Belated Bukit Lawang

With Indonesia containing 17,000 islands, you can imagine the difficulty we faced in choosing a destination here. The decision making process was also hindered by the free ice cream and wine in our hotel in Penang. Eventually though, we had made up our minds: we were to fly to Medan in Indonesia as there were a couple of places highly recommended in the Lonely Planet, and it was easy and cheap enough to fly there. At this stage we were unsure if we would head to the Sumatran Jungle from here, or if we would head to Lake Toba - a volcano just south of Medan.

I can't say that our first impressions of Medan and indeed Indonesia were positive. Matt was still feeling ill and the city itself didn't live up to expectations. It felt busy, dirty and there was building work going on everywhere; we wondered if it was perhaps due to the recent earthquake. It took us much longer than expected to arrive at the hotel too, and once we did, we realised that it was situated inside a train station, bizarrely. It was fine for one night, but was noisy and had a bad smell. There seemed to be little to do around there - even finding somewhere for dinner proved to be a challenge.

We started to wonder if we'd done the right thing in leaving the comforts of our nice hotel in Penang, and reached a unanimous decision to foreshorten our stay in Medan. And we are so glad we did, as one night was most certainly enough! After much deliberation we decided that we would love to have the chance to see some orangutans, and booked a taxi to Bukit Lawang, which is the only place other than Borneo in which these rare apes can be found. We would later be grateful of this decision - as we discovered a few days later that the volcano Mount Sinabung erupted whilst we were in Bukit Lawang, leaving a few people dead and many evacuated from the area around Lake Toba; very sad.

The journey to Bukit Lawang took around 3 hours and was an adventure in itself. Leaving Medan felt like a breath of fresh air - it was so nice to see the countryside again, and the tropical landscape only got better as the journey continued! Parts of this were a struggle for our cab driver as the roads were rife with pot holes and uneven road surfaces. But, we finally made it to Bukit Lawang in one piece, feeling more optimistic about Indonesia.

There's no doubt in out minds that this turned out to be one of our favourite places, and it exceeded our expectations on many levels. Bukit Lawang has a peculiar kind of charm and I think we fell in love with it straight away. Our guest house played a big part in this. Immediately we were greeted by a friendly man who guided us to our home for the next few days. We crossed a river, using a dodgy rope bridge, and had a small walk until we reached Junia Guest House. It was lovely, and had everything we needed and more. It overlooked the river, with the Sumatran jungle encroaching behind us. There were hammocks outside each of the rooms and cats lounged around everywhere. The communal area was filled with life every night, as guides played popular classics on acoustic guitar, along with some of their own tunes. This was more like it! To make matters better, the weather was a stark contrast to the forecast and remained sunny for most of the time here, with a few storms later on in the day but nothing unbearable.

Initially we wanted to find out more about how to see orangutans as I now had my heart set! There is in fact a rehabilitation centre for the orangutans in Bukit Lawang, which is where a lot of the rescued orangutans are sent in order to learn how to survive in the wild, as many of them lack the necessary skills. The aim is to fully rehabilitate them, so that they can survive independently of humans in the jungle. There's a feeding station at the centre which tourists can visit, too. However, we discovered that this is currently out of action as all of the orangutans have been rehabilitated successfully, which is great news! A lot of them hang around this area still though, probably associating it with food and human comfort.

The second way to see orangutans is to trek in the jungle, and that's what we did. According to our guide, the numbers in the wild are now increasing in Sumatra, which is just fantastic. We went on two jungle treks, which both turned out to be amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. A guide is absolutely necessary, mostly so you don't get mauled by the animals. They do not guarantee orangutan sightings, but I feel that we got very lucky with our experiences across the two days. We saw lots of different types of monkey, including rare White-Handed Gibbons, Thomas Leaf Monkeys (which are exclusive to Sumatra), poisonous snakes (not sure I liked these), and lots of creepy crawlies, including giant ants. The jungle is also home to the Sumatran tiger, elephants, rhinos and different types of bear; we didn't see any of these though!

Thomas Leaf Monkey with distinctive mohawk!

