尼泊尔之后 的泰国2个星期行

yoyyo2000

从尼泊尔离开后，我和Anna来到泰国。之前我对泰国没感觉。但是Anna说从珠峰基地下来以后，我们要享受，要去暖和的地方，去海边。。。 刚下飞机，差点没热死。。 泰国比尼泊尔干净很多，吃的也好吃很多。。但是没有尼泊尔感觉这么好。。。感觉尼泊尔是精神之旅。。。泰国就是享受了。。接下来，我会发些照片，然后发游记。。

第一站曼谷 Bangkok
我们住在Lebua Hotel，就是Hangover 2里面那个。不过住的时候，不知道电影竟然是那里拍的。。

最喜欢泰国街头滩。。一小碗面，1澳元。。



我们Lebua 酒店45楼看出去的风景。




坐longtail boat去Grand Palace。 被宰第一刀



河边民宅




Taling Chan Floating Market 的小吃




market 里面的摇钱树




河上给你炒碗面




海鲜



烤海鲜的婆婆



船上什么都有。物美价廉

谗你一下



[ 本帖最后由 yoyyo2000 于 2011-7-15 17:51 编辑 ]

jackjia

8年前去过一次，泰国是男人的天堂

tigerandgolf

我也很喜欢泰国，主要是massage很舒服，又便宜。我只去了一个星期，而且只去了普吉和曼谷。曼谷我住在sofitel，号称是5星的，但我感觉还不如普吉4星的novtel呢。不过因为我们的机票和住宿是抽奖抽到的，所以也不能complain了。

yoyyo2000

原帖由 jackjia 于 2011-7-15 17:50 发表
8年前去过一次，泰国是男人的天堂

哈哈，也可以是女人的天堂。。。

yoyyo2000

原帖由 tigerandgolf 于 2011-7-15 17:52 发表
我也很喜欢泰国，主要是massage很舒服，又便宜。我只去了一个星期，而且只去了普吉和曼谷。曼谷我住在sofitel，号称是5星的，但我感觉还不如普吉4星的novtel呢。不过因为我们的机票和住宿是抽奖抽到的，所以也不能complain了。

娃，运气好。。
我在那里2个星期，没有massage过。。。我听说过一些horror stories。而且， 我才不要人家摸我。。。

yoyyo2000

14/05/2011.
Anna and I got up early at 7am. Packed our bags, bought a few pashminas, returned rented down jacket, said our final goodbye to the boys and girls from the intrepid trip. We got to the airport nice and early.  We had the buffet breakfast in the restaurant upstairs. I had shit loads of salad and my last share of Dahl Baat. It was probably the best Dahl baat I had ever had.

We went through security no problems. Nepali airport does not seem to worry about liquid restrictions. Passengers are divided into male and female groups and getting a full pat down twice. You get pat down one more time before you get on the plane, not sure if that's necessary. They went through everyone's bag thoroughly. The security lady was very interested in my post-it notes and was trying to fiddle around it and when it suddenly split in the middle, she freaked out and thought she broke it and kept apologizing. I told her it was not broken and sticked it back on. It was pretty funny ( at least I thought).

It was a very cloudy day. The flight was very bumpy after we took off. We dropped a few times as well. I am not very good with flying and was panicking a bit. After 10 minutes, we went though the rough patch of clouds, and flight was very smooth from then on. We had lunch, watched a bit movie and read a bit guide book. The service and food on thai airway was pretty good.

When we touched down in Bangkok, it was almost dark, we could feel the heat and humidity straight away once we stepped off the airport.

We took a taxi to our hotel. Bangkok is a very big modern developed city with lots of highways. The streets are nice and clean. It was weird not to see cows running on the street and dogs sleeping by the side of the road anymore. :p

When we arrived at Lebua at State Tower Hotel, there were like 10 staff greeting us at the door. The hotel was very very nice. Probably one of the nicest i have ever stayed. We got a free upgrade to the river view deluxe room. It's amazing. The room was on the 54th floor with an enormous balcony. It was facing the river, you can smell it from there. The rooms were enormous, it was almost as big as my apartment in Warrnambool. The living room was nice and spacious, bath room was enormous and the bedroom was awesome. I reckon five people can comfortably sleep in that bed. There were an outdoor swimming pool, spa and sauna, a very nice fitness centre, a few roof top restaurants and bars. Anna said it was like home away from home. My home is no way this fancy. :p.

Once we settled down, we went for a walk. Most shops were closed by then. There were quite a few street food stalls were still open. By then, we were getting a bit hungry.

We just walked into a random noodle soup shop. Each of us had a bowl of spicy noodle soup with fishballs, chicken, pork, vegetables and rice noodles. It was really hot and humid and the hot soup was making us sweat like pigs, so we had some home made ice tea as well. It was the best. Everything cost us less than 100 baht in total ( like a bit over three dollars?? ).

I had a shower, played some Nepali cd I bought in Kathmandu. It reminded my trekking days. I actually kinda really miss it. Hotels are nice, but sometimes I feel like a bird in a cage in them. Isolated, no communications, getting fed...lucky we are only staying for two night and we will be off to Chiangmai. Hopefully we will do the three day elephant trek, some thai cooking lessons and meet some interesting people.

Anna and I watched this movie called Flipped. It was really cute.

