Life in Bangladesh: November 2011

I have just returned from 5 fantastic days in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. In addition to all the usual things that make Thailand so greaat such as eating great food, enjoying the wonderful Thai hospitality relaxing at a bar having a quite beer in the afternon, or living it up in the famous nightlife, visiting the many spectacular Buddist temples and pagodas, and of course having plenty of Thai massages; I also spent an unforgettable day at the Patara Elephant farm where you are given an elephant and a trainer (Mahout) for the day and spend the day as a Mahout would, checking the elephant's health (which involves getting very intimate with elephant shit), washing and clkeaning the elephant, learning the various commands, feeding, and playing with your elephant. I also spent a day visiting a mock-up Long Neck Tribe village (the village was mock up, but the people were reaal), and trekking through the mountains (Doi Inthanon National Park) to one of the local hill traibes with one of the villagers as my personal guide; and spending a day at the house of two elderly and wonderful locals (Vanee and Yana) learning how to cook Thai food (theye used to own a very popular restuarant in town where Yana was the chef).

I also made friends with a local guy by the name of Trong who was my tour guide when I vissited the Long Neck tribr and National Park. Trong took me to the local night markets (not the toursist maarkets), where I saw and tasted all manner of strange and exotic things such as various types of insects, worms and larvae, pig and chicken intestine kebabs, chicken liver kebabs, and fruits that I haaven't vere seen before (the pickled Lychee ice slushee was awesome). After that we went to a locaal bar with not a tourist or foriegner in sight where we drank copious amounts of Chaang beer, which has an alcohol content of 6.5% (thank god they put ice in your beer), and ate lots of wierd bar snacks such as deep fried crickets and some sort of big stick insects, more chicken liver kebabs, as well as some fantastic chilli prawns and pork kebabs. The next day I suffered, not so much from the alcohol that I had drunk, but more from what I ha eaten. But it was a greaat and very memoraable night, and Trong was a very funny guy especiaally when trying to pick up the local girls.

To get to and from Chiang Mai i flew with Bangkok Airways who have only just started flying to Dhaka, and they were really good, very happy aand attentive staff, heaps of room between seats, and reasonable food. The only problem I encountered was at Bangkok Airport which is reaally poorly sign posted making it very difficult to know which way to go to get to your next departure lounge (nearly caused me to miss my flight to Chiang Mai because I mistakenlly walked all the way to the wrong end of the airport which is over 1km long).

My hotel in Chiaang Mai (the Holiday Inn was also fantastic, it right beside the Mai Ping river which maakes it lovely haaving breakfast on the terrace beside the river, even though it was very dirty from the floods. They also upgraded me to a royal suite, which was huge and very lovely. The room was also surrounded by windows giving me almost 270 deg views over Chaing Mai and the surrounding mountains and river, and so I opened up all of the curtains which made for a wonderful panorama of the mountains and city each morning when I woke up.

The Hotel

Bedroom

Bathroom

Living Room

View

Lunch

Thai Chicken Laksa

Long Neck Tribe

The Long Neck and their closely related Big Ear Ring tribe originate from the mountains bordering Thaailand and Burma. In actual fact the neck rings do not cause the women's necks to be stretched but rather their collar bones are pushed down and deformed making their necks appear long. They start wearing the rings from the age of 5, and by the time that the girls are in their late teens, thaay can no longer remove the rings for any period of time as their neck and shoulder muscles are too weak to support their head, and so other than removing the rings for a little while each day to bathe, they have to keep them on all day. They can also not sleep laying on their back, they must sleep on their side with their head in a special timber craddle. IThe rings are made from solid brass and I was amazed at how heavy each on is. By the time the girls reach adulthood, they are wearing anywhere from 5 to 8kg of rings, so it's easy to see why their collar bones become deformed. Interestingly, bith them and the Big Ear Ring women wear rings most of the way up their legs, and sometimes on the arms and waist also. I was shown one young lady, who I estimated to be no older than 20, was apparently wearing over 25kg of brass rings on her body - amazing!

Big Ear Ring girls

By the time these girls reach middle age, their ear rings will be twice this size.

They start putting the rings on at 5 years of age.