A long tailed macaque in deep contemplation of his lunch

Chowing down on a passionfruit

Poisonous snake

A pig tailed macaque taking particular interest in our lunch

Spot the gibbon

Some kind of giant fowl

The most amazing thing we saw was definitely the orangutans, and we feel incredibly lucky considering they are so close to extinction, (mostly as a result of deforestation and poaching). According to our guide, Sumatran orangutans are quite different to Borneo orangutans as they are smaller and prefer climbing. This is due to the fact that they are prey to the Sumatran tiger. We saw 7 orangutans on our first 3 hour trek, and then 8 on our second day, which was a full day trek. There were a mixture of rehabilitated and fully wild orangutans, which was nice to see. There were a couple of young males (like King Louie from the Jungle Book), and lots with babies with their mothers - it was so cute! Apparently the mothers stay with their young for up to 8 years, in order to teach them the skills they need to survive in the wild. This meant that there were plenty of adorable baby orangutans around for us to ogle!



Our guide was extremely knowledgeable, funny and had lots of interesting knowledge about the jungle. He kept us safe, and took us to all the right places. He quickly found us our first orangutan - and claims he is able to smell them out by their fresh poo, but we weren't entirely convinced! Our first orangutan encounter can only be described as magical: meeting Sandra (one of the rehabilitated orangutans) and her 1 year old baby, both swinging from the trees. Her baby was learning to climb and her mother was trying to build independence, but there to help her when necessary. The stories about the great apes were fascinating, and made us realise the close relationship they have with human beings, sharing over 96% of our DNA.

That day, we met a couple of other orangutans in a relatively short space of time, and this was just fascinating. After seeing a few, I didn't think we could top it. However, I had an incredible moment on our first day, where a wild orangutan (called Junie), climbed down from a tree with her baby with her. Instinctively, I held out my hand, unsure of what she would make of this. And to my surprise, she reached out to hold my hand, too! I can't tell you how amazing it was to be so close to her and the little one, and to make eye contact with this wonderful animal. She had a very strong grip, and she effortlessly pulled me towards her, which shouldn't have been too surprising as they are 5 times as strong as humans!

Her grip tightened and the guide handed me a banana to feed her. She politely accepted, and swapped her grip on my hand, from her hand to her foot. We were just staring at each other: me, the mother and the baby. It was a mixture of nerves and amazement that kept me there. I could feel the hair on her arm - which wasn't soft and furry as expected, but actually quite wiry! Once she'd finished chomping on her banana, she put my hand in her mouth as if she was about to bite it! I panicked a little, but according to the guide, she's never bitten anyone; it's simply her own way of getting food off humans (whatever works, I suppose!)

The guide later joked that orangutans jaws are incredibly strong, and they can bite through bone if they want to! I'm lucky that Junie was one of the more sociable orangutans who seems to like people. Understandably, they generally become protective after they've had a baby, but Junie was fine with me being so close, and didn't feel threatened. Matt even got a picture of her lovely baby, which I simply adore!

We learnt that Junie is the daughter of one of the orangutans in the jungle who has a reputation for all the wrong reasons! Her name is Mina and she is one of the orangutans who has been successfully rehabilitated into the wild. She's 40 years old, (which is quite old for an orangutan) and is now a grandmother! Her fearsome reputation in the jungle is based around her aggression towards  humans. In total, she has attacked over 400 people, including guides, rangers and tourists. Rather than climbing in the trees, she does a lot of walking, which means she is harder to hear. She has a very distinctive scar above her left eye brow - like a true Disney villain. Lots of the jungle guides here are afraid of her and claim to have scars from injuries that Mina has given them - the guides from our guest house all showed off their injuries and past scars they'd obtained from her!

Despite this, the injuries are rarely serious and she tends to bite people in order to scare them away. She could easily kill them, but chooses not to. The guides think that she has perhaps been badly treated by humans in the past, and that's why she's so aggressive towards them, but they don't know for sure.

Despite the fact she is aggressive towards people, she's afraid of a lot of the other orangutans here in the jungle, and tends to keeps her distance as a result. Mina is an excellent mum though; she's had 4 babies in total and her current baby is confident and healthy. Sometimes she lets her baby have play dates with the other baby orangutans. Apparently it's quite funny to see the mums sitting apart and not interacting, whilst the babies are busy playing together!

Anyway, after hearing the legendary stories about Mina, we were quite scared about meeting her in the flesh and blood, as you can imagine! On our second day of trekking, we went to the area that she likes to hang around in, and a guide had to go and scout out the area first to make sure it was safe. But Mina was there! After some time we heard our guide. We saw her silhouette over the hill, slowly following him. She was huge!  And had a baby on her back. I was simply in awe of this huge creature, and we also had a healthy level of fear!

