November 8 – Elephant Nature Park, Thailand

I’m a bit stumped. I’ve been putting off writing about our experience at The Elephant Nature Park for a week now. I guess I feel it will be too hard for my words to do it justice. The park had a huge impact on all of us and I’m sure will remain one of the top trip highlights. Regardless, I will forge ahead hoping the thoughts and photos won’t bore you to tears and will at least act as a tool to help jog our memory down the road.

The Elephant Nature Park and Elephant Nature Foundation is owned and operated by a Thai woman named Lek. The Nature Park provides a home for 34 rescued Asian elephants, about 50 rescued street dogs, multiple rescued cats, buffalo, cows and one pony.

The Nature Park’s mission is to save the Asian elephant from extinction and give domestic elephants a life worth living by preserving habitat and increasing awareness of humane treatment practices. Phew. However, Lek’s compassion for animals is definitely not limited to elephants…hence the dogs, cats and others.

The Asian elephant has been facing unimaginable challenges for a very long time; decreasing habitat, unfair treatment while being trained for the tourism industry and low survival rate. Logging was banned in Thailand back in 1989 leaving thousands of elephants out of work. The solution for most elephant owners is tourism. The elephants are in circus shows, giving tourist rides, street begging and forced breeding programs to keep the numbers up. Unfortunately, for hundreds of years, mahouts (elephant trainers and handlers) have used intense brutality with hooks, chains and knives to train their elephants and force them to breed. The footage of this process is enough to break even a coldest person’s heart. Tourists value unique entertainment. We want to see an elephant up close, ride one or see a circus show. From the outside looking in, the elephants look happy enough – what do we know? What we don’t know is what it took to get the elephants there and the conditions they live in once the show is over. I don’t think any of us would see an elephant on the streets of Bangkok with a street beggar and feel good about it. It is just so completely unnatural.

So Lek raises money and awareness for elephants. She is tiny, passionate and incredibly smart. Her presence is undeniable. She purchased the park land to provide a habitat and slowly, she buys elephants in need and brings them to the park to live. Most of the elephants have very sad stories to hear. Many of them have visible disabilities and mental illness from the brutality. All of them are gorgeous and have the most incredible personalities. I don’t think any of us knew how human-like elephants are. They have complex family like relationships, obvious personalities, social systems, routines, fabulous memories and despite their size can navigate even the tiniest chore despite no opposable thumbs. Buying an elephant in Thailand is complex and expensive. The elephants themselves represent power and wealth to their owners. How they are treated by their mahouts is steeped in history and tradition. Lek must tread very lightly. She has made incredible progress over the years but the politics of her process is a daily struggle and she must weave her way through carefully so all her work does not become unraveled. The elephants at the park are given as close to a natural habitat as possible. They are still domestic animals so they each have a mahout (practicing humane training and treatment without hooks) and rest in shelters overnight. During the day they have acres of land and grass to wander, a river to bathe in and more than enough food for a healthy existence. An elephant needs to eat approximately 10% of its body weight every day. Ultimately Lek would like to see every elephant released back into the wild and there be no need for her park but again, the task is huge and the process is slow.

To assist her work, Lek has created volunteer and day visitor programs. These happy volunteers and day visitors leave the camp much better educated about the Asian elephant and hopefully spreading the word around the world. She has many other programs; community outreach education, vet outreach programs and is currently trying to help people in Surin develop a similar park in the heart of where many of the Thai and Burmese elephants and mahouts come from. We went to the Nature Park as “volunteers” for a week. In exchange for about $350 ea. we were given a comfortable bed in a lovely traditional Thai bamboo hut, amazing food, a work schedule and of course, and chance to get up close and personal with the elephants while doing chores. We were lucky to be part of a really fun group of 37 volunteers from a huge variety of age, background and reasons for being there. Of course there were no other children. But it seems Sadie & Anna have both found it increasingly comfortable to socialize with anyone we meet, regardless of age (and as long as they are not too hot or tired).
Our typical day consisted of morning chores, morning projects, lunch, afternoon project, dinner and usually a specially planned evening activity. The chores and projects were all centered on caring for the elephants and basic park maintenance. What did we do? Well, we did it all; shoveling mountains of elephant poo, cutting corn and grass for food (yes Sadie & Anna both wielded a machete to do this chore), washing hundreds of pounds of vegetables and fruit for them to eat, chopping sugar cane (more elephant food), cleaning the mud pit, varnishing the huts, repairing a fence, building a shelf (for the elephant kitchen so it can have music), watering the gardens, shoveling sand into the shelters, unloading hundreds of pounds of vegetables and fruit from delivery…just to name a few. Here are some of the less chore-like things we were privileged to do; feed the elephants, help bathe them in the river (like scrub them with brushes and splash buckets of water on them), wander the fields and hear their stories from the park staff...but it was ALL great.

