| Submitted by: Mark R. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
|
 |
|
We handed out candy
to the children and talked to two or three families before heading back
to the bridge--a little easier to cross the second time--and the seelor.
We drove a little way, then we stopped and were told to leave
everything on the seelor and climb down an embankment. There were four
rafts made of bamboo (what else?). They were not very wide, about
twelve feet by three feet, and when you stepped on them they sank below
water level--so much for the one pair of shoes I brought, traveling
light. They put us on two of the rafts (Binayak and I shared a raft),
each with a steersman at each end, and sent us down the river. Warning:
this ride gets wet. Very wet. But in the heat it felt good. Generally
the water was calm though there was some white water and a couple of
times we hit rocks pretty hard. A couple of times we tipped at about a
30o angle though, of course, it felt like a lot more. Early on we hit a
low branch and a green spider fell onto my leg. It was about an inch
and a half across though, of course, it seemed a lot bigger. Now the
problem was how we could get the spider back some place where it could
survive. We considered flipping it to shore but we were never really
close enough. I am pretty sure at this point that it was the spider's
last day, but I thought if I could keep it isolated from the water long
enough we could put it ashore when the trip was over. Then came a big
drenching splash and no spider. Well, as Binayak pointed out later, it
had jumped to my head. Well, I don't know which spiders are dangerous
around here. Binayak asked if he should flick it off and I told him
yes. I expected a light flick to the boat but instead it was a heavy
flick into the water and suddenly the number of legs on the boat dropped
from sixteen to eight. It was all over for my little green friend.
The trip lasted about thirty-five minutes. Then we climbed a bank
to the 'Elephant Ridding Camp,' as the sign described it. They had a
bunch of box lunches. They included a chicken drumstick. The batter
was good and spicy but the meat itself did not taste very good so I gave
it a miss. There were also salami sandwiches, tasteless brownies, an
orange, and a banana. While I was eating a warm, wet vacuum cleaner
snuffled my arm. It seemed I was being panhandled by 500 pounds (or
more?) of baby elephant. We fed him some orange slices provided by
Barbara (mine were gone already). The baby went over to have a drink
from Mama. This did not fit into one of the elephant handlers plans and
he hit the baby with a bamboo switch. Baby made an angry half-charge on
the handler but stopped himself. We also saw an old bull elephant being
walked around camp with his two front legs chained together so he could
only limp. Lined up near where we were eating were the three elephants
we'd ride. I tried to feed one grapes and orange slices but he could
not seem to get them to his mouth.
Eventually came the time to ride the elephants. There was a W-
shaped wooden frame with seats placed above it. This is placed on the
elephant's back. A rope goes from it around the elephant's neck;
another goes to a ring around the elephant's tail and is cinched up
tight. We climbed to a high platform, stepped on the elephant's head,
and stepped into the seat.
I had ridden well-trained horses along a path and they had been
reasonably co-operative. That was not what this was like. An elephant,
and an Asian elephant in particular, is a very intelligent animal, much
more than a horse. (An elephant who sees a monkey trapped in mud will
pull the monkey out and set it free, which implies to me a high order of
intelligence.) In any case, the elephants were not co-operative as
horses would be, so they had to be driven by five or six drivers.
The drivers would hit the elephant with bamboo switches. One stood
on the ground and repeatedly threw a rock bigger than his head at the
rear flanks of the elephant. The same rock was thrown at the elephant's
face several times. All this was done with all the force the boy could
muster. Our elephant kept wanting to leave the path so was singled out
for particular attention. Even when he seemed to be behaving, as far as
we could tell, the driver kept hitting the elephant. Then our driver
got the hook. It was a device about the size of a hammer that looked
like apiece of climbing gear. It had a big metal half-crescent. Our
driver hit the elephant on the top of the head and the side of the neck
with this tool, sometimes with the stalk of the tool, sometimes with the
pointed end. He also poked the hook in the elephant's ear. They were
blows hard enough to kill a man, but of course an elephant isn't a man,
is he?
Riding an elephant sounded interesting in the brochure and once we
were strapped on the elephant we were pretty much captive ourselves for
about seventy-five minutes. I found myself wishing I could demonstrate
to the driver how to use the hook. I wouldn't have needed an elephant.
I was looking forward to the elephant ride and it turned out to be a low
point of the trip. We were offered a trip to an elephant show a day or
so later and Steve's response was, 'No more elephants.' I quite agree.
From where we got off the elephants we were only a short walk to
the Meo village. The Meo are descended, it is claimed, from Genghis
Khan's Mongols. Premarital *** is actually encouraged as part of
courtship and when a couple decides to tie the know *** temporarily ends
and the prospective husband gives five silver ingots to the girl's
parents. The village was nearly deserted. In fact, the only ones who
came to see us at first were a couple of dogs. I fed them a little
candy to win them over. Binayak suspected that it might not be taken
well by the villagers that we were giving candy to the dogs and not
people. At this point a few of the villagers made their presence known.
We did not find them as communicative as the Karen but they were happy
to take candy.
