A journey with the Elephants - written by Marvin

Up early (6.45am) ready to be picked up for the Patara Elephant Sanctuary day at 7.30am.  A 45 minute drive later we were SW of the city in the heart of the jungle.  We arrive down a dirt track at a shelter where there already about 20 people interacting with 2 elephants and their calves.
 
WOW!  Elephants are simply “chilling out”, eating a bit of grass.  The babies are 3 weeks and 3 months old so very cute and fun to play with.  Taking the lead from the others we quickly learn to approach and touch the elephants.  The calves as you’d expect are playful and boisterous.  Lots of great photos and this was just the start. 

Our group of 10 people drove over to an adjacent property where we were taught the art of elephant health.  There are FOUR THINGS TO CHECK:

1.        Happy elephants have flapping ears and tail.
2.        Healthy elephants should sleep lying down on their side for 4-5 hours per nights flipping from side to side every 40 minutes (so you should see dirt and dust on their bodies).
3.       Elephants sweat from the cuticle of their toes if they are healthy – no sweat means they are not healthy.
4.       That they have healthy poo!  It should be moist (give it the squeeze test!), short fibres should be present, not whole unchewed leaves (this shows good healthy teeth), 5-7 stools per motion is good, it must have a healthy smell of cut grass.

 

Next, the commands.  Ma = come, Na-Long = lie down, Deedee = good elephant, Bye = move forward, How = stop.

 

Next task, washing the elephant.  Connor & I were assigned Mat-tun-cum.  She was a 2.5meter mother with a 3 year old baby.  There was a natural dam area about thigh deep where we scrubbed the elephant from head to toe.  Anne & Katie got the only bull elephant assigned to them, he was called Boon Cheng & was approx. 3 metres tall.  Connor did a great job cleaning including seating on her back to get all those tricky places. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following a quick dip in a waterfall, we were taught how to climb up our elephant ready to ride back to home base.   Even when seating on their backs their footfalls are very light, the ultimate 4WD!  Everything is powerful (from trunk to tail), so you must treat her with respect.  Riding bareback for a good 50 minutes proved to be an authentic thai massage for bum and thigh! 

 

A great lunch on the way back, then one of the good things they take lots of photos and handed us a CD at the end.

 

 

Elephant sanctuary written by Connor

Today I went to a elephant sanctuary where they save elephants from bad treatment. It was boring at first because the sun was on us at 40 degrees C but then I got to ride on an elephant it was like a horse because it was really bumpy.

We went to a waterfall and washed the elephants with a spikey brush and we dumped a big bucket of water on them. Then we climbed on top of it to brush its back.

Then we went on a big long walk on the elephant’s back.

Then we arrived at our lunch spot there was all sorts of different types of fruit like dragon fruit.

 

Then we set of for another walk this time I was on the back of the elephant and Katie was screaming when she had her legs hanging over the elephant’s head with nothing to hold on to. While going downhill you had to lean back, going uphill you had to lean forward.

Then we got to the end of journey I got a fanta and a dvd of all the photos the man took.  I would definitely recommend going because it’s awesome fun. My lasting impressions of elephants are that they light on their feet, playful, powerful and smart.

 

The Big Adventure! Written by Katie

 

 

On Sunday night I dream about the next day. When I wake up I’m overly excited, I’m going to be an elephant keeper for one day! The van has arrived my adventure is about to begin!

As we approach the area I see cute baby elephants and their mums. We’re allowed to go up close to them. They’re rather hairy which makes them a bit spiky. I put my hand near the baby’s trunk and it wrapped it around my arm! I got to feed the mum long grass, That was fun!

 

We’re split up into groups. When we arrive we get given an elephant each, Mum and I share one, it was huge!  We had a bull elephant (male) about 3 metres tall and 19 years old, his name was Boon Cheng.  Our first activity was to feed him. We had to say bon which meant I’ve got food or open your mouth. I feed the food through the humongous trunk, it did a  tiny  spit back at me but I didn’t mind. We feed them mouse size bananas and sugar canes.