Because a volunteer is there for a week, it is inevitable for each person to have some really unique moments with the elephants. Anna and Ron lucked out by being invited into Faar Mai’s shelter (4 mo. old baby girl) and sit with her while she had her nap. Faar Mai’s mother eventually came over and stood right over them, sniffing Faar Mai and guarding them all with her huge body. It was pretty weird watching Anna underneath an adult elephant. But safety is absolute top priority for the park. As volunteers, we always took our cues from the mahouts who ultimately know the personalities and moods of their elephant best. We were also told to have eyes in the back of our heads. A moving elephant is something to always steer clear of, keep to the side! Ra Ra, a recent addition to the park, has still not bonded with the other elephants and chooses instead to hang with people. She is young and naughty giving her mahout a run for his money. The other 33 elephants have divided themselves into 6 family groups, even though they are for the most part unrelated. We are still waiting to hear the news about a new baby. We were hoping all weak the pregnant mom was going to give birth while we were there, but no luck. Ron & Anna even slept one night on a platform beside her shelter, just in case!

The park makes such a huge effort to create a fun atmosphere. It really felt like summer camp. We were welcomed with a special Buddhist ceremony and we celebrated the Yi Peng Festival by releasing lanterns and making our own Krathongs to float down the river. Kratongs are floating lanterns made from banana leaves, flowers, candles and incense you light and release down the river. Buddhists do this to worship the foot print of Buddha on the Nammathani River. The rest of us do it and make a wish, hoping for good luck! Later in the week we divided into smaller groups and left camp with 4 elephants to go up to “Elephant Heaven” for an overnight. Heaven is Lek’s original camp where she lived with her first elephants. It is about a 3 hour walk (elephant pace) down the road, across a river and up into the hills. Up in Heaven the elephants have the night to spend roaming free and graze in the jungle. We slept on bamboo platforms in the rustic shelter up there. Pom and the mahouts made us amazing meals and Pom told us stories around the fire. Pom is Lek’s right hand person who has been with her since the beginning.

And of course The Lady Boy Contest. Remember my observations about fuzzy gender lines here in Thailand? The volunteers were invited to pick any number of their men and dress them up as women for the contest. The 3 day student group joined in as did the mahouts giving us a full panel with about 16 contestants. It was a scream! Ron managed with incredible agility to dodge the duty of being one of the contestants.

While we were at the park a media dust storm brewed up. Lek is always walking a fine line trying to promote change in a positive way which will not cause the government or people of Thailand to “lose face”. Something came up risking her walk on that line. She and her closest allies had to work hard all week to stand up for what they are doing and diffuse the storm. As a group, we all became aware of the issues and how they were being dealt with. We left the park knowing for now, the dust has settled and with even more respect for how Lek is working towards her ultimate goals.

Selfishly, Ron and I watched the girls become absolutely enthralled in every aspect of the Nature Park. They became instantly comfortable and did not wait around for us to do anything. It was so great to see them so independent. Sadie became an expert in the elephant kitchen working beside Lisa to help coordinate the hundreds and hundreds of pounds of elephant food and oversee the dogs. Lisa was also the resident dog expert. Anna became especially attracted to baby Faar Mai and whenever we could not find her, we knew to look in Faar Mai’s shelter. Taking your kids out of their regular routine at home to go traveling is not easy. There have been more than a few times when one or both of them are having a rough time and we wonder “what the hell are we doing?” But, it is times like at the elephant park and maybe even especially there, we know it has all been worth it. Ron and I made some good friends too. It was nice to hang around some people we were going to see again and again for a whole week. Kind of allowed conversation to get just a little deeper. Many were young travelers so Janet has to brush up on her Facebook skills as it seems that is the way they are all communicating!


