bucket showers and elephant riders

I was relieved to walk up the stairs to the 'hotel california' and sit down on the porch. We walked up stairs to a porch landing with benches on the perimeter.

A step up from the porch was a bamboo mat covered floor space or the 'eating area.'

The house also had a few bedrooms with 2 inch thick mats on which to sleep under mosquito nets. All of our accommodations were on the second floor; the owners of the house lived on the first floor. Out of the back hallway of the house were the bathrooms and kitchen in separate buildings. We got there about 5pm, so the sun was already starting to set. This doesnt seem like a problem- until you take into consideration that we all still had to take showers, and the village had no electricity. In all of my years, I have never met anyone who has not had electricity at some point in their life. These people were part of a true hill tribe called the Karen people.

We set our stuff down and propped our feet up for a minute to enjoy the scenery. Then the village children came up to sell items to us. I felt some sort of obligation to buy something from them, even though I really didnt like anything they were selling. Once I started to show an interest in the bracelets, it seemed as though there were three more children selling items. They were selling hand made bracelets for 20 baht (which was WAY more than they were worth), but I knew that 20 baht was a lot to them, and it was less than a dollar to me... so I bought a bracelet. And then one girl looked at me with her sad, puppy eyes and said 'not together.' How silly of me to think that I could just donate 20 baht for everyone. Each of these girls were from a different family and only one family would get the 20 baht. I really didnt want any more bracelets, so I told her sorry and that I didnt want any more.

You can probably tell from the picture that I was sweaty and dirty by this point, so I got in line for showers... and by shower I mean bucket shower. This was officially my first bucket shower experience! The temperature and lighting were dropping fast on the mountain when I entered the stall to clean up. Just a large barrel and a small 'bucket' which was about the size of a small tea-bag boiling pot and a western toilet (no flushing here) occupied the bathroom. After you go in the the toilet, you use the scoop from the shower to put water in the bowl until the water displaces your 'business' in the U-bend mechanism. I used a bamboo stick across the stall to hang my clothes (because the floor was cement... and very wet). The first scoop of water made me cry out. Bone-chilling cold... and it didnt get any better. This was not the type of water that you 'get used to' after being in it for a while, because you never got the full submersion. Just pouring scoop on top of scoop on top of scoop over my hair wasnt even enough to wet it all. My hair reaches about collar bone length level now, and it is not easy to wash in the dark with a bucket scoop. Nonetheless, I finished the shower very refreshed. I also shivered for the next thirty minutes.

Just after we arrived, Ah started cooking us dinner, and the spring rolls were already on the table when I got out of the shower. I went back to take a look at the kitchen, and found that Ah was cooking over fire pots. You can see part of our meal in this picture curry chicken on the left and barbecue ribs on the right. The spring rolls were greasier than I could imagine McDonalds could ever make them, if they sold spring rolls. We were enjoying some refreshing water when the plates of rice started being set on our dining mat. We had three dishes with two serving plates each. Needless to say, there were leftovers (which were given to the village people). Since the village had no electricity, we used candles to light the room. An open flame was used to warm the top of a soda can, and then the candle was balanced on top and balanced on the top of the can. This was a clever way to set out candles, as the wax never dripped on the mat, it just dripped into the can opening. Left to right, Steve, Brette, and Josh are sitting around our eating area before all of the food was brought out.

You can see the curry to the left, but the BBQ ribs were my favorite part of the meal. They were delicious. I bet you wouldnt believe that I had never had BBQ ribs before, but its true!

After dinner, we sat down with Ah, Song (he drove the songtau we took from Chang Mai), and the trek guide sat down and hung out with us. Ah told us the story of the Karen people. They were originally from Burma and moved to the mountains of Thailand to escape military persecution in Burma. They dont consider themselves Thai at all, and therefore dont speak the Thai language - Ah couldnt even verbally communicate with them. The Thai government, however, funds a school in the village as long as the locals dont farm opium. This Karen tribe is one of four different types of Karen tribes, all of whom have their history in opium growing. A school in this part of Thailand is a luxury, and the Karen people feel very privileged to have the school funded by the government (so they dont have any illegal opium growers). Children from kilometers away come to the Karen village to go to school here. Sometimes they come from so far away that the school serves them as a boarding house during the week. They have one teacher in the school (who works for the government) who teaches the basic subjects and basic jungle survival skills to the children of all ages. The government official's job also includes watching the tribe to make sure no opium is grown by the locals. The village also has a church. That's right- a church, not a temple. Ah explained that buddhist monks and muslim missionaries had come through the village in the past to teach the people, but neither of the groups had money. A christian missionary group came to the village and had money to build a church, and the village has been Christian ever since. I had some pressing questions about this entire idea- I can see how the villagers would be more likely to believe something spoken from someone who brought money into the village with which to build a religious structure. I was interested to learn more about the opposite side of missionary outreach, but I didnt ask too many questions because Ah didnt have too many answers, and he couldnt translate my questions for the people. Although, this is a good time to point out that his English skills were excellent! He explained to us that he had studied at the university and got a tourism degree (which is why he could speak so well).

After the history lesson, Ah brought out his guitar and played us some Green Day singles for entertainment. I felt like it was late when we went to bed, but when I turned on my ipod I noticed that it was only 9pm, but we were all too fatigued to stay up late. I found out that my torch didnt actually work, so reading my book to fall asleep was out of the question. I instead turned on my ipod to listen to a sermon. I havent sought out a christian church in Bangkok, but I still want to enjoy the benefits of a sermon- so I have subscribed to podcasts of two churches via iTunes. I listen to the sermons of Vintage 21 Church (my home church in Raleigh) and to Elevation Church (a church Trey introduced to me, based in Charlotte). I listened to the first sermon of Elevation's 'New in 30' series which was about a plan to read through the New Testament in 30 days. I was immediately inspired and couldnt wait to dive into the chapters, but I didnt bring a Bible with me on the trip. I put it on my to-do list for BKK in February.

