Wildlife

PHOTO ALBUM – Khao Yai National Park and Phuket

Elise and I can now officially say that we were growled at by a wild tiger while hiking in the woods.   I have had some scary encounters with wildlife in the past – bear sniffing a tent that I was sleeping in and scaring up a large, sleeping elk in the pitch dark of night in Olympic National forest for example.  But for some reason, encountering a wild tiger – albeit a little unnerving – was oddly more exciting than terrifying. 

We left Mae Hong Son on January 13 and started making our way back down to Phuket in southern Thailand on the Adaman coast. On January 17 we were to meet Greg Rieker - a college friend of mine, his girlfriend – Julie, and a good friend of theirs from grad school at Stanford, Dot.  So in order to break up the very long bus rides almost the entire length of Thailand from north to south, we decided to make a stop for a few days at Khao Yai National Park – near Pak Chong, which is two and a half hours northeast of Bangkok.  It is the first National Park in Thailand and is home to some pretty impressive wildlife –many bird species including the Great Hornbill, monkeys, wild elephants, and a small population of the endangered wild tigers in Thailand.  We stayed at the Greenleaf Guesthouse – a simple guesthouse on the main highway to the park.  They have a very knowledgeable staff that gives great wildlife tours of the National Park.

Our first evening we were taken on a half-day tour which included a dip in a natural spring, a tour of a cave that is also used as a Buddhist monastery in which we learned about bats and some scary-looking insects which make their home in the cave, and then to an open field to witness bats leaving a cave at night.  I had no idea until we were standing there that we were not going to witness a few bats leave a cave, but rather two-million bats all leave a cave within 30 to 45 minutes. 

Here are the stats:

-          Two-Million Bats that weigh 14 grams each = approximately 30 tons of bats if you were to weight them.             

-          Each bat consumes 2 grams of food per night = 4.4 tons of insects consumed each night.

-          All 2 million bats leave the cave in 45 minutes = 740 bats leave the cave each second.

Very impressive.  The mass of bats would occasionally do a fly-by close to us with an amazing whoosh of air.  This picture is the only way to try to show how impressive this was, and in my opinion still does not do it justice:

The next day was a full-day tour of the National Park.  Our guide could spot wildlife that was incredibly camouflaged - otherwise we would have seen nothing other than trees and the Macaques (monkeys) that lined the roads waiting for rule-breaking tourists to give them food.  We would be driving along and suddenly he’d stop the car, get out with his telescope, and show us some rare eagle that was the same color as the tree it was in out in the distance.  So thanks to him, we observed the Great Hornbill, Serpentine Eagle (eats Cobras), a cobra, water monitor lizard, and of course plenty of monkeys throughout the day.

As we were trekking through the rainforest looking for wild elephants and anything else that could be spotted (monster size scorpions, for example), we came around the corner and were immediately warned by a very deep and clear roar that only comes from a very large cat.  Everyone froze.  Of course, I immediately look at our guide to see if he seemed concerned.  His eyes were very wide confirming that we all heard the same thing.  Our group of eight and our guide stood frozen for several minutes in the quiet of the rainforest wondering if anything in that direction would move.  After a few minutes, we continued slowly along the trail (not sure why we continued and didn’t turn back…but since I’m now writing this blog you can feel comfortable that the decision worked out just fine).  As we continued slowly, a second very clear low-pitched growl came from the same direction as if warning us once again who was in the area as well as some rustling of leaves.  We all froze again and resumed staring at the woods.  This time our guide took several very slow steps into the woods while holding tightly his machete (probably not of much use against an attack, but since that was the best defense available, why not?).  He spotted the stripes as the tiger moved the opposite direction.  In a dense jungle tigers are surprisingly camouflaged, and although no one other than the guide was able to catch a glimpse, based on the sound I have no doubt we had a very rare encounter.  It had been six years since our guide saw a wild tiger and some guides had spent 20 years in the park and never saw one.

After Khao Yai, Elise and I continued the long journey south and arrived on Karon Beach on Phuket Island – the tourist epicenter of Thailand.  This time of year it is overrun by Europeans on holiday, but the beaches are white sand, water turquoise, and weather perfect. 

We spent the last four days hanging out with Greg, Julie, and Dot – motor-scootering around the island (much more dangerous than getting roared at by a tiger) scuba diving, Chang Beers, and some intense games of Monopoly Deal (a card game).  Good times catching up with Greg and meeting Julie and Dot.   We dove at Ko Doc Mai (wall dive at an island), King Cruiser Wreck (a car ferry that sunk in 1997), and Shark Point (pinnacles and a coral reef in which we did indeed see a leopard shark).  Our dive guide showed us how to pick up the leopard shark by the tail and try to flip it over on its belly.  It was almost a success but the shark was mildly irritated about ¾ of the way over and swam away.   