15/05/2011
Today we got up at 7 am, had buffet breakfast at the hotel. It was amazing. I had lots of fruits and Chinese congee.

Then we headed off for the exciting part of the day. We started walking to the river port for a boat ride to the grand palace.

Unfortunately we started walking in the wrong direction. We could easily see the river from our hotel room, but could see it from the ground. We walked for around 20 minutes, the air was really hot and sticky. On the way, lots of taxi drivers and tuk tuk drivers tried to offer us a ride.

In the end we gave up and got on a tuk tuk thinking it would be an easy ride. The  driver was super friendly. ( at this moment, I should have remembered the danger & annoyances section in my lonely planet book ). He said he only charge us 20 baht to go to the river port ( previous taxi driver said 10 baht.)  He asked us where we are from, how many days we were staying, what we were planning to do. Anna said she wanted to do some shopping and get some clothes made. We didn't know at the time, big mistake. He did a huge detour and took us to some tailor ( that he could probably get some commission from) and insisted us to go in. I said no no no, we only wanted a minute ride to the river, we wanted to go to grand palace and boat ride. Don't want to make clothes now! Took five minutes to convince him. He seemed a little disappointed. Then he took us upper and down street, finally reached a very small port with only one company. Monopoly! And I had no idea where I was. The woman working there offered us a very "good" deal for 2000 baht for 1.5 hour long-tail boat tour to a small floating market then grand palace. My guide book said we could chart a long-tail boat for 800 baht. I said I was not going to pay that. After 5 minutes of haggling, she said will give us the best price, 1600 baht. We gave up, alright, we took it. The boat ride it was was very pleasant. The boat was going super fast at times, and the breeze was very very nice on a hot humid day. The big river had lots tall concrete buildings, temples, schools, and ports along the way. After being on the big river for 10- 15 minutes, we went into this little river way. It was like a street for local people. Both banks were packed with houses, yet it felt like we were in the jungle because It was extremely and green, very tropical. Some houses were really fancy with big well manicured front and back garden. Some houses looked like slums, ugly wooden boxes on rotten wooden stilts that were on the verge of collapsing. There were a few floating shops as well, a local woman was trying to sell us some very touristy stuff.

Local people were just going on about their daily business by the river. Some were reading news paper in their front yard, some where building their new houses, some were bathing their children, we even saw a rubbish collecting boat collecting house hold rubbish from each house. Every family had their own boats as well. Some were little wooden boats, some were small fancy speed boats. Their mailboxes were by the river as well.

This boat ride was more of a boat ride than boat tour. There was not much words being said. Overall it was very pleasant because of the scenery and the breeze.

He dropped us off at this small floating market called Taling Chan Floating Market. It had a long floating platform with hundreds of small chairs and tables on it. There were 20-30 small floating boats around the platform, the little kitchens were literally on the boat, they were making char-grilled oysters, mussels, squids,  crabs, fish, fried noodles, fried rice, rice noodles, salad right there and them. The customers took their food and just sat on the platform and ate. We got some grilled squid and it was delicious. The sauce was very hot and spicy. After that we walked around the platform, there were also people selling live fish, crabs, eels for Buddhists to release into the river to get some karma. You could also buy some bread for 10 baht to feed the fish in the river. Some of the fish were enormous. There was also a big street market next to the floating market. They were selling lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, cooked street food, pot plants, fresh flower bracelets as offerings in the temples. The food looked and smelt so good, unfortunately we were very very full.

I think I might have developed a mental starving disorder since EBC. The amount of food I am eating at this moment is ridiculous.

After around 30 minutes of wandering around, we went back to our boat, and then we got dropped off at the port for grand palace. At the port there was a small market with hundreds of small shops and food stalls. We wandered though it and was thinking what's for lunch later ( yes food again).

Once we got out the port, the place was swamped by taxis and tuk tuk. A few "friendly" locals were trying to tell us the grand palace was closed today, and offered to take us somewhere nice. After reading the lonely planet book we politely rejected them.

Apparently it's a very popular scan, they tell you the temple is closed, and take you shopping in some jewelry store where they can get commissions. I guess there were scans in every country. Back in Kathmandu we encountered quite a few women with their "hungry" babies, they carried an empty milk bottle and were trying to tell you their babies were hungry, please buy milk for them. Then they would take you to a supermarket, make you buy them a big jar of milk formula for 10-20 dollars. Then they would take it to a small shop and sell it back at a lower price. It's much easier than begging for 100 rupees from individuals. Apparently the same woman could be roaming the street for many years with different borrowed babies, and the locals know they are fake. They generally target women and foreigners.

Some of the tuktuk drivers were trying to tell us the grand palace was really far and offered to take us there for 10 baht, but we could see the grand palace right there. It was walking distance. We got our tickets at the Gate and got an audio guide for 200 baht. It was really good because we could go at our own pace.

The grand palace was OPEN and very impressive. All the buildings were relatively close together. It was free for thai people and because it was Sunday, lots of local people went to give offerings to the god and goddess.

The grand palace was established in 1782 and it consists of not only the royal residence and throne halls, but also a number of government offices as well as the renowned temple of emerald Buddha. It covers an area of 218 000 square metres in length.