Amazingly, the guide told us the coast was clear and she came and sat beside us, busy a few metres away.  The guide told us that she was in a good mood, but to keep a safe distance. He fed her some fruit (probably to maintain relations), and we all watched in amazement, taking photos of her expressive face, which was now staring right at us!

Her baby also started enjoying the fruit (very cute) and then climbed up a tree whilst Mina sat and watched us cautiously. The guide got a great picture of her with Matts camera!

These were the most amazing experiences we had in the jungle, without a doubt. But not to be outdone, was seeing many of the other flora and fauna and biodiverse wildlife, which were arguably equally amazing. I'm so pleased with all of the animals we managed to see in such a short space of time. Perhaps my only request would have been to meet Jackie - the orangutan who enjoys cuddling humans - but maybe we can save this for next time!

On our second day of trekking we ended our day with rafting, which took us right outside of our guest house from the jungle. It was so much fun, quite similar to white water rafting but in strange tubes that were tied together.

Makeshift raft - created from the inner tubes of tractor tires

 After our two days of trekking we felt fairly exhausted and spent the next two days going at our own pace, fuelled by chicken satay and pancakes. We visited the bat cave, a local highlight quite close to the village. Again, a guide was necessary for this, and he took us up a difficult path to get through three cave areas that contained all kinds of weird and wonderful wildlife. It was impressive but eerie, especially given that we were the only people in there, and had the foisty smell of bats lingering around.There were thousands of them, not to mention thousands of insects, some bigger than our hands, with very long legs and feelers. Really, it was the stuff of nightmares. Nesting swallows seemed to have claimed one of the caves, and crabs and unusual fish swam around in the shallow waters there. Getting around was a challenge as the rocks were slippy and one wrong move could have definitely resulted in a broken leg. Matt joked that it was like those films about policemen getting shot one day before retirement. But we made it out in one piece!

Tasty food

After stopping for lunch nearby, we had a stroll into the village, crossing another dodgy rope bridge. We bought some interesting wooden monkey souvenirs here, and had a nice stroll around. Everyone says hello and wants to chat - mostly to practice their English, as many do not attend school. We had a chat to an eccentric lady who told us about the 'medicine man', and some local tribal beliefs, and got approached by some English students who interviewed us for a project. We spoke to one group and had our answers to questions recorded on their phones. We even had to give our signatures and email addresses for them (not sure why, but seemed harmless enough), and had our pictures taken with them. After one group left, it wasn't long before we bumped into more students who wanted to interview us. Then some more. And more! In the end, we must have spoken to about 15 groups, giving the same answers to the same questions. I've been recorded saying "my favourite food in Indonesia is chicken satay" so many times. At one point one of the students asked Matt to sing, and he gave a rendition of Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash for them. It was so funny! We also kept having to read these promotional speeches off scripts for their website that went something like this:

"Hi, my name is Zoe, we've just been speaking to Master English students. They can speak English really well, just like natives! If you wanna be like them, register yourselves on the Master English Course. See you!"

Then, crossing the bridge back to our guest house went at snail pace because we got stopped by about ten locals, who all wanted to take pictures with us for some reason! We felt like celebrities.

It's fair to say our initial impressions of Indonesia were wrong and we ended up loving it. The food was great, the people were friendly and the landscape was beautiful (these still sound like answers we gave to some of the Master English students' questions!). We were by no means living in luxury in Bukit Lawang, but it did not hinder our enjoyment.

And so after saying our goodbyes to Bukit Lawang, we headed back to Medan to catch a flight to Kuala Lumpur. We would stay here a night before flying back home, having some comfort in a hotel in the middle of the city centre. We will most definitely come back to this part of the world again.

Foodie perks in Penang

We were so sad to leave Koh Tao but knew we had less than two weeks left in South East Asia and therefore the pressure of time was now upon us! We had already booked flights back home from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, but we had delayed the journey because the weather forecast predicted nothing but rain for everywhere South of Thailand. Plus, we loved Koh Tao so much that we struggled to bring ourselves to leave.

Eventually, we figured that cities would have plenty of indoor things to do and might be a sensible next step. The decision to then travel to Penang in Malaysia was based on two things: it was en route to our final destination, and the reports of the food here were superb. I am pleased to say that it did live up to expectations, and we loved it.