We have arrived on Koh Phi Phi and will move on in several days to Krabi. 

Our visas are expiring soon and we are making plans and getting excited to move on from Thailand.  We are making a change to the overall itinerary and putting Cambodia on hold until a month later.   The next country will be Myanmar (a.k.a. Burma).  We had not originally planned on visiting Burma, but sounds like we cannot miss it.  Stay tuned…

Go Fish

PHOTO ALBUM - Soppong and Mae Hong Son

We are nearing the end of our stay in Northern Thailand. It’s a been a most enjoyable experience, Brian and I are definitely fans of this area and and will definitely be back at some point to see more. After Pai, we moved onto Soppong, where we intended to tour a couple very impressive caves and then move on to Mae Hong Son.  However, after a little research and talking to the owner of our guesthouse in Soppong, Penn, we decided instead of moving on to Mae Hong Son right away, we would  catch a ride with her to a small village called Mae Lana for the National Children’s Day celebration, and then hike on our own through some hill-tribe villages back to Soppong.

National Children’s Day is celebrated the 2^nd Saturday in January all around Thailand, and Mae Lana was the site hosting all the children from the local villages. Penn took us and 3 other guests from her guesthouse with her to Mae Lana, with a stop along the way to pick up ‘things to give to the children’ – this turned out to be sandwiches, balloons, colored pencils, etc, which would be given away as prizes in the games. The games were fun to watch – they tied balloons to the kids ankles and they had to try to pop each others’ balloons, they played musical chairs, and there was some game where it appeared they had to blow up a balloon until it popped, and the first person’s balloon to pop wins. Groups of all ages had put together organized dances to perform, there were educational booths all around (I saw a poster titled “The Smoker’s Body” in English), and even the soldiers were getting into the spirit and letting the kids play with their unloaded guns (disturbing).

We spent an hour or so at the festival, and then Penn drove us up to a Lahu village where she buys the coffee she serves at the guesthouse. (Coffee up in northern Thailand has been superb, especially compared to the Nescafe served everywhere else we have been in Thailand). Turns out  that it’s a pretty painstaking process to get coffee beans from the tree to the bag you open to make your coffee, and it’s all done by hand.  Penn told us that  at one time Starbucks was looking to source beans from this village, and was willing to pay  four times more than what she paid for the beans (she buys about 3000 kg a year), but the village turned them down. It’s a small village of about 16 houses, and it sounded like Starbucks had too many stipulations and that they wanted them to add infrastructure they probably couldn’t support. 

After the coffee tour, Penn dropped us off back at a guesthouse in Mae Lana which had lovely little bungalows surrounded by farm land and gardens.  It was incredibly peaceful, and we were the only ones staying there for the night. We went and toured another cave during the day, and came back to an excellent meal in the evening, most of which probably came from the garden.  The next morning, our stomachs full of delicious homemade pancakes and coffee, we headed up into the hills around Mae Lana.

 After a couple hours of walking, surrounded by gorgeous scenery, we reached a Lahu village of Yai Pa Nai. Penn had mentioned that we could do a homestay here, so we thought we’d try. We walked through the village, and eventually a family called out to ask where we were going, and we said we were looking for a homestay, and they ushered us right into their house. We soon learned this was about the extent of their English, and communication for the rest of the day was mostly gestures.

Their place was set up as two bamboo huts – one was a sleeping/living area with TV – though we were never invited in to this area, and the  other a common area where they had a fire and did all the cooking and eating. The pigs and chickens and cats and dogs all lived below the house, which was up on stilts. The squat toilet appeared to be one of a few shared by the village, and was luckily only a couple doors down. They laid down a bamboo mat in the corner of the common area, and gave us a huge pile of blankets.  After setting us up, they continued on their day – the woman was sewing, the man left the house, and the children were alternately playing and eyeing the strangers in their house.  Food appeared throughout the afternoon – a bowl of noodles, and some fruit that came with a bowl of a salty/spicy mixture that we were supposed to mix the fruit with (which of course we didn’t figure out on our own, to the amusement of the kids).  

Not sure what else to do, we brought out a deck of cards, and started teaching the girls Go Fish, the only game we could think of that didn’t require extensive explanation (given the language divide). The game was a hit, and the longer we played, the more kids came to watch, and once they figured it out they wanted to play, as well. We were up to 10 people at one point, and the kids seemed to have an endless capacity for the game – as soon as one game ended, they were handing us the cards to deal another round. It was entertaining, but  4 hours into the game, Brian and I were both relieved when we were called for dinner. 