The emerald Buddha is carved from a block of green jade and was first discovered in 1434 in a stupa in Chiang Rai. At that time the image was covered with plaster and was thought to be an ordinary Buddha image. Later however, the abbot who had found the image noticed that the plaster on the nose had flakes off, revealing the green stone underneath. The abbot initially thought that stone was emerald and thus the legend of the Emerald Buddha image began. This is one of the most venerated sites in Thailand where people convene to pay respect to the Lord Buddga and his teachings. The emerald Buddha is not very big and it's enshrined on a golden traditional thai style throne. It has three gold costumes that change with seasons. When we walked in the temple, there were many local pilgrims sitting in front of the shrine and praying. They brought fresh lotus flowers as offerings, and money for donations. Just at the front part of the temple, there was a big bronze pot presumably contains holy/blessed water. The locals dipped their lotus flowers in and then splash themselves with the water.

While we were walking around, it started to rain. It was really heavy that everyone had to look for a shelter. It took a good hour to stop. After the rain, it felt much cooler, and the air was less stuffy.  All the architectures were very impressive. Some were completely covered by gold foils, and some were covered by millions of small colorful tiles or glasses. Every building looked like they were decorated with millions of jewels.

After we left grand palace, we were heading to Wat Pho where the enormous reclining Buddha was. It was only two km away, so we decided to walk. On the way, lots of "friendly" locals were trying to "warn" us the reclining Buddha temple was not open today due to renovation. We got a bit annoyed and told them not to lie to other tourists because it's not fair for the tourists. It was sunday that day, so there was a Sunday market on the sidewalk. People were selling all sorts of stuff, used watches, antiques, old and new books, buddha carved in stones, clothes, fruits, noodles, junk (a pile of broken plastic fashion jewelry?  I was not so sure.) maybe one's junk is someone else's treasure. It was a very local market, so as tourists, we didn't really get much hassle from them..

When we arrived in the Wat Pho, we could see big scalloping structure around the temple. Also there was an enormous sign on the top of the building saying: Yes we are renovating, but we are still OPEN. I thought it was pretty funny. The reclining Buddha was enormous. I couldn't take a picture of the whole Buddha. His shoes were easily more than two person tall and were decorated with mother of pearls. We paid out respect the Buddha and left for lunch.

On the way back, I bought some durian. Anna said she had never tried it. I tried it once in hong kong, but it was covered in custard in a pancake. I was very curious to find out what the fresh one taste like. I was warning Anna about the special odor. She thought I was joking, and found it amusing how serious I was. I told her we shouldn't take it on public transport or eat it in shopping centre. I found a rubbish bin and insisted that we ate next to the bin. In case if we found it revolting, we could dispose it straight away. Each of us had a piece, it was so smooth and soft, had texture of avocado but tasted like custard. The smell was a bit funny, but once you take a bite, you totally forget about the offensive smell. Anna seemed to like it as well, and I was shocked. :p. I think it was because her nose was a bit blocked that day which helped. I think I am in love with durian now, however our taxi driver didn't really appreciate it that much.

We went to a big shopping centre and had foot scrub, pedicure. The lady at the pedicure place scraped shit loads of dead skin from my feet. I think it was from trekking. Then I had some pink nail polish on. I felt so corrupt and unnecessary. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel. We went for a swim in the pool. It was on the 15th floor, and the swim was very refreshing on the hot day.

After that, we headed off to the wine bar on 65th floor. It's called distill. We were lying on this enormous couch on the rooftop, gazing at stars. We had a couple of cocktails and a cheese platter with enormous amount of bread(?!).  The breeze was very nice up there and the night view was stunning by the river. It just didn't feel real.

tigerandgolf

原帖由 yoyyo2000 于 2011-7-15 18:01 发表



娃，运气好。。
我在那里2个星期，没有massage过。。。我听说过一些horror stories。而且， 我才不要人家摸我。。。

还好吧，很多人都做的呀。不过我基本是做foot massage,还有小鱼吃脚皮什么的。泰国的show真是太惊奇了，看得我目瞪口呆。泰国的黛安芬和华歌尔很合算。

yoyyo2000

Grand Palace 专集
大门口















金光灿烂














见花献佛






















迷你Ankor Wat 的模型
















































中国人，猜猜是谁？

kitty2007

lz  继续写游记啊，

yoyyo2000

16/05/2011
We had an easy morning today. We took the sky train to Siam Paragon shopping centre. It was really fancy. We did a bit window shopping and walked to centralworld, another shopping centre with more normal stuff. At the shopping centre, we saw a warning sign for tourist: "please don't trust friendly locals. Don't take free food and drinks from the locals." I thought it was pretty hilarious.

All the shopping centres in Bangkok Had very tight security. You had to go through security doors and have your bag inspected to go in. And no photos were allowed in some shopping centre as well.

At lunch we went to the food court upstairs. I had some rice with fish and 10 different kind of colourful raw vegetables that I could not name. I was not sure which was for garnish and which was for taste. Some of them were really crunchy and refreshing, some of them were bitter and spicy. It was very interesting. Then I had durian with sticky coconut rice for dessert and it was so good.

We headed off to the airport nice and early and deposited our trekking clothes at the Left Luggage for 100 baht per day. Bangkok international airport was very big and modern. We had photos with Ronald McDonald doing the sawasdee gesture in the  airport. :p. We were flying Bangkok airway, I thought it was a budget airline, but it was actually really nice. They had a free lounge with free wifi for all passengers. There were really comfortable couches, free tea, coffee, soft drinks and snacks. I think Anna was really pleasantly surprised. I think sometimes if you don't have any expectations, and things are not going too well, you won't feel too disappointed; however if things are going well, you will feel like you have got a huge bonus.

