At last! After a long planning and a few setbacks, we finally agreed to spend this year Eid in Chiang Mai. Since we live in Langkawi, we arrange our transportation via boat to Satun (Thailand). It took 45 minutes to get there. Another two hours from Satun to HatYai airport. From Hatyai it took us another 2 hours by plane to Chiang Mai.
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| Tuk Tuk |
I loved this city. It is beautiful in its own way. An old city with waterway within the city. At time I felt I was transported back to the 1970's era, yet the bustling of the little city brought me back to the present day. I swear the time flies ever so slow in this city. Not only me feel this way, but the children were saying the same thing. One hour seemed to take an eternity.
Our second day there, right after breakfast (great selection of food by the way) we left for Elephant Camp. Chiang Mai is famed for its elephant so I guess this is one way of getting to know the city. We left by an MPV with Khui as our driver. It was quite a long drive. About 1 hour 15 minutes. For those of you interested to visit this camp, it's best to scout around for the prices before settling for one. That's what we did. Through the internet there were rates at RM250.00 per person. Some are lower at RM200.00 and some at RM150.00.
I booked directly once I got to the camp. I paid RM150.00 for each of us and that include elephant ride, ox cart, lunch and rafting.The one that we went was ChokChai Elephant Camp as other camp was full. The ride was great. Each elephant would carry two persons. At times we thought the sweet big monster would fall down the steep hill and we would be squashed under its weight. It was truly frightening for me. Ariff, my son got to ride alone since his size would be comfortable for one person only.
But the one behind us was being cruel to his elephant. We were inside the the little river when I heard a loud thump. I turned around and saw this mahout was hitting the elephant's head so hard that we can hear clearly even though we were a good fifty meters ahead of them. I yelled at the guy on top of my voice wanting him to stop the hitting. He couldn't care less about the people around him and carried on with his beating. The elephant was bleeding on its right ear. Without realizing it, I was crying. We, human would exploit everything to make a quick cash. And we the customers are to be blamed as well. We'd agree to pay for some money just to have some fun at the expense of the animals brutality.
I had always have a soft spot for animals since I was raised as a country girl by my grandparents.
Our package included an ox cart ride, I was thrilled. I didn't know what to expect. When we were shown to our cart, the thrill was gone. The bull looked sick and the ride was boring. Lucky thing it only took about 10 minutes.
If any of you wish to take this trip, you might as well take the full package because they will only less out a few bucks if you decided to withdraw from one or two items.
Next came rafting. Oh this was an absolute fun. No animals involved. They provided two raft handlers in each raft, one at the back and the other at the front. Ours were young. They must be not more than eighteen years old, but they were good and know what they were doing. The rapid was mild, so I am good. The rafting was about 8 kilometers ( Iam not too sure about the distance). Just before we reached the little pier, the boy said something in English that none of us understand. He said something like " Tis pinit, please tif." We were like huh? What was he trying to say? Then he used the universal gesture. He rubbed his middle finger with his thumb and looked at me hoping I would understand. Yes, I did. He was asking for tips. He was trying to say "This finish, please tips". It was quite shocking for us for them to ask tipping plain outright. But we tipped him anyway as they were doing alright and these young adults worked hard for their money.
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| Long Neck Karen Tribe |
On our way back to the hotel, I asked Khun Kui to stop us at the Long Neck Karen village (tribe). I was interested to see how they live their everyday lives. Entrance tickets was way overboard. If you were to ask me, it was a daylight robbery. Per person is RM50.00 (equivalent to USD 16.00) At first I thought the village was big and we would be able to roam freely around their village and that the entrance ticket would somehow find a way to them. After paying the tickets and while making our way into the village, I felt that the money didn't go to these people. I said that because when I was buying a scarf from this one sweet girl ( she was so soft and polite), I asked her where does she live. She pointed to a little bamboo hut opposite her handicraft stall. When looked at it, I couldn't believe my eyes. If you look closely at the picture above, that is exactly the kind of a home they lived.
Walking further inside, there were many other stalls that sell scarf materials and handicraft that could easily made one wanting to purchase everything there is there.
I particularly felt a sharp pain inside when a I saw this little girl, most probably nine or ten years old, hand-weaving the silk fabric to be sold at her stall. She had this brass coil around her neck like many of her predecessor did and she didn't look at all happy. She spoke quite an adequate English for me to understand. She answered my questions religiously but that is all there is to it. Quite plainly, she seemed unhappy with what was going on around her.
Sigh.. I wish I could do more for these children. They were living in such a horrible state of living condition and yet all these people carried on with their lives humbly and without much fuss unlike us who criticize about almost everything that came our way.
It humbled me to see how hard these people had to break their bones just to survive from day to day without showing any resentment to what life had to offer.
I think I will stop here for today. Maybe tomorrow or day after I'll update another post so we can share some information in case you guys were thinking of visiting Chiang Mai somewhere in the near future.
Good nite all,
Rose
14th.Aug '13
