Temples, elephants and.... fried worms

A new month started and also another chapter in our story... time to leave and explore the north of Thailand. On a sunday evening we said goodbye to Bangkok from a second class train, while 700 kilometers were in between us and Chiang Mai, the northern capital of the country.

Our minds made us believe that a cheaper second class seater instead of a second class sleeper would be comfortable enough for our 12 hours journey. The strategic position of our seats (right behind the driver, and over a noisy railtrack) kept us awake for more than half of the trip, while we had to share the space with friendly cockroaches that were on their way to visit some northern relatives.

Despite the long and not so comfortable trip, Chiang Mai welcomed us with sunny but cooler weather 29C, a nice scenery, tasty curries and the possibility to experience the city's most important Flower Festival.

Two kilometers away from the train station and many offers from tuk tuk drivers later we found a hidden gem: the Taphae Garden Guesthouse. A lovely, comfortable and clean place, that also offered free internet....YUPIIIII. Needless to say that it also felt good to have a well deserved nap in such a nice bed with in a more forgiving temperature.

Chiang Mai won our affection very early, with it's magnificent old city, defined by some medieval style walls and moats, built 700 years ago to protect the city against the Burmese. Nancy Chandler and her map helped us again to discover the charm of the city's night bazar with its great foot massages, for magnificent views of temples, of course we only say few because Chaing Mai has more than 300 of them and excellent tips for great restaurants.

There were two events that we would like to highligth:

During our visit Angela was able to follow a short retreat with an overnight stay at Wat sun dok and learn a bit more about Theravada Buddhism and Thai culture while experiencing some basic meditation techniques. During a whole day she had to keep silent, dress in white clothes, chant with the monks and try to keep the distracting monkey in her tougths a bit more controlled

The next day we went to visit the Elephant Nature Park, the best spent 5.000 baht (around 100 euros). At this idyllic place we had the nicest experience of the trip so far and it was so special that it deserves a blog of its own that will be posted soon.

On the way to the center -located 45 kilometers outside the city- we were able to learn more about elephants and their environment, and about Lek and her work to save them. We heard their scary stories, and how they were saved by the independantly funded organization from a painfull life of begging in the streets, entertaining tourists with paintings and trekkings.

At our arrival we got some safety instructions from our perfectly english speaking guide, and the moment that we were all waiting for arrived: meeting the friendly grey giants. There they were, waiting almost in line, with their trunks on a wooden platform greeting the tourist and waiting patiently to receive their morning snack made of pineaples, bananas, sweet corn and cucumbers

Being able to feed, caress and be so close to them was unbelievable, seeing them moving their huge ears, and tiny tales while their trunks were almost stealing the food from the baskets was great. But the fun didn't end there, part of the day was bathing them in the river close by, we had to wait for the Mahoeds (keepers) to bring them to the water, and once they were there we could just get in the water, use a bucket and a brush to give them a refreshing moment... we both felt like little kids, got in the water and had lots of fun and took more than 600 pictures to not forget about it.

We also saw their enormous power and family bonds when the baby elephant got spooked and his mom and aunties stormed to the rescue and formed a protective circle around her, trumpeting to frighten away the potential danger and touching her with their trunks to reassure and calm her. It was amazing to see this in action and it helped cause the baby later gave all of us a big kiss MMMMWAH.

We could go on an on about this day but for now we will just end with some facts about our giant heroes:

Did you know...

• that their paws are so soft that you can even place an egg underneath them and it wouldn't break.


• that in 1900 there were 100.000 Asian elephants in Thailand, in 1990 only 25.000 remained and now the figure only counts 5.000 half of which are wild
  
• that an elephant pregnancy lasts 22 months?


• that most of the elephant that take part in the tourist attractions like trekking, painting, playing football or music are severely mistreated by their trainers


• that White elephants are considered sacred and are exclusively owned by the Thai Royalty
  
• that in the reincarnation belief, elephants are the closest animals to the human beings, and that Buddha reincarnated many times as a White elephant, before he achieved enlightenment?
  

Moving on with our time in Chiang Mai we really enjoyed having noodle soup with fish for breakfast at the Waroro market, while the locals were trying to explain us the correct way of using chopsticks, we also tried some typical sweets that were packed in banana leave. Of course it was hard to figure out what they tasted like or what were they made from (we think rice) but they tasted good.

As the flower festival was taking place, we went to see an impresssive exhibition of different flowers including orchids, bromelias, roses and bonsais, we are sure that Polo and Stan would go crazy taking pictures and enjoying all of them.

The festival also included a parade, a beauty contest and a huge offer of food stalls and all sorts of delicious food.

Our curiosity went beyond Angela's promisses and in one of the stalls we decided to try some of the local delicacies: fried worms... yum yum eventhough it felt weird to eat tiny insects we felt that they tasted like french fries.

The city also had a beautiful park, with a nice pond, many children playing and lots of locals just taking it easy on their afternoon break, we sat there, even had a nap and enjoyed the calmness of nature, and the huge ammounts of flying rats also known as pigeons.

We could not leave from the rose of the north without visiting Doi Suthep, one of the most sacred temples of the north, located on a hill outside the city, and to which you ascend by dragon shaped stairs. Being on the hill we also visited the blossoming Phuping Palace, the winter residence of the Thai royalty, made out of nice constructions surrounded by unbelievable gardens, singing birds, a giant bamboo and a dancing water fountain that seemed to be surreal, of course we all think they only exist in fairytales.

On the way back from there we took a songthaew (pick up with benches) were we met two Thai teachers, who were very curious about our countries and how much were the falang prizes for transportation (of course very inflated compared to the local ones). They also helped us with our thai vocabulary and even served as healing souls by offering us some tiger balm to cure the mao mao (dizzyness) from Angela. Our falang names sounded like jokes to them, and made them laugh a lot by trying to repeat them.

Instead of going to Pai as everyone one else was doing, we decided to get closer to the border with Laos and headed to Chiang Rai. You will hear more of this charming place on our next blog.

Sawaa Dee!