We sat on the floor with the family around a circular table with about 5 dishes on it, most of which I cannot identify but all of which were delicious, and a big plate of rice in front of everyone at the table.As we started eating, the extended family started coming over, and just sat down and watched us eat. None of them ate themselves, just watched us eat and seemed to seemed to find humor in the fact that I could only eat one plate of rice (throughout Thailand, I’ve observed that everyone has an endless capacity for rice and appears puzzled that we don’t). It appeared as though there were 4 generations in the room, and although we couldn’t understand anything they talked about, it was fun to listen to the inflections and watch the interactions between the family.

They talked to us some through hand gestures as we enjoyed some green tea after the meal - we established that we would be leaving by foot the next day, not by motorbike, which they seemed to find incredulous, we communicated that we were married, and were asked at one time if we were going to have babies soon(that one took me a second, I was mixing up the ‘pregnant’  gesture with the “you must be full’ gestures I was getting earlier concerning the rice, and I think I turned bright red which made everyone laugh), and as we were drinking our 2^nd cup of tea, they indicated that the tea would definitely keep us awake at night (which it did). Eventually everyone went back to their respective homes, and we went to bed, which was surprisingly comfortable given we were basically laying on a couple blankets for padding. 

It turns out village life starts early – at 4 am the truck started as  those that needed to headed off to work, and this in turn got the pigs all riled up. After they finally hushed up, we were woken up on and off for the next couple hours by roosters, and finally at 7, there was some announcement over a loud speaker that seemed to be intended for the entire village followed by someone repeatedly honking their horn (we think this was the school bus - i.e. pick-up truck  taking the kids to school). So we were up as well, and had a delicious breakfast with more unidentifiable but delicious food but less of an audience this time as it was now Monday – a school and work day.  After paying for our stay and giving our sincere thanks we were on our way by foot back to Soppong.  

It was a wonderful experience, to say the least.   Though we wish we could have communicated with our hosts better to be able to learn a little more about their way of life and culture,  it was interesting nonetheless to get a brief glimpse into it while also being away from a somewhat “staged” home-stay set up for tourists.

The one thing that stood out was that the village seemed as one – it seemed like homes were open to everyone, and  families stay together  in the village and remain close-knit. Some of this may be out of necessity – they speak their own tribal language in the villages, and from what we’ve  been reading, may not be recognized as full citizens by the Thai government.  They’re more isolated merely by their location up in the mountains, although we noticed that despite the lack of technology when it comes to infrastructure, there were  satellite dishes, cell phones, and vehicles around in the village.  I think we will definitely continue to try to do home-stays in the future – it’s an interesting experience for us, and it provides some income (and apparently, entertainment) to the families hosting us.

Right now we are spending two nights in Mae Hong Son - another picturesque and relaxing town in northern Thailand on the tourist trail.  There are beautiful Wats, coffee houses, and restaurants surrounding a small lake in this city surrounded by mountains.  Tomorrow we embark on a marathon 16 hour bus ride to Bangkok, where we’ll then jump on another 2 hour bus ride to Pak Chong, so we can spend a couple days at Kao Yai National Park before heading back to the beaches on the Adaman coast.  We will miss northern Thailand, but are looking forward to the change of scenery and change of pace of the upcoming weeks.

Slice of Pai

PHOTO ALBUM - Chiang Mai to Pai

Thai tourists we met in Chiang Mai did not seem to recommend or be too impressed with Pai.  And really, there is nothing “Thai” about it.  As Elise mentioned, Pai was recently described to us as a beach town without the beach.  That could be one description of it, but I would describe it as follows since the city is something of an interesting phenomenon:

Imagine a random tourist city that seems to be growing and gaining popularity (and traffic) for no obvious reason -  similar to Wimberley, TX for example - complete with the souvenir shopping and lazy river except that you can rent bamboo bungalows literally right on the river for next to nothing.  Add in a Northwest coffee house culture, a laid back live music scene - rhythm and blues mixed with some reggae,  and an Oregon-like hippy culture plopped down in Thailand not far from the Burma border.  

The surrounding terrain is mountainous, tropical with banana and coconut palms, but with weather in January much like summer in the Colorado Rockies – dry, comfortably warm during the day, but you might need a jacket at night. 

Needless to say, we loved Pai.   Maybe it’s because we’re tourists, but we see the appeal.   We hiked out of town to a waterfall one day and biked to the hot springs on another.  This time the biking was a much better experience – better bikes and gentler terrain.  And the surrounding farmland and northern Thailand mountains are beautiful.

