Me and my Heffalump

Elephants are such huge animals, needing lots of space and lots of food, and tending to be rather destructive if left to their own devices. And at the same time they are so very vulnerable to attacks by human poachers. In this part of Thailand they have attempted to make the elephants' lives relatively comfortable, protecting them and meeting their needs at the same time as protecting the environment (villages, jungle) - and making a few bucks on the side.

We thoroughly enjoyed our day visiting the "Chok Chai Elephant Camp" in northern Thailand.

The camp covers a large area with hillside, jungle, and river, and presumably village(s) as well.

First we had a short ride up and down the road in an ox cart, just to get into the swing of things.

Then it was time to cross the river on the wobbly swing bridge to go meet the elephants.

First of all we saw an elephant show, with a number of young elephants demonstrating their skill in sitting, standing, standing on their heads, playing soccer, and painting pictures.

And at last it was time to climb aboard and ride off into the jungle on our elephant.

I can assure you that this is NOT a comfortable way to ride!

I, for one, would certainly not be joining Hannibal in crossing the Alps ...

So finally we relaxed  on a bamboo raft, sliding along down the brown river ...

We all (all 7 of us from Brighton Education) had such a good time. We got back into our mini-bus to go to the orchid farm - and we were all sound asleep by the time we got there.

Yeah. Pretty!

Elephant Pooh Paper

Who would've thought it? Well, why not - plenty of fibre in the diet, ay? (But it does make you wonder - what about other creatures that consume a lot of fibre? Or is it simply a question of the quantities that elephants consume/produce?)

Anyway, our guide was very happy to show us around the factory ...

Firstly we have the raw product, which is obviously available in abundance in this part of Thailand!

Then it must be boiled ... and this stuff really doesn't look (or smell) too bad at all.

Then you sloppy-it-up, and strain it out onto a net. You can add flowers and leaves and pretty things, and then let it dry.

Of course it's not your finest writing paper.

 More of a novelty, an "Oh! look what I made!" type of thing.

Of course we had to finish off in the Gift Shop ...

Now who doesn't love a trip to the gift shop? Notebooks, oven mitts, knick-knacks ... all the stuff you have no use for!

Holiday in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand

(I have never tried blogging from my iPad before, but I came here without my laptop so I'll give it a try ...)

After work on Thursday - the start of school holidays - we packed and flew on the late plane to KL to link up with the small group from Brighton Education (company we work with) who had opted in to take this little holiday together. Traffic was heavy, the airport in KL was packed, and we were among the lucky ones who had booked early enough to get a bed (with a tiny room wrapped around it) at the Tune Hotel next to the airport to grab a few hours' sleep and be back at the airport 4am to queue and queue and finally catch our flight.

So we arrived in Thailand a little bit tired ...

 But then we arrived at our resort in Chiang Mai, and relaxed by the pool, watching the occasional boat drift by on the Ping River. 

The seven of us looked through some brochures to chose some outings ... And we thought there was a picture of a whale shark at the aquarium at the zoo. Curious about that, we all went to the zoo.

They sell little baskets of cucumbers and sugar cane bits so you can feed the elephant. I guess it takes a lot of cucumbers to fill up an elephant.

Flamingos are so cool! I always loved that old "Fantasia" cartoon and I could really imagine these guys enjoying a yoyo to play with.

The aquarium was fun - lots of amazing fish. But no sign of a whale shark!

There are trams to ride on around the enormous (hilly) zoo, and a monorail train that moves overhead at an absolutely frustrating snail's pace. But after a couple of hours we were all quite tired.

Big Hill

In Kuala Terengganu there are two hills - "Big Hill" (Bukit Besar) and "Small Hill" (Bukit Kecil).

Bukit Besar is not particularly big, but it does dominate the landscape around the main big shop ('Giant' supermarket) - it's obviously calling us, maybe even taunting ... you know how it is! "I'm here so you have to climb me!"