The flight was very smooth. It was weird not to see mountains poking through the top part of the clouds anymore like back in Nepal. You could tell the land was getting lots of rain by looking at the clouds. The land was lush and green with lots of rice fields.

When we arrived at the airport, we were surprised how nice it actually was. We took a taxi to Gap's guest house in the old town part of the city. The old town still has old city walls surrounding it, and outside the wall is a man made water channel circling around the city. The new city outside is very modern. There were lots of restaurants, cafes, Tailors, massage places, clothes shops, hotels. There were lots of massage places or cafes Providing Free wifi as Well. The old city has a lot of temples (Wat), hotels and guest houses, and restaurants. By comparison, the old town feels a bit more lush and green. The streets in Chiangmai are very well organized and clean. Traffic lights work well, and sometimes motorists will slow down to give way to passengers.

Gap's house is bed and breakfast. It's tugged away from the main road, but still very convenient. It has thai style wooden bungalows hidden away in the mini jungle. We were surrounded by tropical plants, fresh flowers, Buddha statues, Buddha pictures, random ornaments, 3-4 dogs, two cats and shit loads of mosquitoes. Minus the Mosquitoes, it was like a nice retreat. Our room was upstairs, we had four big windows, and it felt very airy. We had some fresh flowers on the pillows and a very romantic mosquito net. It felt like Anna and I were on our honeymoon. :p. The room had a few very old good quality wooden thai chest drawers, buffet, wall mirror and wardrobe. it felt very authentic and exotic.

The guest house's lounge area is nice and open, and no doors. the use of computers and Internet is free. it was quite nice using Internet in the gardens.

We went for a wander after we dropped our luggage. We walked to tha phae gate because that's where the noise was from. There hundreds of people at the square past the gate. There were two carnival Style floating displays ( making any sense? ). One of them got a young beautiful thai girl in full traditional costume holding an umbrella (it was raining whole day). She was smiling and waving at people. At the front of the square there was a big banner with lots of thai words written all over it. In the middle was the picture of the king. The only English on the banner said "international Buddhist flag". There was a group of monks in orange ropes sitting in the audience. There were also 4-5 groups of school kids in different traditional costumes and playing musical instruments. I think we missed most part of the ceremony. After the Mayer had the speech, they sang the national anthem and a few fireworks went off ( it was a complete shock to me, but I think all the thai people were there knew because the speech was given in thai. Then all the kids lined up after the floats and they started a parade. Later we found out the next day was Buddha's birthday, and they were celebrating the occasion.

17/05/2011
We woke up around 8 today, had breakfast at the gap's guesthouse. The breakfast was simple but very cute. The bread, fresh pineapples and marmalade were served on a piece of banana leaves on a nicely carved wooden plate. I had two boiled eggs with tea as well.

Today we had a whole day cooking course with Gap' culinary art school. Our teacher Muy (??) and Joe were very funny. There were six students in total today. Steve and trevor were a NZ couple from sydney, they were in thailand for their anniversary. Marc and sarah were from paris, just doing some travelling in thailand. Steve and Trevor told us This elephant nature park they went to, sounds really interesting. We might Check it out another day.

Joe drove us to the local food market first and introduced us to all the ingredients in Thai cooking. There were 4-5 different kinds eggplants. The small round eggplants were the size of ten cents Australian coins. The were slight bitter and spicy. The slight larger ones were size of the fifty cents coin and they were slight softer and milder taste. There were also bigger eggplants that we have in Australia. The broad beans were very funny looking as well. They looked like small bitter melons on the outside, when you chop them up, each piece looked like a plant cell. They were not as crunchy as snake beans but got a stronger taste. Then they let us go for a wonder for 15 minutes. There were so much fresh fruits! I bought some fresh durian, lychee, and rambutans. rambutan is a very interesting fruit. It has a red thin leathery covered in soft thick hair like spines. It looked like a little cute fluffy alien animal. You open it up with your nails and the fresh is white and juicy. Taste slightly driver than lychee. I want to try mangosteen next time.

Then Joe drove us to the cooking school. I think it's actually Gap's owner's back yard. It was very big and well setup. It was under a big a big veranda with fans. There was a big table in the middle for sitting. On the side there were a few kitchen sinks, 8-10 gas powered stoves with woks on them. Joe was really funny and made everything look so easy. We cooked green curry chicken, chili cashew chicken, tom yum soup, fish souffle, fish cakes, spring rolls, pumpkin with coconut custard, and pad Thai! All from scratch!! Obviously there were lots of eating involved as well. I could barely move by the end of it. We had to go back to the guest house and have a bit lie down.

Around 6 pm, we felt a bit better and decided to go for a wander to burn off some calories. It was the Buddha day. All the temples had monks doing special ceremonies and lots of local people came to pray.

The first one we went to was Wat Phantao. It was pretty empty when we walked in, there were only a few people in there at the time. The golden Buddha was pretty impressive. There were lots of intricate wood and stone carvings around and outside the temples. We had a good look around around gave a bit donations for the construction of the temple walls and moved on.

The next temple we went to was Wat Pra Singh. This temple was In a very big complex. It has been one of the most important wat in Chiang Mai for the last 700 years.

