Val and Joanne go to Thai Prison and get beaten (and it was nothing like Bridget Jones II)

I couldn't come to Thailand and not get a massage. There are massage places every ten feet (not exaggerating) so it seemed a trip requirement. Val found a note in the Lonely Planet that the Women's Prison has a massage parlour where all of the proceeds go directly to the prisoner upon her release to help her get a new start. That seemed a worthy cause. So off we went to check it out. Our first visit, we showed up too late so today we went earlier. We had a good sleep in (9am) since we were so exhausted after our elephant excursion, ate breakfast at the guesthouse (Val had a smoothies and toast, I had french toast and fruit - good but too expensive, it was at least 5 dollars each). Then we sauntered back to the prison. We didn't get any photos of the inside so these will have to do.



This is the outside gate



Homey touches like flowers still don't make me want to go here for longer than an hour

We were led in to the massage area and had our feet washed. They gave us some clothes to change into in a side room. Things were already off to a bad start since neither of us could figure out how to put on the pants or the top. Eventually, one of the women came in and sorted us out. Val said she only wanted the back and neck done but I was in for the full meal deal - the one hour Thai massage. Oh My God, there is absolutely no way I will be able to convey in words the pain that tiny woman caused. She started on my leg and used thumbs made of steel to basically rupture my muscles and snap my bones. It hurt - a lot. She didn't speak much English but occasionally when I would cry out, she would ask "hurt?" to which I would answer 'YES!!" and she would reduce the pressure by an infinitesimal amount barely perceptible by my broken self. Oh, did I mention that we were on mats on the floor in a communal room. No privacy here. By now, three British women had arrived and were watching their future. I can't believe they didn't run screaming. That little masseuse could kill a man with what she could do with her thumbs, elbow, knees and feet.

As much pain as it was, it was also the funniest thing ever. I was laughing so hard I couldn't talk. I would look over at Val, who was only supposed to be having her neck done and I would see her contorted into some impossible position with her own tiny masseuse sitting on her. How could I not laugh. My lady kept asking if I was ticklish, I would just say yes since it was easier than to say the entire situation was too funny not to be hysterical. After my legs it was time to flip over for my back. She showed me a little pot and asked if I wanted on my back. I said yes. Only then does Val mention that the contents of the little pot are hot, chemical burn hot. I was happy for the distraction. Imagine me, with a person standing on my back, pulling  my legs up the wrong direction until I was a U shape. My back cracked like an egg. There was twisting and throwing, cracking and kneading. I couldn't look at Val or I was laugh even harder. Finally, she shredded my arms and it was over. I don't think I have ever done anything so painful voluntarily in my life before this. But I have to say, when we left, it was the first time my calves were pain free.

Now I am sitting in the Internet place while val has a banana milkshake. There is so much I'm not mentioning about Thailand because I can't keep ahead of our wacky activities. Some notes about Thailand
1. Sidewalks - not for walking. I think that they are primarily for motorcycle parking, then for store displays, sleeping, dogs, and trees and planter pots, then for walking.



A particulary cute example of a sidewalk blockage

2. tourists - they are everywhere. We don't like the British ones especially. There are very few Americans and a zillion Canadians. They seem jaded.
3. Food - I know I keep mentioning food but I have discovered that there are very few dishes on offer. Val has made it her mission to find the best Pad Thai. Strangely, so far the best had been in a French restaurant. We only went in there because they had padded booths. But there was a Thai chef who made me a wicked Ginger pork on rice and Val, the yummiest Pad Thai.



another lunch

4. Cats - everywhere. we have an old tom who sleeps outside of our room but he isn't interested in making friends.



5. Buddha - everywhere in every form. We can't figure out if it an Young Elvis/Old Elvis thing or an artistic difference for the different versions. We are avoiding Wats so I suppose we will never know.

6. Flowers - they grow all over the place, orchids are wild here.



They even grow in shells.