An interesting note:  the guidebooks seem to state that during the peak tourist season (now) Pai – and other places we have been - can be overrun by tourists and difficult to even find a room.   This is definitely not the case in Pai or anywhere else we’ve been in Thailand so far.  Also, the trend we are seeing is that there are many more Asian tourists (Thai, Chinese) than Western tourists.   Is this a result of the Bangkok violence earlier in 2010, or a result of a downturn in international travel because of the global economy?

We have had multiple inquiries about the Key Performance Indicators of the trip. (If you a new reader, please reference our first entry, "A Year in Asia.")  As of tomorrow, we have just reached one month away so it is still early.   Let’s just say that since we started our trip in Thailand, we are completely spoiled and have not yet really challenged ourselves.  As a result we are currently outperforming on all indicators.

We moved on and are currently in Sappong on our way to Mae Hong Son…

Le Tour de Chiang Mai – Stage 1: Chiang Mai City to Col de la Doi Suthep

We are on day 5 in northern Thailand, and are enjoying the cooler temperatures and more laid back feel of Chiang Mai. The last few days have been spent touring the temples that are all over the city, checking out the street markets, taking in the New Year’s Eve fireworks, partaking in a Thai cooking class, and, as alluded to in the title of this blog, a little cycling. 

There is a temple sitting at about 3500 ft. elevation about 15 km outside of Chiang Mai called Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.  It’s one of the most sacred temples in northern Thailand, there was supposed to be an excellent view of the city from inside the complex, and Lonely Planet briefly mentions that cycling is an option to get up to the Wat.  So although I am typically not one to jump at the chance to ride a bike up a long hill, I convinced myself that it couldn’t be that bad and it would be a great way to see the sights  and get some exercise at the same time. We were unaware at the time that Chiang Mai is only at 1000 ft elevation, so we were going to be gaining 2500 ft in elevation in this ride. The day before we planned to try it, Brian and I scouted out a place that rented what appeared to be decent mountain bikes, found a map that showed Doi Suthep, and set our alarm to make sure we got to the guesthouse renting out the bikes when it opened at 8 am.  Upon arrival at the bike shop, we discovered that all the mountain bike options were either uncomfortably too small for riding, or the shifting wasn’t working right. At this point, we probably should’ve tried another place, but it was starting to get later, and we were getting a little worried about traffic, so instead we opted for some sturdy Raleigh bikes equipped with baskets in the front and a little bell to warn all the people we would be flying past on the ascent.  I had about 5 gears on my bike, which was 5 times more than Brian, and again, given we would be heading uphill almost the whole way, we probably should’ve just nixed the plan and jumped on a sawngthaew (basically, a pickup truck with a couple benches in the back that serves as a share-taxi) to get to the top. 

But we started the ride, which was all fine for the first couple miles as we were heading out of the older part of Chiang Mai. However,  then we got past the university and the zoo and started up the snaky hill to Doi Suthep, which was much steeper than the gradual uphill climb I had imagined in my mind, and it soon became very clear that the bikes we were riding were incredibly inappropriate for what we were trying to do.  This ride turned out to be reminiscent of a mountain stage in the Tour de France, or at least that is what it felt like with our one speed heavy bikes meant for cruising around town at 8-9 mph.    A couple miles in I saw something I thought I would never see – my husband walking a bike up a hill. We alternated riding and walking our bikes, and eventually, we did make it to the top (I’m not going to say how long it took, but I’m sure Lance Armstrong would not  be proud). 

The Wat itself was definitely the busiest of all the Wats we had visited – it was like visiting Mt. Rainier NP on 4^th of July weekend. The Thais are on holiday, as well, and I think a lot of them made the pilgrimage up to Chiang Mai, and apparently, Doi Suthep. They seemed to enjoy the spectacle of the two crazy farang huffing and puffing up the hill, as well, given the number of comments and cat-calls received.   Although I was cursing myself the entire way up (Brian is happy to point out that if this had been his idea, the cursing would’ve been directed at him), and would probably never do it again, I’ll admit (after the fact) it was worth the experience.

After the exhausting day of riding, we made up for all the calories we burned and more in a cooking class, my personal highlight of Chiang Mai. Somehow we managed to cook and eat 5 dishes (all of which were a meal within themselves), plus dessert, over the course of about 6 hours. I have not felt so stuffed in a long time.  We made curry paste and squeezed our own coconut milk for curry soups, we learned how to make some of our favorite Thai foods (papaya salad for me, spring rolls for Brian), and I finally learned that the lime-looking veggies and giant peas in meals here are actually types of eggplant (this has puzzled me since the first time I was in Thailand). Definitely a fun day…and we left with all the recipes, so I’m looking forward to trying them out back home (if we’re not totally burned out of the food by the end of the trip!)

We are heading to Pai tomorrow,  which should be a very laid back few days (it was described to us as a beach town without the beach).

Happy New Year!