Temples, Elephants and Cooking…

Quiet Thursday morning in Chiang Mai which gave us an opportunity to wander around the old city. An interesting place with a real mixture of the old and new. The old can be very ramshackle. Walking along pavements, where there is one, can be a real challenge for they are narrow and often have many obstacles such as trees growing in the middle, cables, stray dogs asleep but sprawled across the pavement. Everywhere we have been in Thailand there have been many stray dogs.
In the afternoon our guide picked us up from our hotel to visit temples. Without exception Buddhist temples here are large and ornate. Our guide is very religious and keen to explain all the details of each of the three temples we visited. The second temple we visited was interesting as it was halfway up a hill overlooking the city. It was set in trees with a cool stream running through. At the third temple , on the top of hill, we waited to hear the monks chanting which happens every day. This temple was by far, the most ornate, some might say over the top, in terms of its ornateness.
Friday we visited the Kanta Elephant Sanctuary about an hour’s drive out of town. There are a number of these sanctuaries in northern Thailand for attitudes have shifted away from tourists having rides on elephants and being chained up. This sanctuary was home to twenty elephants of varying ages all of whom had an individual handler. They had about twenty acres of land to roam and a river for them to bathe in.
We were in a party of seven, the other five all being from the USA. We were all given special clothing to wear and after a briefing met three of the elephants and helped to feed them broken up sticks of sugar cane, this involved holding the cane out to them and they would take it on the end of their trunk and place in their mouth. We were all encouraged to pat and stroke the elephant which we were happy to do.
After lunch we helped to prepare their next meal. This was a mixture of sticky rice, bananas, tamarind that the elephants love. This provides the necessary vitamins and other goodies to keep the elephants in good health. This had to be mashed up and then made into balls to feed them. This time we placed the food directly into their mouths! Fortunately elephants only have teeth at the back of their mouths so no danger in losing a few fingers!
Next it was bath time. The elephants went into the river and we went with them and were encouraged to throw water over them to cool them down. I don’t know what a happy elephant looks like but they certainly seemed to be enjoying this.
It was great to see these beasts up close and so well looked after. They really are gentle giants.
Yesterday, Saturday was cooking day. We were picked up at 9:30 and driven out of town to try Thai cooking. We went to a family home where three generation of a family live. Joe, the family leader met us and we were joined in the party by fellow travellers from France, Italy, Netherlands , USA and another British couple. We were first shown around the house and garden. There are any number of different fruits, vegetables and herbs growing including turmeric, lemongrass, tamarind, tobacco. Very interesting to see and in some instances, taste products that would be impossible to grow in our garden at home.
Then we moved on to the cooking. The two of us were taken to an area in the garden and met by two ladies who were to show us what to do. We chopped up tomatoes, aubergines, shallots. We used a pestle and mortar to make a curry paste and then proceeded to stir fry a couple of dishes and Pad Thai. We then settled down to eat but there was so much food so quite a lot was left.
We had a bonus later in the day for the Chiang Mai Flower Festival was on. This normally takes place during the first week of February but due to elections last week was deferred by a week. The displays and colours were quite amazing and entry was free. Photos do not do it justice.
We have much enjoyed northern Thailand. The weather has been great. Hot, but bearable with little humidity. The people, as everywhere , have been so friendly and welcoming. We leave Chiang Mai today and fly south to Krabi and some R and R on the beach.Läs mer