Penang is an island off the West Coast of Malaysia that's also known as "The Pearl of The East". We stayed in Georgetown, which is one of the more popular locations situated beneath some of the mountains, with plenty of foodie delights and things to see and do. It was much more relaxed than other big cities and a bit more pedestrian-friendly than most. Which was quite nice, given the general lack of accessible public transport around. There were more Muslims here than in the rest of South East Asia, and it was Mosques, rather than temples, that were among the main points of interest in the city.

On arrival at our hotel, we knew we would enjoy our time here, as the location was great and hospitality was fantastic. We were immediately handed free wine vouchers, and were promised free ice cream and free laundry - what's not to love? It also had a nice rooftop bar that gave a great view of the mountains and city. Mostly, the weather was fine here, but late afternoons and evenings would bring great thunderstorms. It was a memorable welcome to Penang - seeing the skies lit up by lightning and watching the rain drum on the rooftops.

View from the hotel roof

I can't say that we did a great deal in Penang; it was simply a nice place to  hang around. The atmosphere was friendly and welcoming, but the best part was the cuisine here: plenty of fusions of Malay and Chinese influence, and anything and everything from South East Asia could be found here.

On our first night, we visited a local restaurant that was highly recommended for its excellent Chinese food. It was heaving with locals and the staff were always on the go. We tried the speciality dishes that consisted of caramelised, twice-roasted pork belly and honey roasted chicken. It was fantastic; so much so that we visited twice during our stay!

The following day we had an explore and a flurry of activity. Penang was an interesting city, with street art on many street corners and hidden gems where you'd least expect them. Our first find was a chocolate museum, which turned out not to be a museum so much as a shop, that provided us with a hefty share of free testers, (which have always been one of my minor pleasures in life). According to the ladies who worked in the shop, Malaysia is famous for its chocolate and coffee. Who'd have thought, ey! We couldn't resist buying some souvenirs from here; we were feeling a slight sense of obligation given the amount of free stuff we had consumed there. We ended up buying some Durian chocolates here, which weren't as smelly as we had expected (at this stage at least). (Sorry Granddad, Grandpa and Uncle Geoff, hope they are make it back in an edible state!)

Street art of Penang

Our next port of call was the National Museum, which had the refuge of air conditioning (ahhhh!), and contained lots of historical details about Penang and how immigration has shaped it - which can be seen in the culture and varied nationalities that exist today, not to mention the food.

By pure chance, we stumbled upon a superb vegetarian restaurant after this, which served some tasty noodle soup and pau sesame dumplings, which turned out to be my favourite. They were stuffed with some kind of BBQ mushroom that tasted just like meat, and fried in sesame seeds. I had far too many of these - but no regrets.

After lunch, we ventured off to take a look at some more of the sights and visited Fort Cornwallis. Built by the East India Company in the 18th Century, the fort was never actually used in warfare and still remains intact to this day. By this stage I was practically in a dumpling coma and had to be dragged around the fort by  Matt by means of force. I was desperate for a nap to escape the afternoon and the fort bunker was a tempting place for it. But I battled on! Following this, we passed the clock tower; a key part of the city that leans ever so slightly to one side - not precarious at all!

Evenings in Penang were fun and exciting, given the huge varieties of places to eat and drink, and of course the thunderstorms, that started early evening and continued through the night. We have memories of heading out in our poncho and mac-in-a-sack, feeling like massive, waterproof tourists. Another favourite place of ours to visit on the evenings turned out to be a food hall that consisted of around 30 different stalls with cuisine from all over Asia and beyond. You could get anything and everything here, including claypot frog porridge and fish head soup. Tasty! Needless to say, we didn't fancy these, and decided to stick to our much loved BBQ pork pau dumplings and even found some nice Mexican food to dabble in. A Malaysian man in a questionable Hawaiian shirt played some happy music on a keyboard, which further added to the atmosphere.

All of this eating and drinking was clearly too much work for us and for a couple of days after the semi-busy day we didn't do much, apart from potter around our hotel watching films and reading books. By this stage we also discovered the free ice cream stall in the hotel - so why would we leave? It was quite simply a nice place to be, and a couple of days there was enough for us to see and do everything we fancied.

Overall, Penang was an excellent place to go for any food lover and it was so different to everywhere else we had been. The real dilemma we faced was where to go next, as our options felt limited by both time and the weather forecasts - which seemed to predict torrential downfalls for all the places we wanted to go in Malaysia and Indonesia. We eventually reached a decision, but this was most certainly delayed by the free ice cream and wine that was provided by our nice hotel, which we were so reluctant to leave!