15 years old, and she already has 21 rings on her neck (about 6 kg in weight)

Doi Inthanon National Park and Hill Tribe

We had lunch at this very beautiful waterfall, which was cooked by a couple of ladies from the local tribe who ae also the tradiytional owners and custodians of the land. Our luch was very traditional Thai and consisted of BBQ Pork and Chicken and salt crusted fish cooked over a bed of coals, Pawpaw saled (very different and much better than what we get in Darwin), sticky rice, and steamed banana cake (cooked in banaana leaves), it was so good! After lunch my guide drove me up to the top of the mountain where we met up with a young tribesman from the local tribe named Boonu (not sure of the spelling), who then took me on a trek thought the jungle down the mountain past some truly amazing waterfalls, and then out into the rice fields and into the village where I had some of the best coffee I have ever tasted (grown by the locals, along with some traditional sweets. Along the way he showed me lots of bush tucker such as the bulb from what I think was a Ginger plaant that had the consistenc of a Pashionfruit but tasted more like a Lychee, the seeds from a huge tree that tasted like a peanut, and the root from another tree taht smelled really nice but worked great as a mozzie repellant, and he also showed me how to make a whilste from a ginger frond which he used to attact one of the jungle birds which obviously thought that the sound was coming from a courting male. It really was an incredible day.

Because of the huge amount of spray coming off the waterfall thetre is a Rainbow at the base every day that the sun is shining, which has significant religious meaning for the local tribal people's who believe thaat it brings good luck and much good Karma if you walk under the rainbow.

One of the many waterfalls on the way down the mountain.

Looking over the edge of one of the falls that we had to cross on the way down (Boonu got very nervous when I went too close to the edge). It was at least 30 metres to the bottom.

Boonu on one of the rickety bamboo bridges that we needed to cross alog the path.

The villagers have occuoied this land for over 200 years

The villagers live in these huts during harvest time as it is too far to walk back to the village every night.

Living at its most basic

A great coffee at the end of a wonderful day

Patara Elephant Farm

This was a day that I will never forget. My elephant's name was Boon and he was a 28 year old bull and the biggest bull in the herd. When you get their they match you up with an elephant that they think will suit you, and then they check to make sure that the elephant has no objections to you, and if accepted, you spend the next 30 minutes or so bonding with the elephant through feeding and talking to him. My elephant for the day was Boon, a 28 year old bull who had sired 16 calves and was the biggest bull in the herd. Talking to Boon was much better than talking to a woman because he didn't hog the conversation. After that, they teach you the various commands that you will need to know (come, stop, go, down, back, left, right, up etc.), and then how to get on and off an elephant. There are actually 3 ways to mount and dismount, but unfortunately for me, Boon came to patara when he was already 12 years old, and only knew one way, which was the most difficult, which involved him going down on his front knees and me jumping over his head and onto his back in one motion and then turning around. Once this was learned you then learned ho wto check the animal's health which including dissecting and squeezing a lump og their shit to check for proper digestion and fluid intake as well as how well they were chewing. Then, it was a case of cleaning them, which staarted with brushing all of the dirt off their back (they throw dirt on themselves to stop the flies biting), after which we took them down to the river for a bath and all over scrub. I will never again complain about washing the 4WD - you really don't appreciaate ho big an elephant is until you have to scrub them from top to bottom. Did I mention thaat Boon was extremely stubborn and somewhat grumpy (maybe that's why they matched him with me, but I prefer to think that as a father of 16 children it was because he was a stud like me). However, with Boon being so being stubborn it made everything much harderthan what others in the group went through with their cow or young bull elephant. After their bath, we then mounted up and rode our elephants up the mountain to a beautiful waterfall where the elephant's and Mahouts had ball swimming. I also jumped in, although not with Boon as he didn't want aa swim. I went in with his 8 year old son, and also hasd a great time. The elephants are just like little kids when they get in the water, they roll around, and completely go under and then often come up and deliberately spray the other elephants and handlers with water from their trunks. We then had lunch, which was traditionaal food eaten by Mahoutss when out in the forest working, and was made by the local villagers and tsted awesome. Before we had a chance to finish our lunch, one of the young cows, followed by the young bull that I had been swimming with, escaped and came rushing in to where we were eating and finished everything off. After lunch we then got back on and rode over the crest of the mountain through the jungle and back to the farm in the valley below. I could not believe how easily the elephants negotiated the muddy slopes which were often more than 60 degrees in steepness. Pity it wasn't so easy for us on their back, because other tha a rope behind you to haang on to when going down really steep slopes, the only way to stay on was to clamp your thighs aaround the elephant's neck, and so after a few hours of this, it was murder on the thigh and groin muscles. I was so sore the next day, and in fact am still suffering.