I'm sure there is more so I will add in future posts if I have time. Joanne

Hangin' with the Chang Gang (Chang means Elephant in Thai)

Val really wanted to go to something or other with elephants and she had read about a rescue place online while we were still in Canada. There are all sorts of 'eco-treks' here that involve elephant shows and rides but we weren't really keen to get involved with anything that used the elephants as exhibitions etc. We finally came across a store that is the ticket booth for the Elephant Nature Park, the very one that Val had read about. You can only buy tickets directly from them unlike other activity here where you can buy from your hotelier or tourist bureau. Anyway, a day at the park was twice as expensive as one of the trek places but we figured it was like a donation to the elephant rescues. So we bought our tickets and went the next day.

Bright and early again with a 8 am pick up. First our van stopped at a fruit market to load up on the bananas that we would feed to 'our' elephant. The 9 guests had to do the loading. Then up the mountains to the valley that house the elephants. A bit of back story here. A woman named Lek started rescuing a few injured and orphaned elephants in 1995. They also have cats, dogs, buffalo, pigs, a horse and probably other abandoned animals. The dogs and cats are up for adoption, uh-oh.



The dogs are not afraid of the elephants.

She was up to 4 when some kindly American donated a half million so that she could buy enough land for the space she needed. Elephants are big you know. So she bought the valley and another area close by that they call 'elephant heaven' which is jungle where the elephants go three times a week to learn to forage etc so that eventually the healthy ones can be released back into the wild. Now they have 38 elephants, quite a few of them are handicapped, there is one blind one, one with a broken back, a huge male that was hit by a 18 wheeler who broke both of his front legs (very sad to watch him and the broken backed one walking around).



The big broken elephant, leaning on his buddy

There are two little babies (9 months) and several juveniles that have been orphaned.



Mom and baby



Elephant



More elephants



White elephant, they used to automatically be the property of the king. They may still be for that matter, they mentioned that this one was on loan

We started our day at the farm on the platform. This is where the elephants come twice a day to have 'treats'. Each elephant gets his or her favourite fruit or veg in a big basket.



Ready for snack time.

Our elephant liked bananas and cucumbers with the occasional fig thrown in. We got to hand feed her and it was pretty cool, as you can imagine.



Val feeding bananas to our elephant

They are pretty tame as they all came from a domesticated situation, farming, treks, or street begging. Only one was born in the jungle, Hope, so he has to wear a bell because apparently, he is 'naughty'. Each elephant has a mahout (handler, to make sure you aren't killed. The elephants are like dogs with their mahouts, they follow them around and listen to instructions.



Like a puppy

Then when feeding time is over, they all wander out to the fields to have some grass or dust bath.



Out in the valley



Dust bath

Apparently, when they all arrived, even though they aren't related, they all immediately broke up into 5 family groups and the handicapped ones all have a 'protector' that adopted them and keeps them safe. We could watch them from afar from the platform while we had a mostly veggie buffet lunch. Val was in heaven because there were at least 6 types of noodles.

After lunch it was bath time. The non-naughty, healthy elephants were led to the river and so were we. Once the elephants were in the water we were allowed to join them and chuck buckets of water on them.





If they lay down we could scrub them with brushes. It was pretty exciting to be right there with them, no platform railing between you and a ton or two of animal. They are alot smaller than the African elephants but still pretty impressive. The elephants decided when bath time was over, they would just get up and leave. good enough.



Hello?... apparently we are interesting too.

Then we all piled into a high platform over the river and waited for the babies to arrive. The first one came with his mother and another 'family' member. What is it about the babies, irresistible. Millions of pictures later, they left and the next baby and family arrived. I can tell already this baby is going to be naughty too. Coming right up to people, getting stuck under the platform, not wanting to leave, a born performer.



