As many of you have probably noticed, my study abroad experience has been a lot less “study” and a lot more “abroad” lately. I promise, I really do attend school here — however, two weeks into the start of classes, we got two weeks off for “University Sports Week,” which I have been told is when Thammasat University hosts all the major Thailand universities for sports tournaments (To be honest, I don’t really understand either, I just graciously took the two weeks off and didn’t ask many questions.)
My two weeks of travels began with a four-day trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand, a city in the North of Thailand. I was really, really excited for this because this was the first, real trip I would get to take after almost two weeks of being in Bangkok. Plus, everyone I talked to had nothing but wonderful things to say about Chiang Mai, and we had some fun things planned. The group of girls going included me, my Thai buddy Dew, her friends Kate and Aom, the other exchange student in my journalism program from Austalia named Gabby, and another UW exchange student, who studies at the other campus in the city, named Clare.
Gabby, Me, and Clare
Things were going great — our hostel was clean and conveniently had a bar underneath that served locally brewed Chiang Mai IPA (Yes I tried it; I loved it. Wouldn’t have been “hoppy” enough for you though, Mom and Dad.)
We ate our first dinner at a traditional Northern Thailand restaurant. I got the Burmese-style curry, recommended by Lonely Planet. But, traditionally the meal is served family-style, so with my heap of white rice, I got to taste fried pork, chicken, chili chicken, veggie stir-fry, and fried sausage with sweet and sour sauce — it was incredible.
We walked the Sunday night market, and it was nice seeing the artisan and handmade goods as well as comparing some of the styles commonly seen in Bangkok to those in Chiang Mai. We all bought “Chiang Mai” style shirts. It was nice wandering the town. While Bangkok is this marvelous balance of sinfulness and righteousness, the low-key, hipster vibes of Chiang Mai were a breath of fresh air from the chaos of Bangkok. Chiang Mai is not a small city by any means, it seems to have everything that Bangkok has, just less of it– and less is sometimes more.
The next morning, we woke up at 5 a.m. The Thai girls I was traveling with had worked out a deal with a taxi driver to pick us up in the morning and take us to Doi Suthep, a beautiful temple on the top of a mountain, as well as drive us to a strawberry garden and to our camping site for the night, which was called The Campian and was about an hour outside of the city. He had told the girls that he knew of some great places along the way that he could take us to as well. I doubted his kindness, but I believed the others that this was legit and everything was good.
Right on time, our taxi driver showed up and drove us up the twisty mountain road to Doi Suthep. I wanted to see the sunrise from the top, so I ran (as much as I could) up the 309 steps to the top of the temple. We made it in perfect time, and the view was so worth my loss of breath from the climb. It was beautiful watching the sunrise overtop of the city of Chiang Mai.
Afterwards, we got back in the taxi. Now typically when I’m with the Thai girls, I’m never really sure what the next step in the plan is because usually, they figure it out in Thai, and I feel quite bothersome asking “Wait, so what are we doing now?” all the time. So I decided to just take a little nap and see where I woke up. It usually works out quite well for me, since I’m used to being the one who has to plan things and take charge, I enjoy just taking the backseat when I can and letting others figure it out. When I woke up a little while later there was a total change of scenery out the window, and it was obvious we were out in the countryside a bit. The driver stopped the car (I still didn’t know where we were), and we all piled out. First thing I saw was a little baby elephant being walked down the road towards us! As excited as I was to get to give his trunk a handshake and pat his cute little head, I was also a little concerned. Here’s why —
I had done lots of research before coming to Thailand about many things that could go wrong (and commonly do) while there. Two of them were elephant abuse and taxi scams. What I knew:
- I wanted to interact with the elephants in Thailand, but I also knew I wanted to do so as ethically as possible. There are hundreds of different elephant sanctuaries, farms, and shows in Thailand and many of them are in Chiang Mai, so I knew this trip would be a perfect opportunity. I researched the “ethical” sanctuaries in Chiang Mai, and it seemed a consensus to stay away from any places that made the elephants give rides or made the elephants perform tricks, as both were red flags for abusive training techniques. So I had booked a sanctuary that had great reviews and seemed to allow the elephants as close to a “natural” life as possible.
