What Did You Do Today...?

It was another early start, but we knew that what lay ahead of us would make it all worthwhile. With just enough time to grab breakfast and get ourselves ready we were met by a Thai lady and a minivan at 8:30am outside our hotel. We were the first of 3 pick-ups that morning, our other guests/day-trippers would be joining us shortly. Her name was Smile (allegedly) and the driver was called Mr Beer (again, allegedly). They drove us to the next pick-up and a young couple got in the back of the van. The next stop was at the Paradise Lodge hotel to pick up two young girls, but the place looked far from paradise. And then we were off!

Smile gave us an explanation of what we would be doing in the day and we managed to get the gist of it through her broken English. We would be driving for around an hour to get straight to the elephants, so we thought it a good idea to catch 40 winks whilst in transit…we would have a long day ahead of us.

Before riding the elephants...

We arrived at the elephant camp at about 10:00am and disembarked to see a herd of elephants mooching around in a field below us. It was an incredible sight, and we knew it was only going to get better as we would soon be jumping on the back of one of these beasts and trekking through some light jungle. We had had our doubts about whether we would be hit with extra expenses through the trip and straight up we were asked to buy a bunch of manky bananas for 20 Baht. Not the biggest expense in the world, but it was the tip of the iceberg we thought. So, with bananas in hand we joined the others in the raised platform/hut above the field and waited for our elephants to come over. The Dutch couple got on the first elephant, which had a smaller baby elephant chained to it (not in a bad way, but just to keep it close to its mum, like a dog on a leash) and Cat and Zoe (from the south of England) were up next. As they were waiting, the biggest elephant of them all wandered by and started throwing a wobbler. It was trumpeting, flapping its ears and kicking the ground, to which we were glad that the girls were due to get on that one and we might get a less mental one. But it was not so, for there was already a smaller one plus baby waiting for them at the platform, and they climbed on relieved that they weren’t going to get the crazy one of the group. That little treasure would be reserved for the Gray brothers.

The matriarch having a wobbler

With a certain amount of trepidation we clambered aboard our ride, the crazy stressed-out one of the group. It was also the biggest and, our guide told us, the matriarch of the group. Boy were we in for a trip. We had a “driver” with us who was sat on the elephants head, with us two “safely” in a two-seater saddle. It seemed pretty safe though, we had a metal bar across us much like in theme parks, and there was absolutely no way we could fall off it [he said sarcastically]. We set off to follow the others who had already made a (albeit rather slow) dash towards the jungle, and the next thing we knew there was a trunk in our face breathing air at us. It was after the bananas. I reached into the bag, broke one off and placed it in its trunk. It gobbled it up and came back for more, but the driver bashed the trunk away so it didn’t try to get them all in one go. It was truly amazing, to be all the way up there, on top of an elephant, in such a scenic surrounding, with the sun beating down on us.

That's one hungry elephant

The caravan of elephants trudged gracefully through the jungle, with everyone frantically taking pictures and videos on cameras, camcorders and mobile phones. Our driver jumped down to the ground after two minutes and ushered the great beast along at the rear of the pack. And then he muttered something to James and motioned for him to get onto its neck. Well, James isn’t the kind of person that you need to tell twice (well, that’s a matter of opinion, but anyway…) and quick as a flash we had reorganised so that he was sat on the elephants neck whilst I had shifted into a more central position in the seat. It is a strange thing to ride an elephant. It is a stranger thing to then see your brother riding on its neck with no harness or anything, essentially driving it through the jungle.

Me and James riding an elephant, with no driver!

It wasn’t long before the driver said we should switch over so that James would be back in the seat and I would be astride the beast. With a certain amount of shuffling and clambering I managed to get myself seated behind its ears and trying for all my life not to fall off! It was a hefty-sized drop on either side and it didn’t help that whenever it moved its legs it would unbalance me as I was on its shoulder-blades. But oh my days, what an experience. We were catching the others too, the matriarch was taking a shortcut to get to the front of the group and as we hollered over to the girls they turned round and were shocked to see the Gray boys in “complete control” of their elephant. We overtook and then came up to a second hut, again selling bananas. We still had a lot left so carried on our way, and up the very steep hill in front of us. The first baby didn’t make it first go and slipped back down, and our matriarch had some trouble, which was great because I didn’t feel like I had had enough opportunities to fall off her head already.

Riding high, and not falling off!

