Japan / Thailand Part V: Elephants, and finally seeing Peter

 This entry is a continuation of my Japan/Thailand trip summary, which starts here.

Monday 1/19

Monday was my trip to the elephant sanctuary. There are quite a few elephant camps around Chiang Mai, some more humane than others. This one was genuine rehab sanctuary, where they care for a small number (four, at the current time) of elephants rescued from industries such as logging and entertainment. Peter knows the owners, and so I knew the place was going to be reputable.

The sanctuary was about an hour outside the city. A van made the rounds of Chiang Mai first thing in the morning picking up the day's visitors, then we made the drive out to the camp. Our driver was a genial guy who, while not an ultra-fast driver, clearly didn't have much use for traffic rules, as he drove on the shoulder around traffic, ran lights, and so on. My fellow tour participants included four Canadian 19 year old friends, a 40ish woman who works for insurance co in Florida but currently lives in Capetown, two 40ish sisters from NYC, and one French woman traveling by herself. We were joined later on by a Dominican-American couple and their three young children.

I must say, going on this trip makes me realize that there's a whole class of people out there who live very international lives. I mean, living in Washington among people whose work at places like the State Department, military, and the World Bank takes them all around the world, I have long felt like the third-least-traveled person in the universe (topped by my homebody brother and wife). But even well-traveled Washingtonians are tethered back to the U.S.: deploy for 2-3 years in service to the government, then return home. But there are also people who just, well, live around the world. Like this Capetown woman. Her job is in Florida, but during the pandemic when everyone went remote she took the opportunity to just up and move elsewhere in the world. She's lived in lots of places, and currently calls Capetown, South Africa home primarily because she's dating a guy who lives there. Or the people I met in the ramen shop in Tokyo: the English woman who up and moved to Australia, and the Indian guy now living in Canada. Or the young woman I overheard in a Tokyo store telling her friend that she had just bought her handbag the previous week in Malaysia. These are not all wealthy jet-setters, but they're living lives I never even considered living, since I had no idea such a thing was possible. 

But I digress. As soon as we arrived in camp an elephant sauntered up to check us out - it was clear that this was going to be an up-close and personal experience. The first thing the guide had us do was put on traditional Thai clothes. They said that the elephants are more comfortable seeing people in consistent clothing. I think it was also to protect us from potential messes.

Making a new friend

The first thing we did after welcome coffee and cookies (and cute little Thai bananas), was to cut up little watermelons using little machetes (fun in itself!) and feed the pieces to each of the four elephants. Elephants' trunks are very dexterous. You just get them to grab the fruit with their trunks and they do the rest.

Cutting up fruit

This is what feeding fruit to an elephant looks like

Then we walked the elephants down a dirt road to the river, where we fed them some more and just hung out. In warmer weather the elephants will go into the river to cool off, but it was a near perfect 70ish degree day, and there was no need for them to cool down. I must say, for 6,000 pound animals, elephants walk very quietly. More than once on the walk to the river I was surprised to notice something in my peripheral vision and suddenly realize that an elephant had sneaked up on me.

 

Feeding an elephant (I think this elephant is Bua Bann)

Water buffalo crossing the river

Walking down to the river

Down by the river

Upon our return to camp we kind of made our own lunches from prepared ingredients. The lunch included two courses: first, there was a papaya salad made from papaya, hot pepper, green pepper, garlic, fish sauce, brown sugar, lime juice, cut up tomato, peanuts, and a little MSG, ground together in big mortar and pestle. The, we assembled a soup by first dipping rice noodles or pre-cooked fat noodles into boiling water, then adding broth, pre-cooked fried tofu, mushroom tempura, wontons, garlic, pepper powder, red sauce, peanuts, and some sort of salty pickled thing.

Soup at the elephant camp

Papaya salad at the elephant camp

The guide did acknowledge that I was a friend of "Beeet-thduh", as they pronounced Peter's name, and even gave me a cute little stuffed elephant as a special gift. In return I bought the souvenir photo for 200 THB (about $6) . 