Baby One with Mom



Baby two and Mom

After bath time, we were invited to watch a video on Thai elephants. They showed how domesticated elephants are 'broken' or as they call it here 'crushed'. I will spare you the gory details, I had my eyes closed for 90% of it anyway but we were very glad we skipped the 'trek' tours and went with the extra bahts to go to this place. We could tell they were very torn on what to advise the tourists. Our guide was very against street begging and elephant painting (the elephant paints, not you painting the elephant) but they were cautiously in favour of the trek places. I figured it is because without the tourism trade, 1000s of elephants would be out of work and abandoned. No one feeds an elephant that is just a pet, it is way too expensive (ask Homer Simpson). Anyway, one more snack and another bath. The second bath was better because most of the guests had left by then so it was only our small group left. Val stayed on dry land this time. Something about getting hit on the back of the leg with balls of dung floating by.



In the doctor's office



A trunk (in case you couldn't tell)



Mom and baby (there can never be too many pictures of baby elephants)



Elephant's eye

We were dropped back at our guesthouse after 5 and by then I was pretty exhausted. I have been fighting a cold for a day or two. We just had a quick dinner at a road side stand and were in bed by 8.

Cooking school leads to night of debauchery (who knew there was a corrolation)

Rama Guesthouse has waaaay better beds AND our own bathroom AND our room is only on the second floor AND I can wear my shoes, that bare foot business is killing me. Our first night was a very lovely sleep on a reasonable mattress. The extra 100 baht for hot water consisted of the desk lady, Lyn, giving us the handle to the hot water tap. The shower leaves a bit to be desired but warm water is all good. My hair is starting to look like straw though. 2 in 1 pantene - Psshhh.



Lyn of Rama Guesthouse

Before we went to bed we wanted to check out the Night Bazaar. But first we decided to get hopelessly lost trying to find it. Some nice English speaking couple (American?) took us by the hand and navigated us out of the maze of alleys and then pointed us in the right direction once we were on a real street. Have I mentioned that the lay out of Chang Mai is insane. Basically a huge grid (good) interspersed with a hive of alleys and lanes with no clear naming or numbering system (bad).

We found the market and it was huge!, No, HUGE!. It just went on and on. There was lots of repeats in the million stalls but it was fascinating to see all of the stuff. I have now started shopping. There is no way I can wait until Bangkok, I will just have to carry an extra bag for the next while. Plus, after the whole 'no shopping' in Dar es Salaam situation, I am afraid to leave things to the end again. So I have a few gifts and a few things for myself. Not to much but stuff is so cheap. It is really hard to get my head around the baht conversion. First of all I keep saying Pesos and converting 1:10 like a peso. But I have two numbers in my head now that help, 500 baht is 20 bucks and 50 baht is 2 bucks. sounds simple but it took awhile to hit on that.

We couldn't find our way back (or even out of the market) so we just jumped in a tuk tuk and headed home for a very good sleep. My calves have almost recovered but my feet are not happy with me. I must wear walking shoes to walk - again, it sounds simple but it took several days for it to dawn on me.

The next morning we were up bright and early for our 8:30 pick up for cooking school. There are a million here but we went with the one that drives out to a farm for the day (don't tell Canada Customs that, we want to keep our shoes). Tellingly, it is called Thai Farm Cooking School. They picked us up in a truck and we crammed into the back, there were 11 of us.



in the back of the truck

I have to say, a really excellent group. 2 French couples, another woman from Victoria, a Swiss couple, an older German man and a young guy from California. Everyone else was on extended vacations, years for one of the French couples. They were all bouncing around Asia.



Aylin (from Victoria) and Gabe (from California)

Any way, our class started at the market where we learned about rice (there must have been 30 different kinds) and coconut milk/cream and various sauces required for Thai cooking. We had about 20 minutes to wander around on our own and buy anything we wanted but fortunately, we didn't have to figure out what we needed for the class. I bought conditioner for my hair - priorities!



