June 07, 2007

Thailand Elephants and Fishing

(Written Friday, June 1)

I slept pretty well in our room last night except for one thing: a mosquito got in (not surprising since the door is warped and doesn’t quite shut at the top and we have no mosquito netting) and bit me all up and down my right arm about 9 or 10 times. So I have big red itchy welts all the way from my wrist to my shoulder—ouch. I thought of posting a photo, but decided against inflicting such trauma on you. To stop itching, I’m pretending that I have some kind of cool tropical disease instead of plain mosquito bites. It doesn’t really help.

After discovering the state of my arm, I covered myself with bug spray before going out for breakfast (which is included in the price of our room). Breakfast here is buffet-style with both American breakfast foods (eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes) and Thai breakfast foods (rice, meat, vegetables, soup). I tried a tiny bit of everything Thai—pretty tasty.

Following breakfast, the five of us went our separate ways. One other intern and I decided to go for an elephant ride! We booked the ride, and a person came and picked us up and drove us to the elephant camp. There were a total of 5 or 6 elephants standing around under little wooden roofs. The elephants looked healthy and were enjoying their breakfast, but I felt a little sad that they couldn’t be running around free in the jungle, even if they are well taken care of here.

To get onto the elephant, we had to climb a staircase to a one-story high platform, then slide onto a 2-person seat on the elephant’s back. A Thai boy was sitting on the elephant’s neck in front of us, and directed her by pushing on the back of her ears, sort of like pulling on a horse’s reins. I found the motion of the elephant a little bit like that of the camel I rode in Israel—a circular rocking motion, that is a little hypnotic. I felt quite relaxed, especially when I took my sandals off and rested my bare feet on the elephant’s leathery, slightly bristly back. However, toward the end of the trip, I realized I had been unconsciously tensing my shoulders and back in an attempt to stay straight upright instead of swaying with the elephant, so I may be a bit sore tomorrow.

Our ride lasted one hour, and took us through the jungle, into a small lake where the elephant could get a drink, then through a pomelo orchard. In the orchard, another Thai man, who accompanied us on foot, used a machete to peel a pomelo and passed it up to us. Very yummy. On the road back, the man picked some small red fruits, made a bowl out of a large leaf, and passed them up to the boy on the elephant’s neck to feed to the elephant. I loved watching the nimble trunk snake back over the elephant’s head in search of more fruit!

Back at the camp, we stuck around for a while so I could say hi to the second elephant there (the others must have gone out on rides since we left). He was huge—much bigger than the lady elephant who gave us a ride. I patted his trunk, fed him some palm fronds, and rubbed his tusks, which were huge and smooth as marble. I’m not sure if elephants are at all temperamental, so I didn’t get too close or bother him for too long in case he got fed up, and whacked me with his trunk or stepped on me (two actions that would probably have set me soaring through the air or shoved me two feet into the ground, respectively).

When we got back to our resort, the day was still young, so we decided to set back out for more adventures. We grabbed a third intern, and flagged down a truck taxi to take us to the fishing village on the southern-most point of the island. The ride was similar to the one we experienced on our way here, only a little more curvy, with even more switchbacks. We were the only three people aboard this time, so we felt free to shriek on the really scary parts of the road.

The fishing village consists of shops, restaurants, and a few houses and hotels, all built on stilts over the water. Most of the restaurants have big tanks and barrels full of seawater containing all kinds of live fish that are chosen and cooked on the spot. We weren’t hungry, but we had fun browsing in the shops down the main path. At the end of the “village,” there are boats on either side of a long pier offering scuba and snorkeling excursions. I considered signing up for snorkeling tomorrow, but the only trip offered was an all-day event from 8 to 5, and this sounded too busy and involved for the kind of relaxed paddling about I was looking for.

At the end of the pier past the shops and boats is a small picturesque lighthouse. The lighthouse doesn’t appear to be in use and was open to visitors, so we climbed up and admired the view of the coast. We then walked back through the village, buying a few souvenirs along the way, and hailed another taxi back to our place, where we went swimming again in the ocean.

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