The King's Elephant

Because this cow has white marking in seven specific spots on her skin, including inside her mouth, she is called a White Elephant, and all white elephants are considered to belong to the King of Thailand and as such cannot be ridden and must be given specil treatment and used for various cerimonial duties. Her calf is 8 weeks old and was so much like a little toddler, just wanting attention and always showing off.

Time to start work

Getting to Know Each Other

Is this a case of two grumpy old men bonding and talking about our women problems.

Time to Get Clean

This pic shows the size difference between Boon and the other elephants.

Pay Back

Mounting Up

How easy was that; all the grace and poise of an Olympic gymnast.

And We're Off

Time for a Swim and Play

Lunch

A Couple of Gate Crashers

The Nightmarkets

My newly acquired friend Trong took me to the real Chiang Mai nightmarkets, where only locals go (the other nightmaarkets advertised in all the tourist brochures are just full of all the normal souvenir stuff ). Here I got to sample lots of local delicacies such as numerous types of bugs and worms, all maanner of gizzards and intestines, strange and exotic fruit, and various types of drinks. The next morning I also went back to these markets to buy all the ingredients for my day at the Thai cooking school, where I saw yet more types of strange foods e.g., the liquid from pig livers which is a vivid green colour is highly prised for all manner of things (didn't turn me on though).

The bridge over the Mai Ping River

A smorgasbord of bugs

I'll have kilo of that one please

Little was I to know that later that night I would be scoffing down bowls of these little beauties (deep fried crickets in lemon grass) with my beer at a local bar, along with many other wonderous bar snacks.

These were my faavourite (cane grubs), they really were nice.

These are silk worm larvae, and they were not good.

Yum!

Sartee chicken livers and intestines are a real delicacy

The intestines were bloody awful, whereas the livers were OK, but I still struggled with the texture - very dry (although at the paub later, they seemed to go down better)

Salted and dried fish (the things on the right are very large frogs, which tasted OK but were mostly bone)

Fresh water shell fish

A thousand type of sartees.

One of the very friendly locals

Ready made meals to take home

The Thai girls love their shoes

Flowers are a vry important product from the Chiaang Mai region. Many of them are used for religious purposes

Trong told me that these ones are used as offering to the mightly Budda

While these ones are used as offering to the great wife/girlfriend - if Budda and girlfriend are haappy, then man can be at peace.

Wat Chedi Luang Temple

Chiang Mai's oldest and largest Buddist Temple and Pagoda, built over 700 years ago and very impressive. It is in the heart of the old city, which is surrounded by a wall that is over 5 metres high and 2 metres thick, with a moat running all the way around the outside of the wall. There is also a very large trainingMonastry at the temple where many of Thailand's monks go to be trained.

Classic Home Cooking

I spent my second last day learning to cook Thai food at the Classic Home Cooking Scholl which was a great experience. There were only 5 of us in the class. Beforethe day we were all sent a list of about 50 or 60 different Thai dishes, from which we picked 6 that we would cook on the day. Then after being pick up in the morning, we went to the local markets where we purchased all the fresh ingredients that we would use in our selected dishes.

My dishes were Paneang Curry, Crispy Pork with Kale (chinese broccoli), Pad Thai, Hot and Sour Soup (Tom Yam Gai), Thia warm beef salad, and Fried banana in sesame seeds. The miraculous thing was thaat every dish thaat we all cooked turned out faantastic. In between cooking the dishes we all tasted one anothers dishes, so by the end of the day, I could barely move I was so full of food. Unfortunately, my camera battery went dead just after arriving so I didn't manage to take any pictures of my awesome dishes.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

This is Chiang Mai's most famous Buddist temples, it is on the mountain overlooking the city, and every year Buddist from around the country travel to Chiang Mai to receieve bleesings from the Monks at the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple (similar to the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, but more peaceful).