And then we reached a slight clearing, and all became quite and still. We all just sat there in the sun, drinking in the surroundings and what we were actually doing. It was here that the driver clambered back up, and I was thankful to give my inner thighs a rest and lessen the odds of me falling off. We continued on our path until we came to a small mud pool. Now what do elephants like to do in muddy pools? Exactly. One of the baby elephants literally belly-flopped into it and began spouting it onto itself, almost covering Cat and Zoe in its glee. Thankfully, there wasn’t all that much mud slung around and we marched onwards and onto the road. We waited for a few cars and bikes to roar past and then took a right turn onto the road. I have driven a car and a campervan on a road before, but never an elephant! We hit a third banana stop, but we had been thrifty with our smelly fruit so we just carried on after the others. One of the guys found a large crab on the floor and pretended to throw it up to the now-muddy girls, much to their screams of terror. Our driver grabbed it from the fella and I joked that he might be having it for lunch, to which he indicated that he would be. Fair enough, I thought.

We had spent about 30-40 minutes on the elephants and it was time to return them, so we clambered off and were clearly still buzzing from the whole experience as we got back into the minivan. The next stop was a small village where we could buy some trinkets and scarves, etc. More “exit through the gift shop” strategy. Smile gave us a brief and indeterminable explanation of the village, something about refugees from Myanmar or something, and they had settled there and sold their wares where they could. We had a quick look round but with the kids attempting to sell us all manner of tat we just used it as a bonding session more than anything else.

The "gift shop"

15 minutes later we were heading on a hike, to a waterfall 2 km away. The girls were quickly having trouble in their flip-flops, but it was a relatively gentle trek along some rice fields, which then headed up into more jungle-type surroundings. It was good to get out of the blazing sun, and Smile was teaching us all about the flora and fauna of the area. It wasn’t long before we arrived at the waterfall. We would have 30 minutes there before we would go back to the village and into the minivan to get our lunch. It was a pretty powerful waterfall, with rocks everywhere and some swirling rapids that we were warned to stay out of as they were very strong. We quickly changed and gingerly climbed down into the safe part of the waterfall and savoured the cooling waters. We splashed around and shot the breeze until our time was up/it was too cold to cope with, and then headed back up the route we had just come down. And it was then that we felt a spot of rain.

The waterfall and swirling rapids

We suited up with our rain coats, but thought it might be a bit “OTT” as we would soon be back in the minivan. But it was a good call. It thundered it down and everyone got completely drenched. The others didn’t have any spare clothes or coats so they were at the mercy of the weather gods as they had seemingly rolled a double six. Mr Beer left us out in the rain for good measure as he put plastic liners on all the seats, a task that took at least 4 minutes, as we just stood there, sodden. Once inside the van the rain seemed to abate a little, and had stopped within 3 minutes. Typical.

We were slightly fearing lunch as we had been told that it would be “local food”. Now we have been eating as the locals do, but not going to the level of places that have grotty plastic furniture outside or unidentifiable meat on stocks on display. So we were very pleased with what turned up – a selection of sweet and sour veg, coconut curry, omelette, rice, soup and fresh pineapple, for afters. It gave us another chance to get to know each other a little better and exchange travelling stories of Thailand and the world. Corrinda (I think that’s how you spell it…) seemed very enthusiastic about a lady-boy show that they had seen in Chiang Mai and stressed to us that we should all go and see if we had the chance. It was something that we hadn’t seen in Bangkok, but she gave such a good review of it that we decided we would try and see it if we were in the area at the right time.

Lunchtime!

Back in the van for a few minutes drive to our next destination. Our guide, Smile, would be meeting us at the finish point. Our next little adventure was to be bamboo-rafting down the river. It involves sitting on a long, thin raft made of bamboo that floats (when people are on board) just about at the top of the water, so you are essentially sitting in the water the whole time. We were split into two groups: the English and the Dutch, 4 on one raft and 2 on the other. We (the English 4) got the older of the 2 rafters, but he was only about 18 years old at most. And to make matters worse he was wearing an Everton football shirt, the attire of our bitter Merseyside rivals. After climbing onto the raft and setting sail we joked around with him about it but he also seemed to like the Manchester clubs too – typical Manchester United/City fans being (a) glory supporters, (b) liking more than one team, and (c) not being from Manchester. We were peacefully gliding down the river when he shouted that there was a baby monkey in the tree behind us. As we all turned to look he bashed the water next to us with his big bamboo stick which splashed us all with the river water. Quite amusing. Two minutes down the river he tried the same trick again, which we all fell for, again. Mildly amusing. Further on down the stream he did it again, but we were all getting wise to it. Not really amusing.

As we were chilling out along the river he shouted that there was a snake on a tree branch by the side of the river, but we all know the story of the boy who cried wolf. But we still looked, more out of pity than anything else, where he was motioning his bamboo stick towards. To our astonishment there actually was a snake on the branch, and to our even more astonishment he poked it with his stick so that it plopped into the water right next to us. We assumed that it wasn’t a deadly one as he wouldn’t have made it angry and put it in close proximity to us. Surely?