Fish at the market - waiting for a new home! (well, I didn't want to be the one to tell them different)



So many types of rice



Veggies



Sauces by the dozens, unfortunately all with Thai labels so I didn't buy any

Then we were back in the truck and off to the farm.



Our class, suiting up, aprons all round



Tour of the garden

Our cooking teacher was Tommy who was very amusing and his English was very good.



Tommy whose only problem with English was that he couldn't pronouce 'juice', he said jew-iss.



Our rice and clean up lady, we were never introduced so I don't know her name

We got to pick what we wanted to make, Val and I chose different dishes so we could share. I picked Chicken Coconut soup, red curry, papaya salad, pad Thai and mangoes with sticky rice. Val picked Tom Yam soup (sweet and sour sort of), chicken with cashews, green curry, spring rolls and bananas in coconut milk. Our first order of business was to learn to make curry paste. Surprisingly easy if you are willing to spend 20-30 minutes pounding the mortar and pestle. There is a certain sense of pride when Tommy would wander by and say - good, you can stop.



My red curry paste - in progress



Class at their stations

Then we took our new curry paste and made it into chicken curry dishes with eggplant, pumpkin, onion, coconut milk and various leaves and other bits of flora. Once that was in a bowl, we were off and making soup. I have to say, I wasn't a big fan of the soup. I picked the coconut milk soup (I wish I remembered the real name) because we always order it at Siam Thai when Christine comes to visit from Halifax, but it wasn't really the same, they put tomato in it here. Papaya salad on the other hand is easy and super yummy. I'm not sure one can buy a green papaya in Victoria though.


Val was busy with her own dishes until we met at the outside table for lunch to eat our creations. It was amazing. And so much food.



My first course, this doesn't even include Val's dishes.  So much to eat

We were stuffed and only ate half of the food we had. Tommy announced that we had an hour to wander about before we would start making the next round. OHHHH, we had forgotten about the rest of it. It was blazing hot by this time so we mostly just sat around with the others and drank lemon grass tea. I tried to bird watch a bit but no self respecting bird is out in 35+ degree weather at 2 in the afternoon.

Next round, I made pad Thai, again super easy.



My Pad Thai. One of the best we had in Thailand, if I may say so myself.

Val made spring rolls, not as easy but very worth the effort.



Val cooking the spring roll stuffing.

Then we sat down for the next meal. We shared one spring roll and had one bite each of the pad Thai. We did eat all of the mango with sticky rice but none of the banana in coconut milk which was actually quite awful, note to self, do not boil a banana for 15 minutes and expect it to still be tasty. All of our left overs (sans banana) went into baggies and sent home with us. We got back to the guest house at about 4 pm.

One of the french couples, Fred and Sophie, were keen to get together later. Gabe, the young guy was hitting on Aylin and clearly wanted a second crack at it and I guess Aylin wasn't adverse, because all of a sudden at the last minute before the major players got out of the truck, an impromptu plan was formed to get together for beer later. (ed note: turns out both had partners back home so I don't think any romance was intended but I didn't learn that until later)



View on the ride home

Back at the guesthouse, we were pretty bagged but managed to not fall asleep. Eventually, we ate our food right out of the plastic bags (only 5 hours unrefrigerated so better than usual) with chopsticks. It was all still delish.



Yummy



Yup, definitely yummy

Then we gussied up (changed our tank tops) and headed out for the evening. A quick stop at a market to buy a string of pearls (really), bank machine and then off to the pub. Most everyone showed up (the Swiss couple were the only no-shows). A couple of beer and crazy travel stories. I am convinced that India is a must do. After a while we moved on to another bar, the So Good Bar, where we were the only customers. We stayed until about midnight and the party disbanded. We got lots of good advise about Chang Mai and Thailand in general.