What did we take away with us from the week? As a family, we will tell anyone who wants to hear about the Asian elephant so more and more people know what elephants face in Thailand. For the even bigger picture, we are also now committed to try and be more responsible tourists. This means making sure we seek out things to do that don’t hurt local people, animals or the environment. Tourism has become so powerful in emerging countries. In most cases, hosts will provide a service at any cost. I think we should all seek out sustainable tourism.

If you have made it to here, you are either very interested or very patient. Thank you and I promise to be a bit more succinct with the next destination…unless of course, it’s really awesome too!

November 2 – Chiang Mai Thailand

The competition is furious. We have taught the girls how to play hearts. They have taken to it like Anna to a Margarita Pizza in a foreign country. Having a deck of cards has been one of our most valued items as we travel. We get them out pretty much every day, especially at restaurants while we wait for our meals to arrive. Ron so far is behaving. He is known as a ruthless hearts player knowing no mercy and no patience for casual players. I have refused to play with him for years…but I’m getting over it. I am keeping track of really important stuff like; how many flights we’ve had (16), how many countries we’ve visited (9) and how many flip flops Sadie has gone through (4).

We arrived in Chiang Mail on Halloween night. Our only small celebration was buying fuzzy peaches and Toblerone at the Bangkok airport en route. Our taxi driver was doing everything but actually driving as he talked on the phone, tried to look up fellow Canadians in his scrap book and talk all at the same time. Fortunately at least he drove at a snail’s pace making it feel a little less dangerous. Our guest house called Yourhouse Guest House was right in the thick of things in Old Chiang Mai, along the eastern border of the moat. The city was teaming with people, some of them foreigners dressed up to celebrate Halloween and most of them geared up for a big night. It was the first night of the Chiang Mai Yi Peng Festival. Yi Peng is a Buddhist holy day and falls on the full moon day of the 2nd lunar month of Lanna. It is double barreled as it also celebrates the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the cold season. And as all good celebrations should, it is dragged on for days before and after the actual full moon. The Old City was festooned with beautiful coloured lanterns and lights strung up by the hundreds over the streets and market squares. The feel of the city was intense, fabulous and immediate. Oh, and we weren’t hot any more. Chiang Mai has cool evening air, even after a hot day.

We only had one day in Chiang Mai before heading to the Elephant Nature Park so we decided to rent motor bikes and explore. One of the best decisions we’ve made. Motorbikes in Thailand are plentiful, cheap to rent, quiet and available in automatic. The city driving was also much more reasonable than anywhere else we had been making it perfect for a newby driver like me! We have since given up our Thailand Guide Book in exchange for ones for Laos, Vietnam and Bali…which means I may be a bit sketchy on the names of places and details. But whatever! I had so much fun driving a motor bike! Shhh, don’t tell my sister Gaye or mother-in-law Judy, especially since I had Sadie on the back. Yes…we all wore helmets.

Once I got tuned up on how to start, go and navigate the bike we headed through town and towards the mountain which promised a nice road winding up to a view point. One of the first things we noticed was how many mountain and road bikers we saw, many with numbers on their handles bars. We saw more and more riders as we drew closer to the mountain road. Apparently there had been a morning race up the mountain and what we saw were the racers (hundreds of them) heading back down. It would have been a grueling climb for sure. The road was beautiful and pleasant to drive with lots of little places to stop along the route. More than once we saw locals buying coconut ice cream wrapped by white bread from a bike trolley. Eventually we came across the Royal Palace (one of many in Thailand) and a very local style food market where we had lunch in a stall. The Royal Palace can be a great stop if the flower gardens are in bloom. However it was the wrong time of the year so we decided to skip it. Instead we visited the Buddhist temple on the way back down. The temple gave us a wonderful peek at Buddhist worship. It seemed especially busy being a holiday. We watched people lighting candles and incense, offering lotus flowers, rolling numbers for good fortunes and walking clockwise around the temple. We were in awe of the intricate design, bright colours and shining gold of the temple itself. There were groups of children performing dance and music all around the grounds. It was very peaceful. Sadie and I got kind of “lost” in it all taking a very loooong time to finish and using up a lot of digital photo space.