We coasted down the river for about 20-30 minutes and saw a multitude of snakes along the way, and then we came up to some rapids. It seemed like this was the end of the road and he had motioned us to get off. Then we saw another raft behind us go straight down the rapids and it turned out that he was offering for us to walk down the side and meet up with him down the way. But we wanted to go down the rapids too! So we climbed back on and got ready for it. It was a good thrill to go down it, although it wasn’t amazingly dangerous or rocky in actuality. We were nearly at the end, and he had one more joke up his sleeve. He began shouting something in broken English and gesturing towards Zoe at the front of the raft. She shuffled forward and he somehow rocked the raft so that she ended up going into the river and getting completely soaked. We were all laughing, obviously, and the rafter was so pleased with himself, and was claiming that Cat had told him to do it. In addition to this, the kid driving the Dutch along behind us, who must have been about 13 years old, had been splashing us when they came up close to use. Once, fair enough. Twice, OK. Three times, getting boring now. So when we heard a commotion and turned to see him falling into the river we were very pleased that Karma had had such a quick turn around.

Our raft...

As we neared the finishing point he angled the raft around to “dock” by the rivers edge. Just to level the score he managed to push Cat into the river too, again claiming that Zoe had told him to do it. As we left the raft he held his hand out to me to shake, and I hesitated, knowing full well that both the girls had gone in and me and James were practically bone dry. But there was no yank towards the water, just a good honest handshake. The minivan was waiting, but we would need to change into our dry clothes before setting off. We had an hours drive before we would be back in the city so we all grabbed a few much-needed zees in the back of the minivan.

When we got back to the hotel we showered and changed, ready to grab some food before trying to find the “free” lady-boy show that the Dutch couple had enjoyed so much. It was a place called Cabaret, in the market so we were sure we could find it. And we agreed to meet Cat and Zoe down there at 9pm, ready for the show to kick off at half past. The place we chose to eat seemed great, but we realised that it felt a little sleazy, with a possible lady-boy waiter/waitress and all the old Australian guys at the bar getting back rubs from said waiter/waitress and the girl behind the bar. But it was only a quick bite to eat and then we moved on to the Night Bazaar again.

We found the stage and wasted some time looking around the stalls and attempting to find the kick-boxing arena that opened up its doors for free after 11pm, which we managed to do, eventually. Whilst waiting at the stage at 9pm I suddenly realised that it wasn’t the right stage, and we worked out that we were in the wrong market. A quick scamper through the streets led us to the right place, and you couldn’t miss it. We found the girls and ordered a (over-priced) beer. Unfortunately, the girls had chosen a seat at the front and just off-centre. Even more unfortunately for me I was sitting plum in the middle of it all, with steps down from the stage to where I was sitting. I prepared myself for an interesting evening.

Ready for the show

The sparkly curtain swished open and there, in front of us, were 4 women in feathered dresses. Oh, wait a minute, they weren’t women were they. They were lady-boys. And to be fair, all but one of them were very convincing. My brain was very confused, and I knew that I was right in the firing line. But none of the feathered dancers came down the steps, which was a massive relief. The next time the curtain swished open there was a small box on stage next to an empty chair. Gulp. That chair had my name on it, surely. But thankfully I remained where I was and the “act” simply used it to sit on, obviously.

Where to look?!

The next few acts got a bit more up-tempo, with the obligatory I Will Survive and It’s Raining Men featuring a dazzling display of dancers, sequins and make-up. The more shows that came on, the more times the acts came down the steps and focussed their attention on yours truly. It was funny, but I made sure that they didn’t overstep the mark. Thankfully James got some of the same treatment, but not on the same level as what I was getting – I had offered to swap seats with one of the girls, but surprisingly they had not been forthcoming.

We left the Cabaret place laughing at what we had just seen, and to be fair, it was a very funny night. Very funny, but very weird. The girls had to leave as they had an early flight to Phuket in the morning so we said our goodbyes and went to find the free kick-boxing. The ring was located down a long corridor of sleazy little bars with old Westerners and their young Thai “lady friends”. The ring was also surrounded by such bars and we made the decision to buy one drink, watch some kick-boxing and get out before the evening got any weirder. We sat down, ordered two Tiger beers and sat back to watch the live kick-boxing, with a pregnant cat sleeping on our table in front of us. It was pretty good stuff, not the main event as that had been and gone, but good enough for free. There were a number of women who were obviously trying to get our attention but we remained steadfast and focussed on the ring in front of us.

Pregnant cat and kick-boxing - what more can you want?

It wasn’t long before the fighting was finishing, there were two 14 year old kids on at this point, and we decided to make a dash for the exit – all the other tables around us had been shifted back to their homes outside the bars so we were a small island of normalness within an ocean of crazy. We withdrew from the area and headed back to our hotel, heads still from what we had seen and done that day.