Tomorrow we hang out with elephants. More on that later. Joanne

A crazy day in Bangkok and then the night train to Chang Mai

We are still dealing with a bit of jet lag. Our first full day in Bangkok, once we found our Budget room, was pretty low key. We looked around the shops but we didn't want to buy anything because we knew we were coming back and we don't want to carry anything yet. We found our first noodle lady and ordered chicken noodle stuff and a spring roll.



Noodle ladies, so many to chose from



Our first street dinner, in progress

Needless to say, it lived up to expectations. I wasn't so sure about the chicken she pulled out of the paper bag but that's livin' on the edge. With Air. We are still dealing with a bit of jet lag so our first full day was actually more like 3/4 since we went to bed at about 8pm. 1st day intestinal fortitude: good.

The sleep that night was brutal. Apparently, I am the one whining about the hard bed. I must have woken up 7 times, wondering what the mattress could possibly be made of. Not wood or cement because it had about 2 mm give when you stood on it. But not anything soft like foam or fabric. I even looked in the morning but whatever magical new flexible steel-like material was covered with vinyl. Plus, that fifth floor didn't seem too bad at first but I guess the 10 times up and down in bare feet was more than my poor calfs could stand. Both Val and I woke up with aching legs. I know, we have all gone to the gym and survived but this was unbelievable. Two days later it still is unbelievable, every step up or down is a new experience in muscle pull. But we carried on to our day. We spent an hour or so birdwatching the tree outside of our room. There is one little green bird out there that apparently does not exist but we did get a few new ones. Once we were left with only pigeons to look at we set off for breakfast. We went western for that meal. Val had eggs and I had french toast. We get more adventurous as the trip progresses.

Our plan for the day was to walk to the Grand Palace and see what all the fuss is about. So off we go, no real idea other than 'go left at the corner' of how to get there.



A lovely set of bridges to cross to get to the Grand Palace

Again, we had much advise from many helpful men. They all said the same thing. Grand Palace is closed, go see the Reclining Buddha. Stubborn as we are, we just kept heading to the GP, we made it to the wall that surrounds it when another helpful man arrived. He didn't seem to be selling anything, he also said the GP was closed for a ceremony (we think the king was changing the jade Buddha's clothes, a tri-annual event) but he said because it is a national day of something or other, we can view the King's new palace for free and there are all sorts of festivities going on there. It is all very confusing but we ended up in a tuktuk.
A mini car like thing that is world famous as the symbol of Thailand (plus a death defying ride).



Our tuktuk driver



Val hanging on for dear life

Mr. TukTuk took us to a tiny wat (temple) which we looked at and then off we went to the 'House of Fashion' were we could have a suit made to order right then and there. I now understand how a certain young friend of mine ended up with a suit. We both made it out suitless but I did give in and buy a couple of very small gifts for a couple folks. Off we went to another unmemorable Wat and then off to the jewelery factory.



Our first wat was not too impressive



But a zoom lens helps see the details



Wat number 2 - getting better



Bell on the roof



Buddha is watching you

I have to say so that we don't sound like total rubes, we knew this was going to happen, but we figured it was a small price to pay for hours of TukTuk ride. Anyway, we bought cheap 'trip rings', that's what I am calling them because we bought the same ring by chance. After that, Mr. TukTuk didn't even bother with another Wat, we went straight to another fashion house. Some poor girl arrived at the same time as us and whispered 'did you ask to come here? Why are we here, I wanted to go to BlahBlah Wat". We told her to go with it, she would get there eventually. After that stop, we told Mr. TukTuk to take us back to the Grand Palace since it should now be open. We forgot about the festivities at the new palace. We did ask as we were leaving, if in fact, the Grand Palace was closed in the morning and it was so it wasn't a total scam. I have to say, it was fun.

Then we spent an hour or two in the GP and temple of the jade Buddha. For those of you who have been, you will totally understand that any pictures we took will not do this place any justice. There is enough decoration to make your head explode. Everything is tiles, painted, carved, gilded, groomed beyond belief. I have inadequate pictures for future reference.