Chilling in Koh Tao

So, when finished in Chiang Mai, we headed down to the south of the country, keen to see what island life might be like. We started with a flight down to Bangkok, then a train to Chumphon, and finally a catamaran to Koh Tao, a little slice of island life, famous for the diving and snorkelling opportunities available.

As soon as we arrived at our hotel, we realised that there were very few taxis on the island, and no tuk-tuks, so we followed the crowd and rented another motorbike for pootling around the island. We celebrated Zoe’s birthday, and our arrival, at a fantastic Italian place (called Thalia, if you’re interested), ran by a charming and eccentric chap, who seemed to us to be a mixture of Basil and Manuel, from Fawlty Towers. His whole menu was hand-written in Italian, and though he could have saved himself some work and written translations next to each, he seemed to prefer talking each table through the options, and we were very happy with the results.

It’s fair to say that we fell in love with Koh Tao - we originally meant to stay for 3 days, but ended up extending and extending our stay, until we had been there for 11. I count us as lucky to have managed to pull ourselves away - we met lots of people (mostly divers) who had only meant to stay for a few weeks, and had found themselves in the same place years later

I think one of the big reasons we liked it so much was the size of the island, how much quieter it was than so many of the places we’ve been, and how liberating it was to be able to get around under our own steam - there was one main road around the island, and it took only about 15 minutes to get from one side to the other. In fact, we agree that every place we’ve rented bicycles or motorbikes has held a special place in our regard, and think that is very likely because of how fun it is to travel independently - to not need to look for bus stops, or haggle with a taxi driver, or walk amongst traffic, but to have the power to go where you like, when you like.

Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with a day-by-day account of what we did on the island, because we spent a lot of time enjoying being very lazy. On day two, we found a beautiful beach (one of many), and dared to go snorkelling in the crystal blue waters, after a little while shadebathing in factor 30 suncream. It was beautiful, and in half an hour we saw scores of pretty fish, of all shapes and sizes - it made me wish, not for the first time, for a waterproof camera!

Note the smiles - this was clearly BEFORE suffering a scalding

However, our milky-white complexions rebelled against this prolonged exposure, and we both got pretty badly sunburnt on our backs, boo! We think this was worse than usual because of the antimalarial medication we’ve been taking (doxycycline), which increases photosensitivity, boo.

So! We spend a few days hiding from the sun, scuttling from shadow to shadow. In the evenings, we had fun going on drives to different viewpoints overlooking the island to watch the sun set, and going to a range of tasty restaurants for yummy food. I can imagine worse places to be stuck whilst recuperating.

Once our backs were slightly less lobster-like, and we had kitted ourselves out with some long-sleeved tops and waterproof factor 50 suncream, we were ready for the water again! This time, we jumped onto a big boat with a load of other tourists, and were taken around the island, stopping at five different spots for some more snorkelling. This was great fun, and we saw all sorts of fish again, often ending up right in the middle of a school. As an added bonus, we had clearly learned from our last experience, and our sensitive skin survived the day of blazing sunshine - feeling more than a little schadenfreude for those in our group who had started the day sunbathing, and ended it looking like tomatoes! I’m a bad person.

Next day we went for our first experience of scuba diving, after getting a taste for the water, and hearing that we were in one of the best places in the world to try it. This was an experience that was obviously very exciting, but also quite nerve wracking - breathing underwater is in no way natural, and the animal part of your brain takes a lot of convincing otherwise!

Still, we felt that we were in good hands, with an instructor who had been teaching on the island for 8 years (another who had only meant to stay for a few weeks at the start!), Xavier. He talked us through the basic techniques we would need to be safe in the water, and sorted us out with our equipment. We were taken out on a boat with quite a few other divers, who would be doing their own thing, and meeting up with us at the end.

Our dive started in shallow water, where we gradually allowed ourselves to descend to the sea floor. Once here, on our knees and totally submerged, it took a few seconds for breathing to feel normal. After acclimatizing, we went through the techniques we’d been shown earlier to demonstrate to our instructor that we were going to be safe in the water - the most important skill here was how to find your mouthpiece in a cool and collected manner, in case it went missing. After this, we were off into the deep end!