Back in Chiang Mai, Monday evening seemed to be a quiet night. On the flight up from Bangkok I had sat next to a guy who was carrying a mandolin - another young world traveler. I asked him about good live music in Chiang Mai; he recommended a jazz club by the North Gate. Paradoxically, on this otherwise quiet night the club was more crowded than a Tokyo subway at rush hour, so I didn't stay. Instead, I went and ate ate khao soi, a traditional northern Thai curry dish, at a restaurant Peter recommended called Aroy Dee. Then I strolled around a bit, had some crappy but nonetheless refreshing soft serve ice cream, and turned in.

Chiang Mai street scene at night

Dinner at Aroy Dee restaurant

I like my food spicy enough to distort the space-time continuum

Santa Claus makes an unexpected appearance

This is what a quiet night in Chiang Mai looks like

Seeing Jerry's face on a street corner made me happy. Bummed about the anti-Semitic sticker

Tuesday 1/20

While I had changed my plans to return back to Bangkok on Tuesday, my flight wasn't until the evening and so I had all day in Chiang Mai. Since I had already paid for my room, I didn't check out - left my bags in the room - and left to go visit Wat Doi Suthep, one of the most important temples in Northern Thailand, stunningly situated on a hilltop about ten miles outside town.

I wasn't clear on the best way to get up to Doi Suthep, having read some conflicting recommendations online. Some people said just take a Grab taxi all the way up, but most recommended taking a red truck taxi. Transportation in Thailand is very inventive. I'd already seen motorcycles with giant cargo sidecars, motor scooters serving as taxis, tuktuks, and every other kind of vehicle imaginable. A red truck is a shared taxi. Basically, they're pickup trucks with tall caps, and two rows of benches in the bed - one on each side. A driver will wait to fill the thing up with 6-8 people, then drive to the destination. Since you're sharing a ride they're very cheap, and only mildly terrifying to ride in up a mountain road.

Red trucks waiting for passengers

Riding in a red truck

One online source had said that the best place to catch a red truck was near the North Gate of the old city, where they tend to congregate, so I took the 20 minute walk over there, envisioning I'd find something of a taxi stand. Unfortunately, when I go there, nothing. There was one red truck, with the driver fast asleep. OK. I briefly considered renting a scooter and driving myself up the mountain. Scooter rentals are plentiful, and I have a motorcycle license - I even have an international driving permit (I needed it for my go-kart adventure in Japan) with a motorcycle endorsement. But by that point I'd seen how people drive in Thailand, and I had no idea how bad the road up the mountain was, so I decided not to pursue that route. Instead, I tried something I had seen in another online source, which had recommended taxiing out to the Chiang Mai zoo, which was at the base of Doi Suthep mountain, and catch a red truck there. Doing that I indeed found a red truck taxi stand. I waited about ten minutes for other passengers to arrive to fillthe truck, then we drove on up the mountain, which was indeed a steep and winding road, but the road itself was paved and smooth.

Commonsense taxi rules

Once at Doi Suthep, one climbs 309 steps up to the temple itself. The temple another visual overload of a place. Also, while the temples in Bangkok had enforced a code of modest dress (no shorts or bare shoulders), here people were ignoring the signs and doing whatever. Except shoes. You still had to take off your shoes before you went into the temple. I had my shoes on and off a lot during this trip.

Doi Suthep was fairly crowded and so of course the random walk rule of photography applied: if you're trying to wait and get a photo of something with no people in it, as soon as the last person walks out of frame on one side, someone else will walk in from the other side. 

Staircase up to Doi Suthep, flanked by Naga (giant water snakes)

Bells

Doi Suthep temple

The temple's golden chedi

Temple

Another Emerald Buddha replica? People do a meditative walk of three circles around the temple

Doi Suthep temple

Lots of colors!

Apparently the boss has his own toilet

Legend is that a white elephant carrying a relic of the Buddha trumpeted three times then died on this spot, which was taken as a sign that this was the place to build a temple

A beautiful view down into Chiang Mai and the Ping Valley

While Chiang Mai was hot and sticky, the weather was absolutely perfect up on the mountain. I spent a few hours up there enjoying the temple and its surroundings (and having a passionfruit smoothie) before walking down the 309 stairs and hopping a red truck which took me all the way back to the old city.