So much gold







So many statues

And a million Buddhas



Fat Buddha



Skinny old Buddha



Young svelte Buddha



Spires and more spires

Spires everywhere


If it isn't gilded, it is so intricately detailed you have to do a close up. This entire building is covered with these tiny individually shaped and painted flowers

More detail than the brain can comprehend (I warned you this place was impossible to photograph)






A hand painted and gilded mural that ran hundreds of feet

It was so hot by now and we had to wear long pants and sleeves that we were dying. I have to say, the best part of the Palace was seeing the ridiculous pants and skirts they forced onto the poor unsuspecting shorts clad visitor. Many men in elephant print pants in varying shades of lavender and periwinkle. It was almost worth the heat stroke. Once we had seen pretty much all we could take we tried to leave. No easy feat, there is not signage and the paths are random and circular. We finally made it out but not before, in sight of the exit gate, we met Mr. Longboat. Clearly sun stoked and drunk on touristing, we agreed to a longboat tour of the canals. Again, it was fun and we saw parts of Bangkok that would have been completely inaccessible. Pictures forthwith.



Tours boat at dock



Blurry Val on the boat



Another, very similar boat



A house on the river



To be fair, there were lots of expensive houses too.



Monks at the river's edge.

Then back to the Khoa San Rd for a bite of dinner and to get our stuff. I bought a calamari plate that was so hot I could hardly eat it. Val tasted it and her whole face turned red. I had to follow it with half a pineapple and a beer before I could work my mouth properly. Note to self, ask to taste before buying food off of a wheeled buffet table in the middle of the road, especially if it is the exact same colour as hot chili paste. The Budget was storing our bags for us, so we picked up our stuff and hopped in a cab to the train station where we had booked the night train to Chang Mai for 7:30 PM.



hundreds of tourists waiting to leave Bangkok, there are not enough seats at the station



Leaving the Bangkok station



Waiting at the next station

Serious kudos to Missy here. She had advised us to get two bottom bunks across from each other as opposed to a bottom and top bunk. Brilliant for many reasons.
1. Bottom bunks seats face forward
2. bottom bunks have windows and more head room
3. who can climb the teeny tiny ladder to the top bunk with seized calfs



Forward facing top bunk seat

Only problem is that it was a full train so we had two other British girls in the top bunks. Proper tourist etiquette says one of us had to give up our forward facing seat to one of them so that they could sit together, oh well. We had dinner on the train, I had Red Curry with duck and some sort of chicken and cashew side dish and Val had some pork thing. It was OK but I will have to have red curry again since I am sure it can be better.



Val eating dinner on the train

Eventually a man came by and turned down our beds. By this time it was after 9 and I was pretty much beat. Intestinal fortitude that day: under consideration.



Ready for bed.

The train was so noisy. I kept thinking this must be what it is like to be a tiny person living in a wobbly wheeled shopping cart. There was screeching, banging, jolting, wire rattling. But surprisingly, we both slept pretty well. The bed was so much more comfortable that the Budget bed. We both woke up at about 6 AM (we are almost on Thai time).



Sunrise from the train window

They gave us breakfast of Rice soup, mine with prawns, Val's with chicken. It was yummy. The coffee was not. Then we bird watched from the train until we arrived in Chang Mai. A ride into town in what we think was some guys family minivan, and we wandered around for a bit, found the Rama Guesthouse (location unknown, I will only find my way back if Val stays near) and now have a room with earth made beds and only one flight up. Yeahhh. Only 6 bucks a night each. This time the big luxury was hot water instead of Air Conditioning. It is cooler here. Our hostess Lyn, is setting us up with all sorts of touristy things to do. Discount for us, shhhh, don't tell the other guests.

Tomorrow we are going to cooking school. I will save the rest of our plans for further action packed posts. intestinal fortitude today: under a practical nurses advise and medicinal care. Off to the night bazaar. Joanne.