Elephant Sanctuary Lampang -Thailand

We caught a local bus out to the Elephant Sanctuary and hospital. There was a parade of elephants of different ages with their mahouts. Each elephant has two mahouts - often a father and son- to work with the elephant for 50 years or so.

The elephants arrive at the sanctuary and are taught the skills they need to work in the logging industry. many elephants were taken by the courts because their owners ill-treated them, or the owners couldn't afford to feed them as they got bigger.

The elephants in the hospital had leg infections from the chains used to hold them and some had stood on landmines in Burma. It was so sad to see some of the elephants who were ill-treated rocking back and forth, flapping their ears and clutching their trunks between their legs.

There was a mahout course that you could enrol in for a week or so, but we decided that it was not a retirement career path we would like!

Guess what this is? Washed elephant dung ready to be made into paper!

Sukhothai Historical Park - Thailand

Our rustic hotel- logs sawn in half cover the outside and woven water- reed covers the walls.

Sukhothai was the first Thai capital. It is now a UNESCO site. It is preserved from the 13 th and 14 th centuries. We hired a motorbike from our rustic hotel in New Sukhothai and headed out just before 6am to view the sites in the cool of the morning and take photos without other tourists in them.

Later in the day, when the temperatures cooled from their high of 38 degrees, we drove around the tobacco growing farms nearby. You could smell the drying leaves before you saw them.

Disturbed a snake on the path in front of us as we walked down a stone path where it was sunning itself. Unfortunately they don't pose while you take shots of them! Only a harmless tree snake - according to the hotel owner.

Songkran- Thai New Year

Thai New Year is based on the Buddhist lunar calendar- this year is 2550! They have four days holiday from 13-16 April. It is a time to initiate new monks and 9 is the lucky number so 109 monks were blessed in this area. It is also a time to clean the Buddhas, deities and to appease the water god. We spent this time in Nong Khai overlooking the Mekong River towards Laos and just down from the Thai-Lao Friendship bridge built by the Australians.
The celebrations opened with the finals of this game . It is played with a cane ball and looked like a mix of soccer and volleyball.

The next day we assembled at the guesthouse gates with huge pottery tubs of Mekong River water and joined in the blessing with water for good luck. Utes streamed past ladden with huge bins of water and well wishers. They had pump-action water pistols, bags of tapioca flour, itchy powder, Thai perfume and litres and litres of icy cold Mekong River water. It was a war!
One day of this was tiring enough. We took refuge in the guesthouse overlooking the Mekong River and Laos. You couldn't go to the shop without getting totally drenched and coated in flour!

Parading the gold Buddah. Well wishers poured water and flower petals on the statue and rubbed their heads.

One evening there was a float parade of Miss Songkran entrants and Songkran Ladyboy entrants. Now we will head towards the Chiang Mai area.

Sights in Thailand

Front half of a 4 metre python encountered on the road-Khao Tai National Park.

Horned spider

Lizard

Lil holding a millipede

Bubbling crab patterns on the beach at Hua Hin

Khao Yai National Park Thailand

Gibbon

Travelled from Bagkok to a place called Pak Chong becsuse it was near the Khao Yai National Park. This park was Thailand's first National Park and the largest.

We spent half a day and visited a cave used by monks for meditation. It had scorpion spiders, and a resident cat, that tormented the centipedes in the cave, as well as a few bats.
In the evening we waited for the sun to set and observed a cave high in the hills. About 2 million bats left the cave on mass- quite a sight. There were a few kites (birds) and eagles waiting for the bats too and attacked them as they flew off looking for food.

Bats leaving the cave at sunset.

Later we swam in a spring in the dark.
The nest day we were up early with a guide to go on a trek for wildlife. We saw gibbons, macaques (monkeys), two kinds of hornbills, samba deer, barking deer, a python, and some wild elephants but no tigers! We had to wear calico socks on our legs as there were hundreds of leeches and ticks in the leaf litter! One girl had them climb to her stomach and attch themselves!
There was no way we could have trekked in the monsoon jungle without a guide. I kept hoping he wouldn't die on the trail with us as we would never have found our way out again and who knows- maybe the tigers would have found us!

Flying lizard.

Seafood in Hua Hin

Yum. Have enjoyed eating the local seafood in the market here.

We are in a rustic hotel overlooking the beach- it is nice and quiet although it is close to the action. Our room is second window in from the beach on the top floor!

We are 180 kms south of Bangkok and will head there tomorrow before starting for the north. The Thai king has a palace here so it is a popular place for tourists. The temperature at present is about 39 degrees and it is very dry but cooling in the sea breezes.

We had our first sandwich since arriving in Thailand. There are German bakeries, Swedish food restaurants, Italian pizza places... you name it, we have even seen, NZ roast lamb for Sunday lunch along with green lipped mussels advertised in the restaurants.