 The next morning we got up at 6:30 and headed toward the 'elephant camp.' We walked about 20 minutes up the trail to a clearing in the forest that could have easily been a retired rice patty. There were no elephants around this 'elephant camp' where we waited for 40 minutes. No breakfast was served before we left, so I was quite cold and hungry after waiting for so long. The roosters started crowing at 4am and continued until we were dragged out of bed. I didnt really mind, because the bed felt like a rock to me, and I hadnt been able to get a full nights sleep since leaving Bangkok anyways. The fog consumed the jungle and surrounding mountains, so I wasnt very excited about jumping in a river with elephants (no matter how you put it). Out of the jungle we saw two elephants walking our way with their masters on top. Ah explained to us that there is no camp for the elephants- the masters let the elephants roam around the forest until they need them. The elephants dont respond to callings, so the masters have to physically go find the elephants in the jungle (doesnt that seem like a hard task?), and ride them back to the work site. The elephants are used by the village to mainly carry large items between villages.

The elephants came to us from different places in the jungle. The village owns six of them. We got to see four and a baby, one was sick and at the elephant conservation, one was no where to be found. We were hoping to see all six elephants (on for each of us to ride), but instead two of the behemoths got fitted with a riding seat (one of us could sit on the seat, and one on the neck). Four people would have to share an elephant. I was sorely disappointed.

The elephant trainers, or mahouts, gathered up the elephants and led them to the nearby river... where we were supposed to bathe with them. I had pictured a sunny afternoon bath with the elephants, not a freezing cold morning dip with the elephants, but I guess it could have been colder (it wasnt nearly as cold as it was in NC at that time). We stripped down to bathing suits and followed the elephants into the water (where they laid down) and rinsed them with water.

Above is Josh throwing water on the elephant (you can see the mahout behind the ellie). Pictured is the alpha male of the elephant herd, the father of the calf above. The elephants were very hairy and had extremely coarse skin. Notice the size of the ears, and important distinction from African elephants who have large ears--Asian elephants have smaller ears and smaller bodies than their African cousins. The lips are long and dangling and the back is less concave than African ellies. They are also more highly endangered. Ah quizzed us on the toenails of the elephants while they were being bathed. Five toenails in the front, and four in the back!

Then we got to ride the pachyderms! I got on this one as it was still sitting in the water. When it stood up, I felt a lot higher than I had expected to feel.  The back was very bony, and the skin and ears were prickly and itchy. I had trouble balancing at first because I didnt know whether I should straighten my legs to roll my feet under his neck or if I should ride him like a horse by bending my knees for stability. I had to rest my hand on his forehead to keep steady as his shoulder bones threw me left and right. I rode this one for a few minutes while the other elephants were finishing up washing. Will fell off the back of one of the ellies as it was emerging from the water and got a nice dunk in the river. Here is the view from the elephants back.

We loaded up the mammoths and headed back to the village. I sat on an elephant with Steve, Josh and Ashton sat together while Brette and Will each got their own elephant. Elephants actually walk really slow, and it took us an hour to get back to the village. I was seated on the elephant seat, or houdah, which was strapped on like a saddle. The padding was little to nonexistent, and the seat proved to be more of a balancing act than the neck was. Keep in mind that we were walking through a forest which meant we were going up and down hills. I dont feel stable walking down a hill in tennis shoes, now imagine doing that riding in a seat on the back of an elephant. I was holding on for deal life, because it was about a 3.5 meter fall back to the ground.

Steve and I switched during the ride, and I was relieved. He ridiculed me for complaining about how hard it was to ride in the seat when the elephant was going downhill, but he quickly retracted his comments when he got onto the seat. 'This really is a workout,' he conceded.

The sun came out during our walk back to the village, it got pretty hot very fast. The mahout was following behind us the entire time (our elephant, named Pu Jing, led the herd) giving commands to our ellie. Pu jing means 'boy' in Thai. It sounded like he was using a series of grunts to guide the elephant, but when he wasnt paying attention Pu Jing would stop to eat or veer down the wrong path. One time we started going the wrong way and our mahout started grunting at the elephant. We backed out of the wrong path and onto the right one. Elephants backing up is more unnerving that it seems. But we made it all the way back to the tribe without anyone falling off their ellies and were happy to massage our tail regions (because the up and down of shoulder bones can get painful within an hour of riding).

Look Mom, no hands!

A female elephants foot compared to my shoe. Yes, the skull shoe is mine- I bought them at the market at Samut Songkhram as a cheap option for trips. The boys insisted that I purchase the skull version. Josh got stepped on by an elephant as he was giving his mahout a tip. I could tell from his outcry that it wasnt pleasant.

Taken as the elephants were leaving the village. You can see another house behind the elephants. I am seated on our porch area. Ah's hat is on the post.

 

When we arrived back at the village, Ah had breakfast ready. Toast with butter (or something that was yellow and spreadable) and strawberry jam with hard boiled eggs awaited us. I tried my first hard boiled egg that morning. I think I will stick with scrambled. I was reminded of an old friend though, and ate the white part for the protein... so I could build some muscle on the upcoming trek to the next village. They also had two pots of hot water and instant coffee. I had a glass of tea (because I still hadnt perfected my blend of instant coffee mixes), but Ashton offered to make me a cup. I gladly accepted.

We headed out for the next trek after we packed up from the previous night. The sun was scorching hot!

To be continued... again!