Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Elephants, Waterfalls, and Rapids, Oh My! (Day 14)

So we woke up bright and early for our morning excursion and headed downstairs to catch our van. We checked out and left our bags behind the front counter. I was feeling a little queasy from some wine I had bought the night before. I thought it was a 22 oz. beer because it was in that section, but the writing was in Thai, so I could not read it. The van pulled up with our Thai driver and our guide, Joy, who was a young, very energetic and enthusiastic Thai lady with a great sense of humor and pretty good English. There were four Brits in the back looking like the previous night had put a mean hurtin on them. We then picked up a German couple from another guest house and headed out toward the mountains. Throughout the hour and a half long ride and the rest of the day as well, Joy continually commented about how unattractive she was to Thai men because she was dark. She said that women were expected to be fair skinned and work indoors in the air conditioning. She preferred to be outside and got a lot of sun, so she had a really nice tan and was ashamed and felt guilty. She was very sad and felt that she would not find a husband. My sister tried to comfort her by pointing out the irony that Westerners try so hard to get tans like hers and that she would be beautiful by our standards and that seemed to help a little.

Our tour began by riding on an ox cart. Three of the Brits were guys in the 30's and there was one girl that was 19. They were pretty amusing and energetic despite being extremely hungover and, as my brother would say, wet-brained. The ox cart was mildly amusing, an ox, pulling a rickety little cart very slowly down a dirt path while pooping everywhere. hmmmmm....We then "trekked" (read: walked along a path) to this place, which was kind of our base camp.

We set up shop here and fed the elephants as the Thai guys got them fitted with their saddles.

They were not all that nice to the elephants, which made my sister very sad. We were nice to them though and fed them lots of fruit which they would gobble right out of our hands.

We then mounted these giant beasts and began our walk through the jungle up a steep, narrow, muddy path. We continued on and eventually got to a stream and the elephants did not hesitate to jump right in. The Germans had left us at this point as they were on a different excursion and would meet back up with us later. They let us ride on the neck of the elephant, but my sister was too scared. I rode it the rest of the way back, which was fun, but also a little unnerving at times.

The Brits were having a bit more trouble as one elephant ran up into the brush in search of food and the other just ran back to the camp. We were headed slow and steady though. When we got back, they served us a vegetarian pad thai and some very fresh pineapple for lunch. We then fed the pineapple rinds to the elephants, who seemed very grateful. I guess they let them run free for a few hours through the jungles in the afternoons, but it hardly seems like a desirable life nonetheless. Next up, we trekked to a "hill tribe village". The scenery was beautiful.

I didn't get any pics of the "village" though as it was just several bamboo huts and only one had a woman and her baby in it. It did not look like they actually lived there or anyone else did either. Joy told us that they move away for work and come back once in a while, but we all felt like it was pretty staged. We continued on to this ginormous waterfall.

and that was just the bottom half. Here's the top.

We swam and hung out under the falls. The British girl slipped on a rock and cut her side open. It looked pretty rough. We then got back in the van and headed to another "village". At first glance, no one lived there either because it was a bunch of stalls with vendors who dressed up just for us. Behind the stalls were some homes with families living in them. It was pretty cool to watch the kids running around, chasing chickens and what not. We then rode in the back of a pick-up truck to the spot where we would go rafting. It was pouring rain at this point, which made the water that much faster and more raging. My sister and I were in a boat wit ze Germans who met back up with us, as well as Joy and our Thai captain. The Brits were in the other boat with their Thai captain. The rapids were definitely fun and more intense than I expected. We had splash fights with the other boat between each of the rapids and had a great time overall. WE then got dried off, while the Brits smoked some kind of local wacky tabacky with the locals and then we made it back in perfect time to change our clothes and get to the bus station.

We caught a tuk-tuk there and grabbed some food before getting on the bus. The food was pretty disappointing overall.

It was fatty, bland pork, some dry beef, and stew with a meatless bone in it and no spice. But wait...what do you mean there's no toilet on the bus for a 10 hr. ride back to Bangkok? Luckily they stopped periodically. I listened to music and slept most of the ride back. I knew it was going to be a long day of traveling, but by the end of it all, we would be in Siem Reap, ready to go see Angkor Wat.

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