The outside of the temple was packed of stalls selling fresh lotus flowers, incense, candles, live birds in a small baskets for Buddhists to release. I bought a white lotus flower (Anna bought a pink one), one piece of candle and three sticks of  incense. We put the burning candle and incense on one of the offering platforms and left the lotus in front of a Buddha in front of the temple and made a little wish. then we walked into the temple as well. There were hundreds of people siting in there praying. A group of monks in orange ropes were sitting on the left hand corner praying. And there was a donation area at the back part of the temple. There were a small music band as well playing traditional Thai music.

Then we followed the locals and walk around the outside temple. Most of them were either carrying fresh lotus flowers or incense. Many of them looked very young in their late teens or early 20s. I love temples around festivals. It's always so full of life and great culture experience.

I had to mention the toilets in this temple. It was spotless! And you don't need to pay to get in, you can give a donation though. There were toilet paper, clean toilet seats, soap for washing hands after, you even need to take off your shoes and wear their sandals before you go in.

We then walked to the night bazaar on the other side of the town. We didn't buy much, we were mainly doing window shopping. We passed this fish massage place with free Internet. It was really funny setup because it looked like a normal Internet cafe except where you sit there was a big fish tank under the computers and you just leave your feet in there while you are using the computers. The fish will eat the dead skin of your feet. I think the lady at the pedicure place got rid of most of my dead skin a few days ago, so the fish won't be much of use.

We went into the food court to get some fresh juice and saw a few local performances on the stage at the food court. It was very impressive how they positioned and moved their hands and feet.

It was a long day. Tomorrow we will be doing an one day "trekking" tour, we will see some karen and hmong villages, waterfall, ride the elephant (??), bamboo rafting.

Will keep you updated.
Love, wei

18/05/2011
Anna and I did the one day "trekking" tour today. There were eight people on the tour, two girls and two boys from England, a couple from Germany and us. I was probably the oldest. Everyone was very friendly, and the tour guide Mona was sort of funny.

Our first stop was Huay Poeng elephant camp. On the way we saw lots of other elephant camps and there were a lot of elephants used for tourism. I had mixed feelings about riding elephants because the stories I heard in the past. We have two people on each elephant. The first and last elephant had an "driver". The ones in the middle were loosely tired to the other elephants. Anna bought some bananas at the beginning to feed our elephant, however. Even after she finished, the elephant kept turning her trunk around and begging for me.

The driver had a stick with a sharp hook at the end,  but luckily he didn't have to use it much at all. The elephants were just going at their own pace. The driver had to give them a kick sometimes to keep them going. The ride was very comfortable and pleasant. View was beautiful on the elephant back. The weather was good at the time. We saw lots of tropical plants, colorful butterflies and some other weird looking insects. The elephant we were riding was a female. 40 years old, the little one behind us was around 20 years old, but a lot smaller. It kept eating the trees and leaves along the path, so we were going really slowly. They didn't seem to suffer but i don't know the whole story. After the elephant nature park tour tomorrow I probably will feel super guilty about what I did today.

After that, we walked to Karen Village. The Karen are an ethno-linguistic minority in Thailand who are ‘’Karen’’ speakers . There are major divisions within this group and these classify the various tribes. Each group is distinguished not only by language but also by their women clothing design.The Karen are famous for their relationships with elephants and are often seen as the mahouts who work with elephants. With the Karen people, plants and animals are believed to posses a vital spirit essence. Humans are believed to posses some 33 spirits. Spirits are also with rice and animals such as buffalo and elephants. There are ancestral spirits and there are locality spirits such as the spirits who own land. The Karen people inhabit the Provinces of Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son and Chiang Rai.

Unfortunately, the karen village we visited today were just tourists shops, we didn't see any karen people in action. I took an photo of an old Karen lady with her cat, super cute. Apparently know one knows how old she is, she is super old.

Then we walked for nearly half hour to see the waterfall.The walk was pretty flat, it suddenly started pouring down like there was no tomorrow. The road was getting really muddy, and we had to cross a few very very dodgy looking bridges over the rapid water. One of the bridge was like a piece of round log, no handrails..When we got to the waterfall, the water was going nuts, i didn't think it was safe for swimming. We waited under the shelter for the rain to stop. The forest was beautiful, we identified a few herbs along the way as well.Then we walked all the way back, and visited another village.

the second village is Hmong Village. Hmong people are originally from China hundreds of years ago. They live in houses made of bamboos (at least traditionally, in remote villages. ). The house normally consists of one room only, and it's on stilts. They keep animals downstairs, and sleep upstairs, they cook in one corner of the room, and sleep in the other. Traditionally, they wear very colourful costumes, and different colour and patterns indicate which tribe they are from and if they are married or not.

The Hmong in Thailand believe in a mixture of animism and shamanism with ancestor worship. Villages have spirit shrines to protect from evil. There are village and house spirits. The Hmong bury their dead and believe each person has three souls, and that upon death, one goes to heaven, one goes to be reincarnated and the other remains in the grave with the corpse. The Hmong are recorded in Chinese annals as early as the 3rd century B.C. They then originated in the Yangtze Basin but were pushed South to Kweichow Province in China. By the 17th Century the Han then took authority over the region leading to dissatisfaction and migration of some Hmong further South. Those that went to Laos in the later part of the 20th century found themselves at war with the Pathet Lao, supporting the Americans, only to be crushed and forced to leave. (quote from Google....)

unfortunately, the village we visited looked like another tourist village with lots of merchandise and not enough hmong people.