- I had also come across plenty of warnings for taxi scams. This includes when a taxi driver says he will give you a “tour” or take you to see all the “unique sites” he knows, and end up taking you a bunch of places that charge insane admission fees because he earns a commission for you buying a ticket.
The first place this taxi driver dropped us off at gave me huge, red flag, warning signs for both of these common issues. The taxi driver had brought us to a place that had elephants carrying multiple adults up a steep river bank, bragged about shows where 50 elephants danced synchronized together, and also sold tickets for bamboo raft rides and zip lining — and boy was our taxi driver pushing us to buy tickets. 1700 Baht for all of the attractions, but for us, we could do it all for 1300 Baht! I was so confused why we were even here, I had already booked my tickets for an ethical elephant sanctuary and this place defied everything I was looking for. We all declined to buy tickets and got back in the taxi. At this point, I guess that Aom was beginning to ask our driver to take us to the strawberry garden as he had promised he would the day before, but he kept saying “No, it’s too far away!” (Of course, this was all in Thai so I still had no clue what was going on.)
We drove about five minutes up the river before he dropped us off again, this time at a little cafe near a waterfall, at least that’s all I thought it was. I got out and got a coffee and enjoyed the view then realized, our driver was really trying to sell us tickets to go up and see the Hill Tribes that lived at the top of the hill. I hadn’t read enough warning about Hill Tribe scams; I wish I had known what I was getting myself into. It’s no wonder they keep the “tribes” hidden at the top of the hill because otherwise, you’d be able to see what a load of shit it is from the bottom. At first, it was a bit hard to tell if these ethnic groups were really living in this small little market town or not, but the more I actually looked at what was happening, the surer I became that we just wasted 200 Baht (luckily, only equivalent to about $7 USD). A list of things that made this place sketchy:
- There were supposed to be eight different tribes living together at the top of this hill but this area wasn’t even big enough for eight people to truly be living here.
- The “handmade” goods these women were selling were the exact same, tourist crap we find at the markets in Bangkok.
- There were absolutely no men in the village. I overheard another tourist ask her guide where they all were and he said either hunting or taking care of the elephants. At one point, I looked around the side of one of the “huts” these women supposedly live in and saw one of the men sitting in typical, Thai clothing playing games on his iPhone.
This whole place was a tourist scam, and it just really felt like awful cultural appropriation. I can’t tell you I know 100% for certain that these women and their children weren’t traditionally from Hill tribes, but I do regret ever paying money to encourage whatever was going on there.
By the time we got back to the taxi, I was pretty fed up with our taxi driver’s scam, and I was getting pretty frustrated with never understanding what was going on before I got sucked into poor decisions. He started driving us to The Campian, even though we still had four hours until check-in. We pulled over at a roadside cafe, and Kate and our driver got into a pretty heated discussion over the original deal they made with him and what we were getting from him, saying either he should take us where he said he would or we shouldn’t have to pay him as much as we said we would. It was all in Thai, but the taxi driver was getting physically angry, and I was getting a little nervous that we wouldn’t make it to The Campian at all. One thing led to another, I don’t have the details, because once again, I don’t speak Thai, but we ended up at The Campian about a half hour later.
*Insert me listening to Thai being spoken for about another half hour– very, very confused at what was going on*
In the end, we paid the taxi driver about 400 Baht less than originally planned, which got him away from us and got us where we needed to be safely. The owner of The Campian, a retired teacher who only spoke Thai, was nice enough to let us hang around the property four hours before we were supposed to show up. Her kindness didn’t end there, she offered us fresh, cold water and free cookies, and then, realizing we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, she made us rice with fried egg and soup — all for free. It was exactly what we all needed to turn around a very negative experience. It was also a great reminder that just when you begin to lose your faith in the goodness of humanity, someone will surprise you with completely unnecessary kindness.