Being Sunday AND the festival we were able to enjoy the Sunday Market. There is a Night Market on every evening but we had heard the Sunday Market is far superior. It was packed. The stream of people was thick making it hard to jump in and out if you saw anything of interest on either side. We were starving and the food stalls were mouth watering. We sampled small dishes served in leaf bowls until we were stuffed. The craft market was immense and varied. We bought t-shirts and a few small things to add to our growing (again) load in our backpacks. We’ve actually been pretty conservative in our shopping. Most things are small and light weight, but it all still adds up and we do have a bag stuffed full stored at a hotel in Bangkok! Our wander eventually led us into the main square where hundreds of people were lighting huge paper lanterns, making a wish and letting them go into the sky. It was an absolutely magical sight to see all the people, colours and lit lanterns gracefully floating up into the night sky. We of course bought one and let it go too. It was all a bit hard to leave, but we had an early rise the next day so with some regret, we eventually made our way back to our guesthouse and went to bed with the sounds of the night as a lively background (have I mentioned another of our most valued items are earplugs?). Fireworks are also a big part of celebrating the Yi Peng festival which also reminded us of October at this time of year at home.

If you are going to stay in Chiang Mai, I would definitely recommend Yourhouse Guesthouse. They have various levels for rooms and prices with a brand new building which is spotless and bright. The older parts are equally as clean but less bright, however the price is less. The location in excellent and there is free Wi-fi. The host Sin is very friendly and helpful booking anything from travel, tuk tuks, cooking lessons to tours. Had we stayed longer, I would have definitely taken a cooking class. We came across a number of people who had and they really enjoyed them.

October 31 – Phi Phi Island, Thailand

Most of us have heard of Phi Phi Island and Phi Phi Lay, those of us for sure anyway who have seen the movie The Beach. Ron visited there on his last Asian tour…20 odd years ago and needless to say, it has changed a bit. He remembers he felt disappointed because even back then (ahem) it seemed already well discovered (we all dream of being the first in an untouched land I think) and wished he had been there a few years earlier. Well, you can imagine what it is like now. Phi Phi Don, the island you actually stay on (Phi Phi Lay is a marine park and has no accommodation) is a jungle of resorts, shops, restaurants, tourists and partying backpackers. That being said, it is an excellent stop if you sleep in the right spot and get off the island in kayaks to explore the beaches. We never did make it to Phi Phi Lay because apparently it is combing with people by first thing and the illusion of a pristine deserted beach is inaccessible.

The interesting (or tragic) thing about Phi Phi is that it (and Phuket) lies in the eye of where the Tsunami hit on the Adman Coast in 2004. Landing at the Pier, you would never know the resort and beach had been absolutely devastated only 5 years ago. Yet there are photos and stories to prove it. We ate a number of times at a casual little spot called Samee’s. We never met Samee himself, but his delightful nephew Chilli was holding the fort providing amazing local fare and friendly conversation (and a few Thai cooking tips for Janet). Samee is incredibly thankful to be given a 2nd chance after being buried under a building in the Tsunami. He was rescued and an English friend has since helped him rebuild his life and start his restaurant. The walls are covered with graffiti from travelers who obviously love Samee and his food. He has huge sings up thanking the Tsunami, Buddha and his friends for helping him with his 2nd chance at life. We spent hours poring over his photo albums with images and stories from the Tsunami and we left our own signatures on his wall. As always, strength and positive things tend to eventually emerge from disaster. As for the bricks and mortar, they say there are more restrictions for building on Phi Phi since the Tsunami in the hopes to better control rapid tourist development but, it still seems incredibly crowded.

We were lucky to find reasonable accommodation right on the beach at a place called PP Sand Seaview Resort. It was so awesome to have a little bungalow right on the beach with a porch, sun chairs and umbrella right out front. The best part about this place was the 4 kittens hanging about to entertain us. The water off Phi Phi is really shallow so low tide is a bit of a bust for swimming. It’s best to catch a swim first thing in the morning then head off the island to other beaches for the rest of the day. Our only complaint about our bungalow was the 10 minute walk in the unbelievable heat to get anywhere and we could hear the thump of music well into the night from across the water. However, the 10 minute walk also meant we were out of the thick of things and had some space. Like I mentioned, Phi Phi is a party town and so perhaps we were the only people on the island going to bed by 10pm!!!