Friends told us that you can't drive up it, you have to walk. So one cool, quiet (weekend) morning we donned shoes and headed over to the hill to climb it.

There is a road off the main road at the bottom, and so we turned in there to find somewhere to park so we could start climbing. We didn't find a car park (or even a wider section of road) so we just kept going up, and up. The road was rather narrow, steep, and winding - we were very scared that we would meet another car - but other than backing all the way down there was nowhere else to go!

 Suddenly, there we were at the top by those 'Telekom Malaysia' (phone) towers. (At least here the road was a bit wider.)

And, yes, there were some great views - when we could see past the trees.

That's the 'Giant' supermarket down there - closest thing to a shopping centre that we have, and the source of many good (western style) foods and stuff. Bunch of really tall buildings going up behind it, trying to develop that 'city' feeling in a place that really is not (a city).

You can see the river, and the distant hills that surround the city. The little black knob (bottom right) is the planetarium ... well, it used to be!

Then we had to drive all the way back down hoping we wouldn't meet some other silly person driving all the way up. There must have been a sign somewhere (in Malay) that we missed!

Island Time, Ready or Not

Everyone says the monsoon isn't over until a couple of weeks after Chinese New Year. But Kapas Island was mostly open and we were itching to get out there. We also have a new 'Fellow' to show around.

We got up way too early, and arrived in Marang with plenty of time to spare. Wandering around the market, I picked up a few snacks to try.

 I love the way they do them up in plastic bags with plenty of air to stop them being crushed. (I just hope they don't blow in the bags to fill them with air!) What is it? Well, the green things are little cakey things, sort of moist and jellyish, with coconut. The yellow things are corn kernels - sort of bigger and softer than you'd expect - with coconut (didn't really like them much!). The pink things are jelly, pink colour but no real flavour and hardly sweet at all, rather too firm ... with coconut.

While we were waiting on the jetty for the boat across to the island, we saw an unusual disturbance in the shallow estuary at low tide.

The local people told us it was 'memerang' - which is Malay for 'otter'. We watched him chewing away on a fish he caught. We were a bit surprised, thinking otters were cold weather animals.

We had chosen to travel in one of the bigger ferries - not being sure how Linda would feel about smashing along in a speed-boat. We were glad of it with the waves being a bit bigger than they usually are later in the season.

We had also chosen to stay in the resort we always used to stay in - called 'Pak Ya' (Uncle Ya). Unfortunately, with the departure from the island last year of our old friend Zai, the place has become fairly run down.

So we ended up walking down to the next bay to the resort known as "KBC" (Kapas Beach Chalets) for our meals.

This resort restaurant has a polished wooden floor, and varnished wooden tables!

AND it is a lovely place to relax and read a book. Quite civilised and pleasantly western! (That's Linda on the sofa. I'm sitting at one of the tables further back.)

We'll go back out in a couple of weeks. (Next weekend we have to present at a conference down in Kuantan, four hours drive from here.) And we are planning to stay at KBC this time.

The weather was cloudy, and pleasantly cool, and as soon as we got back the wind and the rain started up again - the monsoon isn't quite over. Hopefully it will be by next time.

CNY - back to the Island, and a local Wedding

It's Chinese New Year - time for a few days off work. If we were in China there would be brilliant fireworks exploding all around ... but here they are mostly illegal so it is just the young chap in the house behind our building throwing crackers out of his window periodically (all through the night).

We were waiting for Chinese New Year because that's when it is normally expected that the Monsoon will end and after CNY is when the Kapas Island Resorts usually open. We phoned and found that some were still closed, but at least one was open already!

So we went to Qimi Resort - the most expensive on the island. They sent a boat for us - the usual boat services were running but on a fairly minimal schedule. The tide was exceptionally low, which made boarding the boat from the jetty on the mainland a little tricky ... but reaching the beach on the island was impossible. They had to tie the speed-boat to a buoy out past the reef in the deeper water, and we clambered across into a small dinghy, and then we scraped our way across the coral to the beach. (Later in the day, even that was impossible.)