It was great getting to explore the reefs from so close, and to see the hundreds and thousands of fish living happily below the surface. We were under for 45 minutes, but it felt like five. After a short while, I almost forgot that we were underwater, and instead felt like I was a hot air balloon flying over an alien landscape.I wish I could do justice to just how beautiful it was, but I’m not a poet, so you’ll have to make do with photos that I definitely took myself, honest.

Honestly

The rest of our time in Koh Tao was spent finding more ways to chill out - more tasty food, more unique sunsets, and more time enjoying the views. We went out snorkelling one more time around shark bay, and weren’t actually disappointed when we didn’t see a shark.

After what seemed like a lovely lifetime on the island, it was time to go - we jumped on the catamaran again, to a bigger island nearby (Koh Samui), from whose garden centre airport we were flying to Malaysia...

Ciao, Chiang Mai

Following on from our time in the Laotian treetops, we headed back to where our journey had started weeks and weeks ago - to Thailand again. This time, we were looking at the north of the country, a place called Chiang Mai, which was supposed to be a particular highlight of southeast Asia - we had heard lots about it, so approached with high expectations.

As with many of our destinations, this city was very old, and as such had a lot of history. We stayed near the old town, which had in the past been a huge fortress with thick walls and a moat. Fortunately, these defences haven't been needed much in the last few centuries, and so the city has been able to spill out over them, and now goes on for miles in every direction, with temples of all shapes and sizes scattered around.

Either a very good waxwork, or an even better example of meditation

There’s not much to say about our first few days in the city, so I’ll try not to waffle. It was hot, very hot - most days were over 40 degrees - and so we even the slightest exertion left us sweating profusely and running for our next air conditioned cafe. Despite this, we managed to explore one or two of the dozens of temples, some of the many bookshops that were to be found, and a 3D art museum. The latter was a fun way to spend an hour or two, and made a change from temple-gazing. Plus, most importantly, it was air conditioned.

Wine o'clock is earlier every day

Oh, and a special mention should go to the nice Indian restaurant we found - so nice, we went twice.

After a few lazy days like this, we came on to the main events of our visit to Chiang Mai - firstly, another cookery course! Avid readers will remember that we went on one in Vietnam as well, and we couldn’t skip an opportunity to learn about yummy Thai food as well. This course was an evening affair, and started with a trip to a nearby market to learn more about the ingredients - sadly no embarrassing hats this time, except for the one I usually wear.

Once we’d finished gathering supplies, it was time to get started. This time, instead of each of us making one big dish and sharing with the group, we were each making several different dishes for ourselves, which meant for a much busier lesson!

The first dish we made was Pad Thai, a classic stir fry, that you can find everywhere - from posh restaurants to petrol stations, everyone has their own version of it in Thailand. They ranged from “meh” to “wow”, and I’m happy to say that we were taught how to make a particularly “wow” dish. The main ingredients are chicken, rice noodles, garlic, egg, soy sauce, fish sauce, tamarind sauce, carrot and beansprouts. Preparation was pretty simple, and once everything was ready to go, it seemed like less than five minutes until each of us had our own tasty dish. This is one that we’re both keen to get into the habit of making back at home - quick, tasty, and healthy!

After that, we moved on to a few other dishes. We were taught (for the third time this trip!) how to make spring rolls, and then we were divided into groups to start making different curry pastes.

Each group started with an alarmingly large pile of different spices - mostly fresh or dried chilli, depending on which curry was desired - and then started pounding them into a paste using an industrial-sized mortar and pestle. This was hard work, but made easier by sharing with team members, and in the knowledge of the yumminess this would bring about.

Red, green, penang and massaman curry pastes

After that, it was a simple matter of deciding how sexy we were each feeling - this was how our teacher asked how hot we dared to make our curries. I’ll let you guess what answers we gave.

As expected, the curries were super-delicious - I made a Massaman, and Zoe did a Penang. We’ll definitely be making more of these in the future, and hopefully with our own paste, if our desire for fresh and tasty food overcomes our innate laziness when faced with the alternative of a pre-made spice pack (boo, hiss!). Happily, we were given another recipe book here, so will have something to blame at future dinner parties, if the food is too sexy to handle.

Third time is the charm

For our final full day in Chiang Mai, it was a treat for Zoe’s birthday - a trip to a nearby elephant sanctuary! There seem to be more elephant sanctuaries up in the north of Thailand than you can shake a stick at, but it takes a bit of research and detective work to find out which are worth supporting - each one will say that they rescue these creatures from unhappy lives, but quite a few will be continuing with bad habits, and offering rides or even trying to keep them tame with threats of pain. Fortunately, our friends Heather and Laura had done all the hard work (thanks!) for us, so we were happy to follow their lead and visit Elephant Nature Park for the day.