The rest of the evening and afternoon was much-needed relaxation time. After a frustrating afternoon of hearing lots of Thai conversations that I would’ve liked to have been involved in but had no way to be, it was nice to just be near nature and quiet. The Campian campsite overlooked the mountains of Chiang Mai. It was beautiful, and everyone else at the campsite was quiet and peaceful. We made shish kabob BBQ skewers on the grill for dinner and roasted marshmallows around the fire, it was just the relaxation we all needed after a hectic day.
In the morning, I woke up feeling something I never thought I’d feel in Thailand — cold. The dew around the mountains settled thick, and I woke up shivering in my tent. Eager to get moving, I got up and helped myself to breakfast of instant coffee, cookies, and rice soup. It doesn’t sound like much, but let me tell you, it was perfect. Then the owner, kindness never-ending, took us to the bus station in the back of her pick-up truck so we could catch a bus back into the city. This took a good portion of the morning into the afternoon.
Once checked into our new hostel, Gabby, Clare and I decided to walk to a museum called Art in Paradise. It was not at all what I expected! It was an interactive, augmented-reality art museum that required an app and a smartphone to view the exhibits as animations. It ended up being a really good way to pass a couple of hours, and although it was a bit ridiculous, we had fun with it. However, for how innovative of an idea it seemed to be, the actual execution could use some smoothing out. The app didn’t always work and the augmented reality usually didn’t usually look convincing, but we had a good time with it nonetheless.
The next day was where most of my excitement for this trip lay — Clare, Gabby and I were finally going to see the elephants! Our shuttle service picked us up from our hostel around 7 am and drove us all the way to our camp, about 1.5 hours away. We shared our shuttle (back of a truck with benches) with some fantastic people! An architect and surgeon couple from NYC, two women from South Africa that worked as a freelance art director and a teacher in South Korea, and a woman from Vancouver who was a freelance graphic designer. We talked the whole way up and back which helped pass the time well.
Once we got to camp No. 9, where we would be spending our half-day excursion, we were given colorful smocks to wear so the elephants would recognize us as friendly places to get fed. Soon enough, here the elephants came running towards us. We got to feed them banana after banana from these giant baskets. The older elephants could eat them whole, but you had to peel them for the little guys. They were so sweet and gentle, and I was already loving the experience.
After bananas, we got to cross over the little, wooden fence to be with the elephants. Then we got to take our pictures, of course, while they ate their bamboo leaves. After a short water and coffee break, we walked with the elephants down to the pond to take a swim and then gave them a mud bathe, which we were told is to help protect the elephants’ skin.
Note: I will post a Go-Pro video of all of this to Facebook once I get it edited and uploaded, unfortunately, WordPress won’t let me add videos to my posts without paying extra.
I think the best part of the experience was watching the full-time workers (called mahouts) interact with the elephants. I only saw compassion and joy from each of the mahouts that spent the day with us. Of course, every person has a different opinion on if these “sanctuaries” are truly ethical or not. Some people believe all animals should not live anywhere but in their natural, wild habitat, others believe it’s a sustainable and healthy option to give elephants safe places to live that protect them from game-hunters. The mahouts explained that they think what they do is good because many farmers will shoot elephants for destroying their crops and fields. They also explained that many of the elephants are rescued from the logging industry, where they endured years of tough and abusive work. I don’t think I have enough information to come to a conclusion on what’s best for elephants in Thailand and much of the information available online has an obvious bias, but it did make me happy to feel the people working with the elephants every day really cared for them, and vice versa. Honestly, the babies showed much more affection and comfort with some of the full-time workers than with any of the tourists. And, if an elephant wasn’t feeling like being around all of us, the mahouts let the elephant wander off into the jungle, away from us if that’s what it wanted to do. I was given no red flags based on how our guides treated the elephants at our camp, and so it made me much more comfortable enjoying myself with the amazing creatures as well.
Unfortunately, after a basic but tasty lunch, it was time to say goodbye to our new friends (elephants and humans). The shuttle service provided by the sanctuary was kind enough to drop Gabby, Clare and I off at the Chiang Mai International Airport, where we would be catching our flight to Singapore in exactly two hours time. I was even lucky enough to somehow score the first row on the flight (hello, legroom!) — check back in soon, Singapore’s blog post is next!
Mckenzie Lena Halling 