Our best decision on Phi Phi was to rent kayaks for a day. For about $15, we rented 2 double kayaks, masks and snorkels and headed out the northwest side of the island towards Monkey Beach. True to its name, the beach hosts were short, furry and liked to steal food. We headed from Monkey Beach across the bay to another beach with a quick stop at a shallow cave where we saw a reef shark swimming about under our kayaks. I don’t think Anna was too pleased to be hanging around above a shark, even a reef shark! And none of us took the opportunity to jump in and swim with our mask. Both Sadie and Anna I swear were born with gills, so the whole snorkeling thing was a great thing for both of them. And when the snorkeling was not great, we’d find fish with bits of fruit and entertain ourselves with the underwater camera.

We finally ended up on a beach on the west side of the northern long section of the island. It was horrible. We slowly paddled in looking at a deserted beach village on the right. We later found out this village is sometimes home to a group of sea gypsies who have since moved on to a new location. And the beach itself was ankle deep in ocean garbage, right up to the highest of high tide lines. Yuck, it was like standing in a Green Peace commercial. At first we were confused, was this garbage left over from the Tsunami but had never been cleaned up? We later found out, no…this is an annual deposit from winter seas and prevailing winds hitting the beach. Apparently, they clean it up by the time busy season starts – there is a 3 star resort only a 10 min. walk across the island to the other side. But honestly, I can’t imagine a clean-up that large and busy season was just days away. It was deserted except for a few long tail boats. The site of this garbage would make anyone stop the next time they even considered throwing a piece of garbage into the ocean or using plastic unnecessarily. We got out of our kayaks though because we needed a stretch and had heard there were cold drinks and food across the island. Our stomachs always win. We did find refreshment and a much nicer beach on the other side but didn’t stay long as we were afraid of arriving back to find our kayaks gone had we stayed away too long.

Us Gosneys were certainly enjoying our beach time. We managed to avoid getting burnt, got some math done, did lots of reading but were starting to melt a little from the heat and humidity. Janet was battling a terrible cold/flu and we were tired of cowering away from the heat. But the weather, as promised on or around November 1st was starting to change. The prevailing winds had swung around, the skies were becoming clearer, and there were no afternoon showers on our last 2 days there.

October 27 – Krabi & Railay Beach, Thailand

As I mentioned before, we were really ready to arrive in Thailand. Our first hours upon arrival were punctuated with open jaws, swiveling necks and the occasional gasp. The Bangkok airport was like a space ship (a clean space ship). In our giddy state we began to communicate in martian speak. The logos of various food chains we had not seen since leaving Canada beckoned us as we made our way through and into our taxi. Anna nearly went into a frenzy upon seeing Dairy Queen. The taxi was immaculate (Nepal had shown us a whole new level of beater taxis), the roads smooth, the obvious infrastructure mind boggling and most of all…we didn’t hear a horn honking anywhere. Ahhhh. I can’t say we explored Bangkok because well, we didn’t. Our flight to Krabi was the next day and we decided there wasn’t enough time to do anything but sleep and check out the food court at the airport. And the food court was excellent by the way…offering large varieties of food, obviously cooked in relatively clean environments and ice ice ice! We began our love affair with fruit shakes and banana lassis, made the way they should be.

Our next stop was Krabi Town which is an excellent mainland port and launching pad for the beaches and islands dotting the Adman Coast. We decided to stay for a day in Krabi while we decided exactly where to go. Our hotel, called the A Mansion was quite the find being both reasonable (always a happy day) and new which meant clean and bright. And, there was a fabulous café right next door called 89 hosted by a woman named Sassy who made a killer Americano and provided free wifi. We made great friends with Sassy over two days as we sipped shakes, ate breakfast, drank coffee and used her computers. Oh, and she had a really cute little black dog.

It seemed the weather hadn’t quite changed yet from rainy season to “winter” which is supposed to happen any day at the end of October. We booked a kayaking day regardless just north of Krabi and Au Nang. We managed to salvage the day in the end but mid morning as we bobbed along in our two double kayaks absolutely drenched in a massive rain, we weren’t sure how it was going to turn out. The paddling trip took us through really cool and narrow Mangrove Forest channels, into an old crocodile cave, through a steep walled canyon and through secret little lagoons. I think the scenery would have been brilliant given sunshine, but it was still pretty great even in the clouds. The sun did peak out in the afternoon and hey, at leaste we were saved from the typical “first day at the beach” sunburn. The bonus was an included fabulous Thai lunch and our “guide” was hilarious. His name was Tam and he chatted the whole time giving us bits of information here and there and cracking jokes. Apparently during the Tsunami (this is not one of his jokes), he had been with a group kayaking. They got the heads up via cell phone from Phuket and hid in one of the lagoons we explored until the water receded. This particular area was not hit very hard, but I can’t imagine how the guides and tourists felt waiting for more than 3 hours not knowing exactly what was coming. This was the first of many stories we’d hear and images we would see from the Tsunami.