Then we started the walk back to the van. We started about 4:05
PM. I asked the guide how far we were walking and he said about twenty
minutes. After about five minutes of walking he pointed across the
valley to a tiny red spot that was our seelor. We all had the same
thought: This is not a fifteen-minute walk. That sucker was a long
distance away. I guessed it would take another forty-five minutes. It
turned out to be about eighteen minutes away from that point, meaning I
am a very poor judge of my own cross-country speed. I guess a lot of
the trek was downhill.
As if we were not already dusty enough, the trip back was through
clouds of dust. It got so that even when we sneezed, we sneezed dust.
We sucked the warm water we had with us.
Back at the hotel we rented two rooms for half an hour and
showered. We had a quick dinner at the coffee shop. I had another
banana split to cool me off and to rebuild my sugar level. If it was
what my body needed, I felt it best to oblige it.
After that it was back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and then
find a seelor to take us to the train station. We had not been able to
get an air-conditioned car for the night run to Bangkok. There was only
a second-class car and we were not sure what to expect. One thing sure
was that it was hot in the train station and we were afraid it would be
even hotter on the train. The train that pulled in didn't reassure us
either. It was dusty and not very comfortable-looking. Barbara pointed
out that they were unloading chickens. Steve went to look for our car
and discovered it wasn't even on the train. They would be adding more
cars later. They did. We boarded. Not too surprisingly the cars were
very cramped and quite warm. Otherwise they were comfortable enough.
The car was about half tourist and half Thai. We had been able to get
four uppers and one lower. Three of the uppers were near each other.
The other two were isolated. The two women got two of the three nearby
uppers (I am not sure of the reasoning) and we had drawn tickets for the
other three berths. I had drawn the isolated lower. Actually, that
berth might have made sense for Barbara, who is the only member of our
group traveling with multiple pieces of luggage. We guys each have
essentially backpacks, Evelyn has a piece of luggage with a strap,
Barbara has two pieces which she tends to strap onto a luggage trolley.
That is an inconvenient way to travel because she has to keep setting
the thing up and disassembling it. That slows things down a bit.
Barbara has a different approach to travel than Evelyn and I do.
Hers is more the grand tradition of travel. She travels in style, or at
least tries to, while we travel in more a vagabond, utilitarian manner,
everything on our back, that sort of thing. We tend to look for ancient
and historic sites; Barbara likes market places. We each like some of
the other, of course, but it is a different mix. Prior to the trip
Binayak talked about half about just being among the people, one quarter
about seeing the historic culture, and about one quarter about
marketing. However, on the first day in Chiang Mai he said he was
'watted out.' From that point his tastes were closer to Barbara's,
which to some extent made things a bit easier. While Binayak and
Barbara are doing the same sort of thing, we can have Evelyn and I doing
historic things. Steve can choose between them if he wants, or do a
third thing. But it makes things a bit easier with a bit less planning
while their interests are in common as they are. I referred the this at
one point as the 'Barbara-ing of Binayak.' Bad choice of words since
Barbara still seems to think we look down on her marketing, but it is
really a good thing since it is better than fragmentation.
But I digress.
The berths were small but there was a rotating fan for each group
of four and when the train was moving they were sufficiently
comfortable. I settled down to write in my log when I heard Evelyn
saying, 'Where's Mark?' I stuck my head out. I had the shortwave and
she wanted me to get the news. Somebody on the train had heard a rumor
that war had broken out in the Middle East. She wanted me to find the
news. It took me about an hour to establish that there was nothing I
could get in the train car on any of the shortwave bands and the local
AM and FM stations did not have English news. I reported that to Evelyn
and went to bed.
October 13, 1990: The sleeping was not as good as in a hotel room,
but not bad either. The bed got shaken a bit. I used foam earplugs and
the noise didn't bother me. I woke up about 5 AM and wrote for a while.
At a little after 6 AM Binayak woke up and came to sit in the seat
opposite me which had remained empty. He suggested that we open a
window which had an opaque screen over it. I was not sure it opened,
but it did. In the pre-dawn light we could see rice paddies going past
the windows.
We saw a mix of fields and towns going by. The towns were drab and
some even ramshackle. When we pulled up to a town people would come by
the train window selling breakfast. I got a sweet bean paste bun. More
Chinese than Thai, I thought. But there is, of course, a strong Chinese
influence on the culture in Thailand.
There were some spectacular views through the morning. Some
limestone formations were impressive and reminiscent of China. Then one
place there was a tall stand of trees and peering over the top was a
huge head of the Buddha.
We were due to arrive in Bangkok at about 10:30 AM, but were better
than half an hour late. We went to a phone booth and started calling
hotels and guest houses in the cheap range. A rotund gentleman came
over and asked if we wanted a cab. We told him we didn't need a cab.
He seemed to find that funny. We found a guest house--not our first
choice--that did have rooms. We started looking for a cab. The rotund
fellow was still there and we bargained a price with him. It turned out
he was not a cab driver at all. He either managed a fleet of cabs or
was some sort of self-appointed expediter. |
|
| Copyright © - "Mark R. Leeper" |
|
 |
| Other travelogues by the same author: |
|
|
|