Then we took the bus to a place, and did bamboo rafting. Maewang river was very scenic, occasionally we could see a few bamboo houses along the bank. There were green butterflies and and snakes in the water. The ride was pretty smooth (or boring depends on the way you look at it   ). We all got pretty wet because it was raining at the beginning as well. We had a funny photo taken for 100 baht.

After that, we were pretty much knackered, we all fell asleep on the van. We had awesome Thai food for dinner.

Tomorrow we are going to the elephant nature park! {http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/} The park provides a natural environment for elephants and other animals under our care. Volunteers and visitors contribute to the healing while learning about their lives past and present.   I am really excited. Will keep you guys updated.



Sawasdee
Wei

sydaccord

thanks for sharing~~~

yoyyo2000

然后我们去看了Reclining Buddha。

本地拜佛的人



佛很大。。。




佛很长

























寺庙外面有个街上市场，有人卖垃圾。。。





卖花献佛




饿了，吃碗面



Tom Yum with seafood




酒店里早餐









Lebua酒店


















BAngkok的skytrain很不错




然后我们去逛街。。。逛看不买  Zara









Paragon里面的food court













拜拜 Bangkok， 谢谢你

kitty2007

好看， 楼主继续啊。

yoyyo2000

接着我们去了清迈。。 Chiang Mai。 美丽的北部小城。 比曼谷便宜，节奏慢，人友好。

我们住的Gap Guesthouse。 Bed and Breakfast， 一天好像600 Baht。很不错很干净，就是蚊子多。

房间在楼上，古色古香的家居。。。



楼下是花园，所以蚊子多。
下面几个图都是Guesthouse里





主人有很多可爱的小狗




花园里的座椅。。蚊子很多





guesthouse里面的狗狗热死了




Guesthouse的dining room




guesthouse里的早饭



号可爱的落水狗




Guesthouse里的石雕

CrystalBell

清迈的住宿好像家庭旅馆，很温馨啊。

alexander911

太牛了啊，羡慕啊

yoyyo2000

到清迈第一晚，遇到一个节日。原来第二天是佛的生日？？
很热闹，有不少本地小孩盛装参加，还有烟花，和尚。他们都说泰语，不懂。放烟花的时候，我以为是炸弹，吓到了。。

这个是讲台，中间那个是泰国人爱戴国王。



花灯






小伙子背竹杠





漂亮的小女孩




烟花， 只放了这么一个。。。




偷拍


开始游行



小男孩，炯炯有神




和尚也来了




背着蜡烛游街



继续游街

crisman

泰国乱么， 也一直想去，但是老爸总说政局不稳定啥的。
另外请问楼主，从澳洲去机票多少啊

pandababy

清迈的夜市太大了,好吃好买好逛,跟澳洲market感觉完全不一样

yoyyo2000

泰国没觉得乱，哈哈。机票澳洲过去便宜 600－800 左右吧。如果你住北面，过去更加便宜。

yoyyo2000

是阿，吃的，买的，都很爽。。。

yoyyo2000

街头小吃，又便宜又好吃。可爱的小妹妹小弟弟下橱



热腾腾一碗，一澳元都不到







在清迈， 我们上了一天的烹饪课，只要30澳元。。。烧了8道菜，吃不玩的顿着走。。

刚开始，老师带我们去本地菜市场，认一认本地蔬菜。





Lemongrass＋ galangal
用来烧Tom Yum soup




好多便宜的热带水果。不还价，也非常便宜。 比旅游地区的便宜多了




买了一大带荔枝，还有红毛单




爱上榴莲





市场还有卖现成菜




里面热情腾腾




好吃的蜜饯





开始炒菜。。室外炒菜爽，不用担心油烟





做Green curry paste的一些材料



做Green curry paste





老师Joe很又意思。 以前在悉尼做国一年厨师




红咖喱鸡蛋蒸鱼




超级好吃的cashew chili chicken。 。 可惜我已经改吃素了，不然天天烧。。




大家菜放一起





早上的成果。。。其实我已经偷吃了一些。哈哈





我们学习雕刻小洋葱



春卷





pad thai ,太好吃了






学校发的菜谱。。。。回来以后我天天green curry, red curry, pad thai..

sawgim

I just came back from Thailand yesterday

满汉国际

好丰富呀！羡慕！

cgz

泰国的饭是便宜，但量也太小了，每次我都要吃两份才饱

hr6970

美食太诱惑了。
哈，可以想象MM 边雕刻洋葱边流泪的样子。；P

funfun1010

不错，有机会也要去体验一下泰国的风土人情！

蛙蛙

美食之旅啊，肚子饿啦

yoyyo2000

哈哈， 其实这个洋葱，不呛。。我也不知道是不是洋葱，在澳洲，我们叫Shallots

yoyyo2000

19/05/2011

Today, we had some pork buns from the street for breakfast, then we got picked up by Noi, our tour guide from elephant nature park around 8 am. the Elephant nature park is 65km away from the Chiang Mai City. It is a non government, non-profit organization for abandoned or injured domestic elephants in this area. It's founded by this amazing woman called Lek. She is a very little woman with a big heart. She started with one elephant in 1995, now she has over 36 elephants under her care. Their age range is between 22 month to 80 years old. There are 4 male, 2 baby and 30 female elephants. There are a couple of love triangle going on as well. They are herd animals, and they form family groups. The older elephants are very protective of the young. When they feel threatened, they will encircle the young ones, slapping the ground with their trunks. They might even charge at whatever they think is threatening. They eat 3.5 tons of food a day. And each elephant eat 300-400 pounds of fruit and veg every day. And they eat 14-18 hours a day. They eat 10% of their body weight every day. These elephant can get pregnant between 15-50 years old, and the gestation period is nearly 2 years.