Back in Chiang Mai I had a final meal of vegetarian mock roast pork (one of the few lackluster meals of the whole trip), then taxied to the airport. And good news - Peter had texted that he was finally out of the hospital and would meet me at the airport in Bangkok.

Indeed, Peter was there waiting when I got off my flight - finally a chance to see my old friend! We took a combination of bus and subway (I told you Bangkok's public transportation system was complicated) to get back to Sukhumvit, but with my bags in hand I resisted his entreaties to take a scooter taxi from the skytrain stop to the hotel and instead walked the ten minutes. We grabbed dinner at a local Japanese place and caught up for a bit.

 

Is this the place we're threatening to invade? It seems that every third store in Thailand is a cannabis dispensary

Mock pork in Chiang Mai

Japanese dinner - more ramen! - back in Bangkok

Weds 1/21

When all was said and done, I got to spend one full day with Peter. He had to make a quick trip to the hospital for an antibiotic injection, so I ate breakfast and visited the hotel's onsen (more naked bathing). 

When he got back I walked over to his apartment - well situated in a luxury building on bustling Soi 24, but it's a very small one bedroom. I was also impressed with how integrated he has into local life. Pete's been working hard to learn the Thai language, and it shows. His conversations with the natives were mostly in Thai, which he seems to speak without hesitation (he says that his vocabulary is still small, but that his basic ability to speak and understand is pretty good). As we walked around we bumped into lots of people he knows, some expats, some locals. A neighbor. A local massage therapist (who he also dated for a bit). A guy he knows from the gym. He even took me in and introduced me to his cannabis dealer (we didn't make any purchases).

Peter took me on a walk through the “slums” (really not a slum, just the part of Sukhumvit which hasn't been redeveloped or heavily commercialized - it's where the locals live) and we took the subway to Wat Suthat. Suthat is not a tourist attraction temple, but of course it is still pretty and is interesting because it's a functional house of worship. We were there at noon when they started their daily service and stayed to listen to some of the chanting. 

 

Lots of Buddha figures, as always

Wat Suthat

Then walked through Chinatown, which is huge and old school. It's like the old NYC Chinatown, but many times the size. We ate lunch there, then headed back to rest (Peter still wasn't feeling 100%) before going out for the evening.

Chinatown

Two old friend on the street

By the giant swing near Wat Suthat

On Peter's terrace

Peter was kind of knocked out from our day, so he convinced me to take a scooter taxi back from the subway stop. Scooter taxis are just what they sound like. You hop on the back of some guy's scooter and for a few bhat they'll drive you where you want to go. Scooters are everywhere in large numbers in Thailand, frequently with passengers. I guess you could take a scooter taxi across town, but Peter said they're usually used for short "last mile" distances, such as getting home from the subway stop or a bar. As I've mentioned previously, constructs such as traffic rules and driving in lanes aren't well developed in Thailand, and so riding the scooter taxi was a terrifying, if thankfully brief, thrill ride. 

Hopping on a scooter taxi

In the evening we went out to the Muay Thai fights at Rajadamnern stadium, which apparently is the oldest and most significant location for Muay Thai. It's a flashy spectacle, including a light-up "immersive experience" about the cultural heritage of muay thai, which is projected over the whole ceiling of the stadium. It's definitely got the feel of a major league sporting event, but it's smaller and more intimate than a U.S. stadium. 

I don't know much about boxing in general, and I know zero about Muay Thai. I couldn't even tell if it was real or scripted like American wrestling. I had read that Muay Thai fighters use "eight limbs": fists, elbows, knees, and shins, and in fact the fighters spend a lot of time in a clinch kicking at each other. Even without fully understanding the fights, it was still a fun experience. The crowd at Rajadamnern seems to be mostly fareng (Westerners), and the food menu shows it: hamburgers, pizza, beer, and so on. I had a slice of the worst, most leathery pizza known to man. My stomach was upset for a few days afterwards - not sure it was from the leathery pizza, but it might have been.