The other highlight we found in Krabi was the Night Market. Set up every night down by the water in the centre of town, the Night Market consists of a number of stalls selling the most amazing local cuisine. It was packed with locals (always a good sign) and westerners (so you know it is likely safe for you to eat) with sights and smells making our senses dance. Everything’s made right there in front of you so the entertainment factor was almost as high as the satisfaction from eating.

Railay Beach
We were experiencing our most humid weather yet – constantly wiping sweat from our brows and wistfully thinking of our next shower. Our friend Christin recently asked us in an email to make sure we enjoy every sweet, sour and salty part of our travels. This was definitely the salty part. Wanting easy access to the water, we decided to head towards Railay, a destination world famous for climbing on massive limestone cliffs and its beautiful natural setting with 3 incredible beaches; Phanang or “Princess” Beach, Railay West and Ton Sai. On mainland, it is only accessible by boat and has not roads or vehicles. We stayed on Raily East which is the least desirable beach (a mangrove beach more of boat access only) but offers much more reasonable accommodation with a little less isolation than Ton Sai which is where the hard core climbers/backpackers stay. Not sure if we would have fit in amongst the dreads and tattoos of Tons Sai anyway! From Railay East you can walk to the other beaches in 5-10 minutes. Luckily we were still within October, after November 1st room rates double for high season.

Some of our highlights during our Railay stay were; Princess Beach once the crowds left, feeding monkeys corn on the cob, Mama’s Chicken on Tons Sai, Lucky Restaurant’s BBQ’d fish and the crazy hostess waving fish around trying to attract customers, watching climbers who could defy gravity, meeting Noah from Colorado who helped us try tightrope walking, longtail boat rides, swimming in the turquoise water and lemon shakes at the same little restaurant every day. Oh, and the girls are now familiar with the term transsexual and transgender. Seemed to us anyway, in Thailand the lines between genders are a bit more fuzzy than other places we’ve been. Men are often seen sporting hair bands, make-up, manicured finger nails and sometimes full women’s gear. Some seem to be exploring the other side, and some seem to be comfortable being men, but wearing women’s hair styles. Ah yes, another teaching moment.

Ron & Anna took a ½ day rock climbing lesson on Railay East climbing limestone cliffs over the beach. They both did really well and had sore muscles for days after. Later we were lucky to see one of the instructors go through his daily workout at Princess Beach (much more technical) which involved running up a tree, leaping on to the rock face, maneuvering across and down only to repeat again, and again and again. Like I mentioned above, it defied gravity.

We also took a sunset snorkeling trip out to a couple of islands off the west side of Railay. At first we felt rather unlucky as the visibility was very poor, the water rough, rain showers set in and we were running away from a threatening thunder storm. Seems the longtail boat driver and snorkeling guide were not going to cry “uncle” though. We forged ahead and as luck would have it, the sun broke through in time for us to enjoy as we were dropped off on a secluded beach facing west. We ended up with a great mix of people on the boat and the evening finished with a hot Thai curry dinner on the beach lit by torch light. Our boat drive home (I have always been a sucker for driving on water at night) was amazing with the flicker of the storm sheet lightening off in the distance, the glint of fishing boats bobbing around and a quick stop for a swim in the phosphorescence under the cliffs before landing back at Railay West. It was an afternoon and evening I would recommend to anyone. The actual snorkeling was a bit marginal with a lot of dead coral and only medium amounts (yet colourful) of small fish to gaze at, but the whole experience was fabulous.

But it was time to move on. We had decided to head over to Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Lay for our final few days in Southern Thailand. Only a 2 hour fast ferry ride away, Phi Phi was a perfect stepping stone towards another 2 hour fast ferry trip to Phuket where we would catch our flight up north.