She started from 50 acres of land, now she has 150 acres of land. She had a very generous donation from a Texan man many years ago for her to buy this piece of land. When she first set it up, she called it elephant heaven. She went to a temple and got some blessed sacred scarves, and wanted to tie it around the trees in the sanctuary so the local people won't cut them down. The monks were moved by the story, and hundreds of monks came and helped her tie all the blessed scarves around the trees. The locals consider it would bring them bad luck if they cut tress with the blessed scarves.

The complex is very big now, it has an enormous elephant kitchen. 20 volunteers around the world come every week to cut up the vegetables, bathe the elephants, apply medicines. They have volunteer vet students, and vets as well. There is a huge kitchen, and a few huts for volunteers and visitors to live in as well. The common is a big nice and open bamboo pavillion with lots of flowers. Other than elephants, they have 70 dogs (from nearby villages, they love this place. They got fixed and vaccinated for free. They just lie around whole day, elephant/people watching. It was pretty funny), a few cats, and 30-40 water buffaloes. Apparently a three legged horse was arriving that afternoon as well.

She normally get the elephants from circus, trekking companies or private individuals who can't afford to keep them or take care of them, and buy them with donated money or money from the visitors to the park. The park doesn't give commissions to the tour booking companies, so the tour booking companies normally push you to sign up for other elephant camps, elephant treks, elephant "training" camps  from which they can get more money from.

Here is Lek's bio if you are interested. (http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/news/elemum.htm ).

We were shown this documentary called Caught in the Moment on the way there. We got all teary because it was really sad.

Thailand is the size of 1/3 of Texas, but it has 1/10 of animal species in the world.Elephants are important part of Thai culture and Thai way of life. They are a traditional symbol of royal power, an essential feature of Buddhist art and architecture, an a spiritual mentor for people of all walks of life.

The domestic ones used to be used heavily in logging industry. The logging was banned in 1989, because the Thai people realized that stripping the forests down made the flood/landslides worse in Monsoon seasons, they needed to preserve the forests. Since Logging was banned, 3000 elephants were out of work and they were unable to return to the wild. Many of them were abandoned, and were treated as pest, some were sold to Burma to do logging there, some ended up working in circus and elephant trekking camps.

There are around 1500 wild elephants left in the jungle, and they are actually protected by law and considered endangered species. The domestic ones are considered livestock, like donkeys and water buffaloes. You can beat them, starve them, neglect them or even kill them without any legal consequences in this country.

Street begging with elephants is still legal in Chiang Mai. The elephants can help the owner to bank in 25 US dollars per night which is more than what many Thai people make for a week. And during the day, the mahouts (Thai name for elephant keeper) and the elephants live in the outskirts of the city in the slums because it's free. The elephants got not enough to eat, not enough water to bathe themselves, and they drink the dirty sewage water, eat out of garbage dumps and sometimes can get very sick. The city life is very stressful for them as well. You can see the little elephants constant rocking back and forth on their feet. They use their feet to feel the vibrations on the ground. The constant stimulation from surrounding cars, buses, tuk tuk and people stresses them out. The small elephants normally get more money compare to the big ones, so the breeding program for elephants is very popular as well, to make more money out of baby elephants.

This organization is not against elephant treks, but does not totally support it. They go out to elephant trekking camps, make sure the mahouts know how to treat the elephants properly and provide free medicines to the injured ones. It's fully against the street begging with elephants, and want people to sign a petition and hopefully the government will change the laws in the future.

The working elephants were beaten into submission. Some of them even became blind from the hooks the mahouts used to train them poking in their eyes, and the mahouts would get no punishment. Normally the male elephants get far more injuries than the female ones because they got more fight in them. Traditionally, they train the young elephants when they are around 4 years old. It's part of the tradition in the hill tribes. They put the baby elephant in a small caged called training crush to crush their ego. It's probably the first time the baby elephant is separated from his/her mother and he/she could be very confused and scared. Once in this tight small cage, they aren't not able to move. Their legs are chained together. Then he/she will be beaten whenever he/she tries to struggle. Sometimes they are stabbed in the sensitive inner ears. it normally takes 3 days of constant stabbing and beating to make the elephants learn who is the boss. Hunger, thirst and sleep deprivation will eventually turn them into submission. Sometimes they can get bad infections from the wounds and wouldn't get any medicine. The tradition is hundreds of years old, but few outsiders know or have seen. The practice helps cut the ties to the elephant mother. They believe once they taste the pain, they will learn how to listen. It can last more than 3 days if they are stubborn. The villagers believe it's the only way, and elephants are tools for them, not culture icons.  Lek can't do much about it, because it's legal. So she travels to the villages regularly with volunteer vets to give them medicine and dresses their wounds. There are literally no need for domestic elephants in Thai people's lives other than in tourism industry. As long as riding elephants, watching elephants paint, begging elephants are still popular, this practice will go on.