So, we were picked up and driven to the reserve. As we travelled, we were shown a fairly harrowing documentary about the work the park does, which started by showing some of the horrible treatment an elephant has to endure to work with humans, either as an animal to be ridden, a performer in a circus, or as part of a logging team. These are wild and gentle creatures, and it’s not natural for them to do any of these jobs - in order to get them ready, their spirits are literally broken through torture and misery, until they learn that to disobey their handler means further pain.

Personally, I had known little of this in the past, and have ridden an elephant once before, years ago. However, after getting on, it quickly became clear how unhappy the animal was, with chains around it’s legs and stuck on the same route every day with heavy loads to carry. The only happy part of that experience was giving the elephant a bath afterwards, which she seemed to enjoy. Zoe has had a similar experience, and since then neither of us has had any desire to support that side of their treatment, though we can completely understand the appeal of such activities to other travellers, who may not know better.

So! As you may have guessed, the aim of this park was to rescue elephants from unhappy lives in captivity, and give them a new life as close to being back in the wild as they could manage. A big part of their plan was to motivate the gentle giants with pleasure, rather than pain - the difference between a banana and a stick. We went on a “Pamper a Pachyderm” package, where we spent the day taking four old elephant ladies on a walk around the park. Like many old ladies, their day started with being fed dozens of halved watermelons, followed by a morning dirt bath. The oldest, (and coincidentally grumpiest) of the group was a lady called Happy, who was in her seventies, and needed some of the skins cut off her watermelons, so she could manage them with her teeth - no colossal dentures were available, sadly.

Happy!

We were each given a satchel full of bananas, and took the ladies off on their stroll, giving them encouragement in fruity form whenever they became distracted. It was really nice getting so close to them again, and with our bags of fruit we certainly felt popular - there was always a trunk prodding and pestering for more! As soft as these ladies were, it was very obvious that they could crush us without noticing, if we were stood between them and a good meal. This lent an undercurrent of danger, not usually experienced on leisurely park strolls!

It was a nice day for a walk, though by the time we stopped for lunch, we could see that clouds were starting to gather, and the ominous rumblings  were starting from the horizon. Still, what’s the worst that could happen?

Oh, yeah, stampede!

So! Just as we were fording a shallow river back to the start of our stroll, the heavens opened. What started as drizzle very quickly turned to a downpour, and that wasted no time in becoming a proper hailstorm, with thunder and lightning directly above us, and chunks of ice the size of marbles being flung at us by strong wind, sending Zoe's hat flying. This biblical storm also came as a surprise to the elephants we were with, and they started running around like, well, wild animals. Me, Zoe and the other tourists were led of in one direction by our group leader, whilst the elephant minders had to run off in the other, to try and calm down their partners - I did not envy them at this point. Hysteria nearly overwhelmed the group when some of the ladies came charging back towards us, but we were fortunately able to scurry away behind a truck before disaster struck.

With that drama behind us, we were taken to shelter in a nearby porch to wait for things to die down. After a little while, the rain stopped, and pretty soon the sun was shining again, as the apocalypse had never really happened. However, our soaked clothes told a different story. Somehow, one of the guides even managed to find Zoe's hat, and the two were unexpectedly reunited. Of course, as it the way with her and headgear, this was only a temporary reprieve, and shortly afterwards hat number four was forever lost, again.

Happily, the old ladies we had been shepherding had been coaxed back to safety, and we gave them their second crate of watermelons as an afternoon snack, before saying goodbye. Our last experience at the Elephant Nature Park was a visit to their newest arrival - a baby elephant, who was only five days old! The mum already had a three year-old baby, and because she was still breastfeeding, AND the gestation time for an elephant is near two years, they had no idea she was even pregnant until a commotion one night heralded this very welcome arrival. It took some serious detective work to figure out who the father was, given that little one was conceived on the sly so long ago.

This marked the end of our trip to the Elephant Park, and of our time in Chiang Mai. Next, we were heading to the south of Thailand!

A special mention should also go the the five hundred dogs that the park has running around, most of whom were rescued after being abandoned in the floods affecting large areas of Thailand in 2011. Zoe was in heaven, and I had to frisk her afterwards to be sure she wasn't smuggling two or three out.