Muay Thai Immersive Experience

Muay Thai fights have a live band!

The fights

Hey, if you look at the pictures of the two of us you'll note that Peter has some pretty intricate full sleeve tattoos, which feature Thai/Buddhist images and Sanskrit writing. In the U.S. people just looked at him funny, but in Thailand they seem to be a great conversation starter. Our waitress at the Muay Thai stadium stopped what she was doing to take out her phone and show us pictures of her tats. At Wat Suthat some other tattooed dude engaged Peter in tattoo-related conversation. But the best one was on the Bangkok subway, when some north African looking guy said he was vicariously enjoying Peter's tatttoos but that he himself couldn't get tattoos for religious reasons. From the guy's looks I assumed he was Muslim, so imagine my surprise when he said he was an Ethiopian Jew and one of the problems was that with a tattoo he couldn't be buried in a Jewish cemetery! I told him that I knew of no such restriction at the cemetery where my parents were buried. And let me say that it this point I was aware of the craziness of somehow finding myself on the Bangkok subway in a conversation with a total stranger about Jewish law. Anyway, he said oh, you must be secular, but that Ethiopian Jews follow more traditional rules, which made me realize that he must be an Israeli of Ethiopian descent. Israel doesn't have as much of a concept of Reform Judaism as we do in the diaspora; it's more either you're religious or you're secular, though of course among the religious there's plenty of debate about who's religious enough to really be considered religious.

Thurs 1/22

I ate breakfast at the hotel, then we took a walk to Lumphini Park, because I wanted to see the Thai monitor lizards which roam freely through the park, much as we might have squirrels in a park in America. I was not disappointed! We must have seen two dozen of the darn things. They're pretty big, and they're just there basking in the sun, swimming in the lake, walking around, and generally just being lizards. They're neither a threat to humans nor intimidated by them. I had visions of stuffing one into my suitcase and taking it home. 

Lizards!

Enjoying the sunshine before heading home to a snowstorm

Peter had overdone things a little bit on Wednesday and wanted to stop by the doctor Thursday, so when we got back to Sukhumvit, we ate lunch together at an organic cafe above a health food store (the most laid back, serene place I had experienced in Bangkok), then I meandered about while he went off to the doctor. When he got back we went for a Thai massage together (G-rated again!). I was able to relax more this time, both because I knew the process, and because being there with Peter I figured I was less likely to be robbed or ripped off. Have I mentioned that massage is $8 per hour?

Found this place. Didn't try!

I can't remember when I took my second scooter taxi ride - but there definitely was one. A little less terrifying, since it was just straight up Soi 24.

After our massages we said our tearful goodbyes, and I headed for the airport to start the long trip home. 

 

My new friend Kiiroitori helping me pack

Surprisingly good pizza at Haneda airport

So, what are Thai cities like? Well, sort of like 1970's Brooklyn. Busy. Crowded. Kind of grimy. Smoggy (Peter keeps two air filters running in his apartment). Lots of little small business shops rather than big chains. For example, on our walk to Chinatown we passed through what was clearly the auto parts district, but there was no AutoZone store. Rather, there was one nameless storefront which specialized in brake parts, another for mufflers, and so on. Lively. Strangely safe feeling. Thailand doesn't have a big extreme poverty or unemployment problem, and no place I went had that desperate, predatory feeling you get when people are really hard up and maybe you're their target to get some cash. Good food. Smells everywhere - some good, like the smell of delicious, ubiquitous street food, some bad, like old fish sauce and urine. Anything goes, in a Vegas sort of way. A little out of control - just crossing Soi 24 was like playing the old Frogger game, as there were few traffic signals and the vehicular/scooter traffic was nuts. Fun. Surprisingly devoid of pot smoke, for a place with a bazzilion dispensaries (Peter says people tend to smoke at home, not in the street). I'd visit again. At least Chiang Mai, and maybe check out the southern beach towns like Phuket.