Getting Our Feet Wet in Thailand

Here we are! In Thailand! Woo!

And we finally feel like we’re here. It took us a bit more time to get settled, honestly, than on previous trips. I’d say it was definitely a week before we were feeling our normal adventurous selves, able to do more than one activity a day before sitting under the air conditioner and staring into space. Was it the Major (with a capital m) time difference? The more profound otherness of the way of life? The Humidity (with a capital h)? All of it?

But. We acclimated. We’re here! And we have plenty to show for our first destination in Thailand: the island of Phuket.

We stayed in a smaller town, Kamala, with a beach and an open air food market and a 7/11 and lots of Russian tourists.

You already know we gravitate toward quieter places. Where we can learn all the streets (and which ones have cows). And we also got massages as a family. (Which unfortunately backfired a little. One of us had an allergy to the oil and spent 2 days with itchy ouchy full-body hives. And one of us got bruises from the super-human fingers of those women. And one of us is still occasionally woken from twitching muscles after a nerve was excited a little too much. And one of us enjoyed it very much in the moment.) And we found the best place for smoothies (which were literally a single kind of fruit and ice, blended to perfection).

And when we wanted more, we took a Grab (Asian Uber) wherever the mood (or adventure) struck. Like to the town of Phuket. Where we wandered the old streets and touristy shops. Stopped at several Buddhist and Daoist shrines. And had to eventually give in and purchase the ubiquitous plastic ponchos.

Also in Phuket, we gambled with our lives and hiked up Monkey Hill. We were trying to find a particular geocache at the summit. And had to repeatedly run the monkey gauntlet to progress up the trail. Mostly the animals were totally benign. Sometimes even cute. And mostly we took the coward’s way out and walked only when there were other people already passing through. But once I had teeth bared at me. Once a street dog growled at us. And once a monkey leapt at me and tried to grab my water bottle from my pack. Which is when Tessa officially stopped having fun. And when we turned around, even without finding our cache. But with our lives (and health) intact!

We snuck in a few moments at some beaches around the island. Although the weather was not the greatest for beaching. Red flags flew everywhere, due to waves and undertow. And rain. Lots and lots of rain.

And when I say rain, I mean Rain (with a capital r). We lost power one evening, and didn’t go a single day without a storm. What a different world than ours at home!

And of course, we ate well. We ate really really well. Salads and soups and noodles and smoothies and once a pizza and curries and fresh fruit. Repeat.

We even took a cooking class, which included a produce market tour. To up our skills and gain some knowledge and increase the odds that we could make some of these delicious dishes at home. Although some ingredients are going to be hard to find, like pea-sized green eggplants and tendrilly finger root and tangy tamarind paste.

The shining experience of our stay, though, had to be the morning we spent at an elephant sanctuary.

In the end, we chose a place with a lot of elephant-person interaction. (Which is obviously pretty far from a wild elephant’s normal life.) But which uses humane methods of control, employs vets, keeps the number of animals low, and upkeeps a natural environment for them.

In researching ethical sanctuaries, you quickly learn there is quite a range of philosophies defining “ethical”. We already knew we were going to avoid places that offer rides and shows. But what about bathing? Petting? Feeding? Interacting one on one at all?

So what did we do during our visit? We started by feeding them. We were assigned elephants (ours were Dobby, Lana, and Pimpa) and allotted 2 hampers of watermelon slices each. We handed off a slice at a time to eager trunks. The elephants would wrap the ends of their trunks around a slice and transfer it to their mouths with a great *squish*. I was surprised with the strength of their trunks. I mean, I guess I knew they can move trees, but they’re skinny little appendages (relative to the animal at least)! But of course, trunks are powerful and muscley, and could certainly move me out of the way if desired. Luckily, I had a steady stream of watermelon going, and later balls of rice and pumpkin and beans and bananas.

All 7 of the elephants here are rescued or retired ladies. Their previous lives were either circus-ish or as beasts of burden (like moving downed trees for jungle farmers). Now they each have a full-time human caregiver who lives with them, cares for them, feeds them, talks to them, bonds with them 24/7. Now that’s a career choice!

Then we climbed into the mud with them. We scooped up gray globs from under the water and spread it on their bodies. Did they need this treatment? I mean, probably not. They are more than capable of their own skin care regimen. It was definitely a “tourists will like this” activity. But did the elephants mind? I’d say it ranged from mild enjoyment of being in the water to great indifference. But it meant we got to touch them more! What does an elephant feel like, you ask? Our varied descriptions: like flexible sandstone; bristly; like old crusty leather.

And then came the deep pool with clean (a relative term when you’re speaking of quickly-digesting animals that aren’t potty trained) cool water. I think the ladies did enjoy this. Us being there with scrub brushes was secondary to simply floating in the cold water. They floated and rolled and talked and bubbled happily. And we got to touch higher up, since they were lower down. That’s where they felt more leathery and supple. All around, it was an awesome experience!

Now we leave Phuket and the ocean for awhile. We head inland and north, to the mountainous region of Chiang Mai for about a week. More adventures on the horizon, I’m sure!