 

The helper said that elephants sleep on their sides and only sleep for 4-5 hours. We got to brush all the dusty dirt with brushes when they were lying down. Since I couldn’t reach the top the helper lifted me up on top of the Boon Cheng. It was a bit scary at first but then I got use to it. When we finished dusting the top the helper helped me down. Now it was time to wash them in the river

 

We walked our elephants down, we said ma which meant come here. When we had gradually made it down we lead our elephant into the water. We were handed brushes and buckets. First we chucked water on them using the buckets then scrubbed them down them down with the brushes, after they were nice and sparkling cleaned all of the people went up to the refreshing icy waterfall. After a while in the  icy waterfall it was time to get changed in our dry clothes since we were going to ride them to lunch. YAY!

 

When all the people were ready we were going to get on to our huge elephants. I climbed up the big trunk and sat on top of his head with my legs dangling down his trunk.  When everyone was on their elephant they started to walk gaining more speed by every foot step. The leader said we lean forward uphill and backwards down hill. I personally liked going uphill because  when you go down hill the elephant sort of galloped which was quite scary because I was right up on the ears. We were walking through the jungle uphill and downhill round trees and over fallen branches for about 50 minutes.

Finally we approached our lunch, our helper made our elephant sit down on the dusty ground so we could hop off. For lunch we had a range of scrumptious Asian fruit (rambutans, mangosteen, lycees) and some chicken and pork and sticky rice (both sweet and savoury). For some reason I was quite tired but I did not know why because the elephant was doing all of the work!

After we had enough food we jumped back on the elephants again, we traveled through some more jungle for about 10 minutes. When we arrived out of the jungle we had to say goodbye to Boon Cheng and a big thank you to our helper. We all jumped back into the van and went back to a little area where I had a coke from the gift shop as well as a badge so I can remember my great experience with the elephants.  We also got a cd with photos of our big adventure on it.

When we drove back to our hotel I think about what such awesome day I had!

I describe elephants with these words:

huge!       fast!    kind!   careful!    clever  fun!

Our adventures at Maya Shopping Mall

We seem to have discovered the one westernised shopping mall in Chiang Mai (Maya Shopping Mall), it was very refreshing walking into the six storied air-conditioned building after walking through the little sois (lanes) in 35 – 40 degree heat.

 

The kids thought it was ‘AWESOME’ – escalators & glass lifts everywhere, each level was dedicated to a different theme – an electronics level, food level, entertainment level & 3 shopping levels, the biggest mall they have ever seen.

 

 

But not all was as familiar as it seemed…the toilets were of a whole new level so of course some of the Jandal Crew had to put them to the test.  Have a look at the photos, there is an armrest control with different options available for all your needs!

 

 

We also found some interesting meat options in the supermarket – anyone up for uterus, stomach & small intestine?

Katie enjoyed the big cuddly toys, whilst Connor was exhausted by all the shopping, so time for lunch break , we looked at the options available & decided to use Thailand as the base to try our first ever Sushi Train experience!  It was really fun, we were the only westerners in there and all instructions were written in Thai but we managed to figure it out although not quite sure of all the foods we were picking of the train – perhaps we did try stomach or intestine after all!

 

 

 

Then it was time to catch a songathew and head back to the Old City where we are staying.  It was a nice adventure going back into the westernised world for a morning!

 

first day in chiang mai by connor and katie

here we are at the temples

One night in Bangkok...

"Bangkok, Oriental setting
And the city don't know what the city is getting"
And then arrive the Jandal Crew.  Those of you from the 80's will know the lyrics to this song!

We've arrived, got caught up with the paparazzi as some famous Asia celebrity decided to come through the arrival gates into the public arena at the same time as us!  Needed an ice-cold Chang and ice-creams to cool down at 10.30pm on arrival at our hotel.  We were all up by 5.30am walking the local area & working up a sweat, so kids are hanging out for a 9am swim already.  We'll head out late morning for our connection to northern Thailand.