This entry starts with a big thanks to David Piper, visiting from Brisbane, Australia, who sponsored the mornings outing to The Elephant Conservation Center at Lampang this Sunday.
We were due to get there at 9.30 so it was an early start. Unfortunately Somboon couldn’t come as his Aunty, from Chiang Rai, is ill in Chiang Mai Hospital and he needed to go on an apartment search for his Uncle.
I arrived at the childrens home at around 8am and the kids were milling around, finishing their breakfast.
Glen arrived with David and Marc to, just after 8.30.
After quick hellos and rounding up the children it was time to get on the road.
David, Glen, Marc and myself were in the car , and with most of the kids in the childrens home truck, driven by Roz, and the others in the car with us, we got going and arrived at The Elephant Conservation center just after 9.30.
We had a guide from the Center to show our group round, who was very friendly and helpful. First feature was “wash time”.
As usual on such trips, the children were very well behaved and sat at the viewing terrace to watch.
It was quite funny to see the kids jump from their seats when one of the elephants came over to see them after wash time was over. After their previous experience with Elephants, I thought they’d be more relaxed.
This place is much more landscaped than where we had been before, but on the whole, what you see and do is pretty much the same. It is very professionally landscaped, with fairly modern ‘shop’ buildings spotted about, where you can buy the usual Elephant paraphernalia.
After the morning wash, it was up to the Show Ground. The main difference here was the inclusion of Farang Mahuts. This centre offers various Mahut training courses, from 1-3 days, and it was fun to see the current trainees joining in. A testament to the skill of the resident Mahuts, considering that it must take years to build up that amount of trust.
The show included the usual displays of mounting and dismounting;
examples of the sort of work the Elephants would have done in the past, such as log pulling;
one elephant, carrying a farang lady, walking on a log, and turning a full 360 degress on it to;
a cute display where one of the smaller Elephants helped himself to water from a hose outlet and turned off the tap when he was finished;
a musical routine where they played a recognisable Thai tune by tapping bamboo ‘pipe’ sets, in turn…our kids sung the song;
and, near the end, three Elephants showed their skill at painting. These paintings were sold at 500 baht each, with one of them sold even before it was finished.
I think maybe the last one to be finished should have sold for more as this one was actually signed by the Elephant.
Then it was off for a short Elephant ride. I was slightly happier with the level of concern for the weight limit on the Elephants here.
When I stepped forward with two of the children the handlers put one child with someone else as they said I was to fat!! More trips to the gym I think.
This was a very short 15 minute stroll round, but plenty enough for the children who all enjoyed it.
The visit was nearly over, jsut time to pop up and see the recent arrivals at the Elephant Nursery, including one that was just 2 months old.
David joined in the feeding, actually getting one of the mother elephants to take a banana from his mouth.
One of the slightly older babies was very keen to meet us, unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough with the camera to catch the point where he tried to get over the fence.
Thanks once again to David Piper for making the visit possible, thanks also to the Conservation Center for giving such a good deal for the group and making it a fun and informative visit for the children.
Back at the Childrens home, it was time for food.
This time around was quite a lively affair with a couple of Davids Australian friends turning up as well as a couple from England, who have been living in Chiang Mai for 18 moths now, and a Swiss gentleman…..sorry folks, I am notoriously bad at remembering names.
One that I do remember,(hope I get it right), was Pam, the English lady who now spends a lot of her time in Chiang Mai painting.
She brought some her work along, including one she had done when she was 10 years old. I thought this was a great idea for encouraging any of the Kids who might be aspiring artists, showing something similar to what they might draw now and then seeing what she does now. The largest one was a stunning example.
After a good feed it was then off to the Mae Tip Reservoir for fun in the water.
I didn’t go in this time. Although generally ok, I had been fighting a thick head all day and was concerned that maybe it was still the effects of the chill I got at Doi Intahnon yesterday.
David seemed to enjoy the dip tho, as did all of the kids.
for many more photos of the elephants and the children, please visit our photobucket album here.
Now admittedly we were not there long enough to explore exactly what Phayao has to offer. The lake is huge, and I suspect good for boaters. But we were dissapointed to see no evidence of swimming areas and for me, apart from its size, I found the lakes landscape to be quite boring.
All efforts to find a guest house failed. The only information we got was on hotels costing 600 baht a night minimum and some lake side bungalows , which turned out to be closed down.
Having sorted our accomodation we went back down to the Lakeside where there are many bars and restaurants and had a very nice evening meal, where we ordered a few different dishes and shared. A little above Chiang Mai street prices but very good food and reasonable cost.
It was another baking day and we took it slowly again, always on the look out for more waterfalls , which proved to be quite elusive. We did find this small one just a little way into Chae Son valley.
Just a little way down the road we hit a long stretch of roadworks, where I thought it prudent to stop and put sunblock on as there was no let up in the scorching sunshine and my knees were starting to look very red.So it was a slow dusty ride for quite a way, and we were giving up all hope of finding the lake. It was around 2.30pm and we were about to turn around , when we spotted the sign post for Kiu Lom lake.
This trip was turning out to be full of anti-climax. I can only imagine that this lake increases in size considerably in the wetter seasons. Still we had been riding a long time in the heat of the day and it was still a nice place to take a rest and relax for an hour or so.
It wasn’t long before we found out why. And if I ever do it again I will use a more powerful bike. Be warned, the road from Mueang Pan is extremely steep in many places and takes you up and down several mountains as it takes you across to Doi Saket.
Once the light dissapeared it got bloody cold up in those fearsome mountains and all we had was our sunny day wear. Had we hit a problem, we had no tent, no chance of a phone signal, no food and little water. Ok , we had two bikes so hopefully one of us could have gone for help, but the look of those roads in places suggested that the chance of landslides ahead and behind us was not totally impossible. Just as well I hadn’t thought of all this before we started, or else we would have missed out on an awesome trip. I can’t say for sure how high we got but about half way down the last hill we passed a sign that read 14,500, (ft, i think).
