2013 Thailand – Chiang Mai
Our flight to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand was supposed to be an hour and a half but only took an hour. We were greeted at the hotel with a cold towel, a fruit juice and a big smile. We were in luck because every Sunday they closed the main road through the city and turned it into a giant market. The side roads were also closed so there were little shows here and there and large areas set aside for food. The atmosphere was fantastic and unlike the indoor malls in Bangkok which were freezing, the temperature that evening was very comfortable. We were pottering around the market when suddenly everyone stopped where they were and the national anthem was played over a loudspeaker system. It was quite an eerie experience when one minute the place was buzzing with activity and the next there was total silence. 
One woman who must have been 100 years old was selling beautiful hanging origami figures. She was not able to get off her chair and didn’t speak English so she pointed to a card with the prices on. Federika bought a few for presents and was served by a young woman I assumed was a member of her family.
There were lots of interesting street musicians including an elderly husband and wife with him playing a strange-looking wind instrument while she danced using only her hands.
A pop group played on a large stage with very young girls singing and doing simple dance routines and you couldn’t help but love them.
Next morning we booked a taxi driver for half a day which only cost £15 to take us wherever we wanted. We started with what we thought was a snake farm but turned out to be a snake show. We sat in a small arena and a man appeared. He took two cobras out of a basket and carefully placed them on the floor in front of him. The cobras were highly poisonous and lightning fast so it was surprising to see the man teasing them both. He waved his hand a few inches from them and even whacked them on the head and although they tried to strike they missed every time. The man did have several fingers missing so maybe the trick wasn’t always so successful. At one point he leant forward and kissed them on the head and even put one in his mouth.
He put the cobras back in the box and produced a small snake called a Jumping Rat Snake which was not poisonous but did bite. Unlike the cobras, this snake was determined to slither towards the audience which caused much screaming and running away but the handlers dragged it back to the centre. Next came a giant python which the man put into a pool of water where pythons are most dangerous. He jumped into the pool with the python and disappeared under the water until suddenly he surfaced with the python around his neck.
The highlight of the show was when he went hunting around in one of the snake boxes and suddenly threw one into the middle of the audience. People became hysterical and one girl ran out of the arena and refused to come back. The man assured her that she would be safe but it was not easy accepting assurance from a man with missing body parts so she stayed where she was. It turned out to be just a piece of rope that he had thrown. It was a very entertaining show although probably less so for the snakes. As we were walking away from the arena we saw the snake man and he invited us to hold one of the snakes. Much as I wanted to get my hands on the snake, my job as head cameraman prevented me so I graciously allowed Federika to do it. The snake wrapped itself around Federika’s neck and I was amazed at how well she took to it and even enjoyed stroking its skin.
Next stop was a monkey show where we were greeted with a monkey in a cage not much bigger than itself. There was a long pit with monkeys tied to stakes with ropes only a couple of feet long so they could do little more than walk in small circles all day. When the show started the monkeys did various tricks but it soon became too distressing to watch. At the entrance it said the monkeys were set free at 5 pm every day which we assumed meant there was a large, netted enclosure where they had some freedom but when we asked where this place was, suddenly no one spoke a word of English. It was obvious they were kept in tiny cages and only let out to perform their tricks. I filmed some of it but ended up deleting it. So why did I feel bad about the monkeys being kept in small cages but not about snakes being kept in boxes? It seems to me that humanity only extends to the cute and cuddly. Keep a cat in a tiny cage all its life and you will be arrested but do the same with a chicken until it is time to stick it in the oven and it’s “pass the roast potatoes” every time.
Last stop was Tiger Kingdom. For an exorbitant fee, you got to sit with a cuddly, man-eating tiger. It was a bit scary at first but we soon got used to it as the only thing the tigers were interested in was sleeping. Entrance fees were dependent on the size of the tiger we wanted to see so we paid to see them all. The small ones were fun as they played together like kittens. The big ones looked pretty docile but had the same look that domestic cats give their owners which says, “keep me fed and you’ll be safe.” The main danger was the trees which had electrified wire around them to stop tigers from climbing. We were warned about the wire but now and again I forgot and brushed up against one which gave quite a nasty shock.
Tuesday 3rd December
More temples today and whilst they were all very interesting I was beginning to wonder how many more I could take. To me, one statue of Buddha looks much the same as another but the artist in Federika seems to be able to discern a difference. It was strange that most of the tourist attractions had information in Thai only, even though most of the tourists were not Thai. It always amused me to see the inventive ways people found of making money and outside one temple there was an enterprise I thoroughly approved of. A woman was selling little cages containing small birds. For a small fee, she handed you a cage and you get to set the birds free and watch them fly into the trees or into the mouth of a waiting cat. I suppose there was always the possibility that they were trained birds that flew around in a circle and went back to the woman as soon as our back was turned.
The next day we went on an organised tour of an elephant sanctuary. There were many elephant tours to choose from but after the experience with the monkeys, we didn’t want to go to one where you rode the elephants or there was a show. We chose one that was a rescue sanctuary for elephants that had been abused. Some of the stories we were told were harrowing but at least now they were living in peace and comfort. Most had been used for logging, some for begging on the street and some for circuses. One had stepped on a land mine in Burma and had his foot badly damaged. Another had both hips broken by being forced to mate when she was too young. There were so many heartbreaking stories.
We started the day by feeding the elephants with bananas and bits of pumpkin. They ate tons of food each day so whatever we gave them was gobbled up in no time.
The rest of the day was spent going from elephant family to family and getting to know them. 
They all seemed very friendly but suddenly our guide insisted we got into the Land Rover as Naughty Boy was coming. This was a baby elephant that was running towards us and we were told he was the only elephant in the reserve that could be aggressive. He certainly had that look in his eye but when he got close they shooed him away so there was never any danger.
I loved the way the elephants spent a lot of their day looking around for places to scratch themselves. Life must be hell when you don’t have fingernails to give yourself a good scratch. One elephant spent ages rubbing himself against a wooden pillar but the poor thing looked like it couldn’t quite hit the spot.
The highlight of the day came when we went down to the river to bathe the elephants. A group of us stood on either side of an elephant throwing buckets of water over them with a lot of the water going over the top and falling on the people on the other side. It was great fun and ended more like a water fight than an elephant bath. While all this went on, the elephants continued to munch away happily at their food looking at us sarcastically as you would do with kids playing the fool.
2013 South East Asia