At Qimi resort the huts are mostly built up in the trees. A couple of the huts built at ground level recently showed signs of white ant activity and had to be torn down - the workers were 'frantically' rebuilding them (take that word in a Malaysian island context ...!) because they had booked some people into them in a couple of days.

 (Evidence of frantic activity ... chuckle!)

Anyway, we were up in the trees in a charming villa called "Orchid".

This is one of the older villas, with all sorts of little artistic quirks - such as these beautifully varnished rough-bark railings, on which you can still see where there used to be a jungle vine twisted around the wood. Of course, you wouldn't be wanting to take a toddler up to the balcony with those spaced-out bars. Unfortunately when they were building the cement steps up to the villa they started off generous (large, shallow steps) and gradually realising their mistake so that by the time you get to the top the steps are barely big enough to get a foot onto and so tall they were up to my knees! Us oldies had a bit of a struggle getting up and down - going up on all fours and coming down backwards!!

Our experience on the island previously has taught us that there is usually a brief period every evening and morning when the mosquitoes are merciless - but (whether because of the trees or just different this year) here the mozzies kept it up all night. Our villa was equipped with a mozzie-net - unusual around here, I've never seen them in the shops. It seemed like a nice idea, except once inside, even with the pedestal fan blowing full force, it was like being inside a plastic bag with no movement of air whatsoever.

We did manage to clamber down the steps for a nice long dip in the briny.

Each of the villas in Qimi resort is different and full of quirky little artistic touches, all from the mind of Jackie.

This chap loves to show people around and explain how he has used local bits and pieces in the creation of these masterpieces. He was telling us how the remains of a carcass of a large ocean mammal had washed up on the island during the monsoon -  very smelly, but legally he couldn't touch it. When we mentioned about the very valuable ambergris (from inside whales) which people have found on the beach and made their fortunes ... he got a funny look on his face, like he knew he had seen some but couldn't remember where he threw it away.

Time for a Wedding

 We had to get back to the mainland because we had a wedding to go to. Two boatloads of people had just arrived from the mainland and had to be ferried across the reef in the tiny dinghy, and then there were food supplies to be ferried, and then they ferried us out to the waiting speed-boat. The ocean was glassy-smooth and the trip across was sheer pleasure, but when we got back to the jetty we were so far below the bottom step I had to clamber up on my knees with helping hands all around. We dropped into the local public loo and slipped into some better clothes and headed off to the wedding of the only daughter of one of our friends at work.

 Peter with Dzaki, our colleague whose daughter was getting married.

 The pavillion where the wedding took place.

 Excitement mounts as the groom arrives in traditional garb - including a kris (ceremonial sword).

 The bride and her entourage come out to meet him.

The lovely couple - they match!

 Some meeting and greeting going on, general shuffling around (me not looking like part of the crowd!)

 The procession up the red carpet to the dais where they will sit.

Bringing up the rear, our rhythm group from the IPG.

Yep, Malaysian style wedding - bit different from Australian!

Malaysian Food - Yum (?)

It's often a little embarrassing when people here ask us what we think of Malaysian food (a subject very close to their hearts!) because:

• firstly we can't handle anything with chili (and Malaysians loooove to use lots of chili) 
• and secondly every meal comes with a lot of rice which, frankly, is bad for us diabetics.

However, there are lots of wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables available in this delightful climate! And we like that very much.

And then we have discovered catfish!

They are really not much to look at, are they? And so it is not at all obvious how totally delicious they are!

At first they appear to be ugly and very bony. But the way that they fry them up in the IPG canteen, all but the biggest main bones and the rock-hard skull are totally munchable.

Word has got around that we not only won't eat them when they are cooked with chili, but we are also very weird because we like to eat "just fish" without rice.

It has become a bright spot in the middle of our work day!