Tourism fueled all the elephant trekking/riding camps, but nothing was done to ensure the elephants' welfare. Lek is trying to set up more proper mahout schools to prevent cruelty, and the trainers wanted to make sure the mahouts have a sense of pride in their profession. They need to form a bond with the elephants.
They also told us many stories about the elephants as well. I have limited brain cells to remember them all, but i think you can check their stories on their website.

Hope is a 6 year old orphan. Her mother was jungle elephant died when he was too young. He wad malnourished and didn't eat or drink for a few days. The villagers have kept him in a cage. They were not sure if he would survive, so they rang Lek. Lek took him, and worried that he was not going to survive. The villagers wanted Hope back when he is healthy again, and make him work. Lek bought him from them, and hoping he never have to work again in his life and be a real elephant, and be released back into jungle one day. He was really sick, Lek was taking care him around the clock for a few month. Feeding formula milk, petting, playing, bathing. He finally got better, and then Hope introduced him to another baby elephant in the park at that time, and they became really good friends. Little elephants can be very naughty. She used positive reinforcement instead of hooks to train him. Always rewarded him when his behavior was good.

Jokia is a female elephant rescued from logging. (her full story was here.  http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/herd/jokia.htm). She is blind in both eyes. When Lek first saw her, she was unsteady on her feet. Lek asked what was wrong with her. She was told she was blind, but because she was still young, they made her still work for the treks. She used to work in logging industry, after it was banned, the owner couldn't afford to keep her and sold her to trekking company. She was heavily pregnant, but they still made her work. She gave birth while working, the baby rolled down the hill, and died. She was very upset, couldn't eat or work. When she was walking, she walked very slowly. The mahout tried to force her to work with hooks, she swing her trunk at him, and injured him. He was very angry and stabbed her both eyes. Lek bought her for 2000 dollars and brought her to the sanctuary. She was so mentally distressed, it took them a very long time to drive her to the park. She nearly destroyed her trunk in the truck that Lek had to walk with her for the last 3km to the park. Now she has adopted Hope as her son and they are very tight together.



Malai Tong is a female elephant. She was born in the 80s, and she lost part of her foot from landmines working in logging near the borders. Then she was begging on the street until the police ordered the mahout to take her away. One of her back foot is badly disfigured and can't be operated on at this moment because they think she could be pregnant. They couldn't do scan on her because she was kicking everyone away. You can see her standing there, constantly swinging that back foot. The vet is applying herbal medicine to it every day.

Medo was born in the 70s. She was made to work in logging industry when she was 8. She had a bad accident, and broke her back. They never reset her back, and because they couldn't use her to work anymore, they used her for breeding. They chained her to the ground. Unfortunately, the male elephant was really aggressive and attacked her. It took her 3 years to recover, and the owner kept her hidden for 15 years in isolation because he was so ashamed of her condition. No camps would take her either. When she first came to the sanctuary, she took a long time to adjust because she didn't see any elephants for 15 years. You can see the way she was walking that her back is broken. It's really hard to watch. Now she made friends at the park which is really good for her.
Rainbow is new. He has been rescued recently from an elephant camp, he is still very sick with tumor and hook scars on the forehead. He hasn't made any friends yet, but hopefully he will fit in soon.

One of the elephant is a recovering drug addict. She used to work near the border of Burma, and the owner was feeding her Amphetamine so she could work longer hours. When Lek first saw her, her eyes looked crazy. Now she is recovering.

Another elephant, i can't remember the name of, was part of the circus. She front legs were trained together for years, when the first took the chain off, she couldn't walk properly. She had lots of scars on her legs as well. She was doing jumps. Then, she got better, but sometimes when she get scared or stressed, she would do the jumps again. They think she has psychological problems from previous life.
Bun Tun was another elephant with a sad story. He was in the jungle, he got drugged by some illegal tusk smugglers, and chained to the tree, and they cut his tusks off, very close to his face. He had chronic infections, because the wound was too close to the face. He wouldn't let any people near him at first because he has been traumatized by human. It took a while before Lek's team could apply medicine on his face. Now he is recovering.
There are so many stories. Just imagine if the elephants could talk, what kind of stories they would tell you.

We met Lek in the end as well. She and Noi introduced most of the elephants to us and told us the stories. We fed them lots of fruits and vegetables, patted them, went to the river and bathed them. One of the elephant gave me a big kiss on my face (and my LEFT EYE. i got mucus all over the place. ). We spent a little bit time with the 2 two year old elephants as well. However, the adult elephants got spooked occasionally, and we had to run to the safety area. They are very protective of their young. They are truly gentle giants. I hope the rest of the working elephants can get to live like them one day.

Lek is pushing for habitat protection, better laws, and new elephant training methods.Maybe one day law will change, both wild and domesticated elephants will be protected by law. Lek buy them and keep them in her sanctuary for now.

This is amazing trip. No, we didn't ride them today, we didn't watch them paint or do fancy tricks, but we saw them living happily in their natural habitat,  recovering, and learning how to live in the jungle again. If you ever visit Chiang Mai, I fully suggest you to visit this park. This is probably the highlight of my Thailand trip.

Love,
Wei