had an adventuresome spirit about me. I highly disagree with colonization that happened in the past; however, I have pretended what it might be like to be a lady from 19th-century England braving the new worlds of India, Asia, or Amazon territory pushing through jungle brush daintily in bustled dress and a parasol in hand.....

Well back to reality, I know now it would have been incredibly hot, uncomfortable, and probably not the funnest thing ever. However, today I am happy to say I got to experience first hand treking through the jungle! The delicate jungle warrior that I am, I let a big strong man do the hard work: an Indian elephant!!!!

Today we went to a Maesa Elephant Camp, a conservation camp outside of Chiang Mai. Now the land up here is completely green and lush, not tropical, but completely jungle-like. There are mountains and banana trees and teakwood trees and rice fields and rivers and waterfalls. Just divinely beautiful. Years ago, they used to use elephants to help work through this territory, pulling logs, lifting things, etc. But to upkeep an elephant takes a lot of supply: the elephants eat 200 kilos of food a day and 60 gallons of water! So now the elephants are protected in camps. They do cute little shows and paint pictures and are nicely taken care of.

The elephant show was fun. The baby elephant used his trunk to put hats on people. They played soccer. And they painted gorgous flowers on easels. (My dad said, "Sure, they can paint easy flowers, but I would like to see one of them paint a ship!!"). You can also feed them bananas and sugar cane. I fed the baby elephant who took the food from my hands and then handed it to his trainer. Maybe he is too little to eat it???

Now, for the low low price of 1200 baht, one can take an hour elephant ride through the jungle. And my dad and I did just that. I've ridden an elephant before at the Phoenix Zoo. But it was 5 minutes and we rode in a circle inside a corral. Boring. (I think the camel ride was the same too). But today we boarded our huge Indian elephant (I'll call him Charlie) on a wooden platform and immediately began the trek up the densely green mountain. There wasn't a huge path cut out for Charlie. Just a small line that he patiently placed one large foot in front of the other as I ducked tree stems and vines from hitting me. Charlie came very very close to the edge sometimes and it was a long drop down! At one point our guide who was sitting on Charlie's head, jumped off, so he could take a picture of my dad and I, all while yelling to Charlie to keep walking. Now when you are sitting on a 1-ton animal, tightly close to the edge of a mountain, and still climbing higher, somehow that 130 lb man sitting on Charlie's head seems like the best protection in the entire world! We smiled bravely, our guide took some shots, then hopped back on Charlie. Whew!

We got to the top of the mountain and then began our desent down. If you sway with the elephants movements it helps make the ride more comfortable; however, when you are heading downhill, you just want to hang on! I was sliding left and right and bouncing up and down. I learned to brace my back on the seatback and my hand on the rail. That kept me from feeling like I was going to fall out. The view coming downhill was amazing! The waterfall and river running through the jungle was breathtaking.

Once we got to the bottom of the hill, our guide took Charlie into the river where he drank for awhile and then we rambled over the river and through the woods (pun intended) into the hill tribe that surrounds the water. We smiled and waved at the villagers as we wandered back to the camp.

Our hour journey ended all too quickly. I wanted to pet Charlie goodbye but alas, we hopped off and he headed for a well deserved break. I felt good! I just took an elephant trek through the dense jungle, pushed through vines, narrowly avoided falling down the hill, waded through the waterfall, and viewed the homes of the hilltribe. Just like the 19th-century women explorers did. Oh wait, look! Suvioner shops!! Okay, maybe not exactly 19th century... but a woman's got to shop!

This blog is specifically dedicated to one of my bff's, Christina aka Yoyo, because of her love of elephants! She is crazy about them and it hardly seemed right to not have you with me today Yoyo!