elephants and cookery
Posted on | February 15, 2008 | No Comments
yesterday, we went back to the mae sa elephant camp, about 40 mins out of chiang mai.
we visited there 6 years ago and could hardly believe how the place has changed.
the first indication was the piles of enormous chinese tourist buses lined up outside….
six years ago, it was a rough little camp with maybe 20 elephants.
nobody spoke a word of english.
there were a few thatched raised platforms here and there for alighting onto elephants.
you got onto an elephant and you were taken for a 60 minute ride and it was fabulous.
there were some truly repulsive toilets to visit on the way out and that was it.
rudimentary didn’t begin to cover it.
yesterday, there were concreted and timbered paths everywhere….steps carved into the hills….shops…..food kiosks…..cafes…..very fancy thatched pavilions for elephant clambering-onto……at least 70 elephants!….and a large central arena for the elephant show.
yes folks….the elephant show.
these beasts are incredible.
so very clever and full of personality and fun.
they did all kinds of elephant dressage and then seven elephants stood at easels and painted pictures.
i swear to god.
if i hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, i wouldn’t have believed it.
the elephant would hold a paintbrush in it’s trunk….eyeball the canvas….then very delicately apply paint.
the elephant would hand the brush back to the handler, who would reload with paint, or swap colours…..i am sure there was some sort of signalling going on.
they painted elephants….flowers…..trees….abstracts.
the paintings were sold before the show was finished…..there was something very appealing about them.
apparently it takes 2 years to train an elephant to paint and they do practice a lot.
i was wildly impressed….i have two HANDS and i cannot paint.
after the show, there was lots of fun with the elephants coming up the fence to get bananas and sugarcane from the audience, stealing the mahouts straw hats and putting them on our heads, wrapping their trunks around us, and just generally tapping us for food and tips.
if you offered the mahout a tip (usually a 20 baht note), he would gesture to the elephant…so you held it out to the elephant, who would delicately take it from you, curtey, then pass it to the mahout.
we watched the elephants all getting bathed in the river….they lay down and wallowed and got water splashed all over them, and scrubbed and had a generally marvellous spa time.
the smallest baby elephant took a shine to me, and kept spraying water at me.
this happened five times and was very funny….in the end, the mahout took a hold of the end of it’s trunk, and directed the water upwards, like a hose.
perhaps i reminded the elephant of it’s mother.
while the elephants were in the water, 3 women positioned themselves downstream with plastic baskets….to catch any elephant dung that washed downstream.
this is very fibrous stuff and of course the volume is INCREDIBLE……they make beautiful textured handmade paper with it!
no waste!
we took a quick look at the elephant museum….lots of graphic photos of elephant genitalia and things that can go wrong with their feet and trunks.
this camp has quite the breeding program in place, including artifical insemination.
the elephant is in trouble, population-wise, and the thais are devoted to keeping this symbol thriving.
an elephant eats 250 kilos per day and drinks 200 litres of water, so taking on a new one is no light task.
if a white elephant is born, it is automatically given as a gift to the king.
there is a special park for the white elephants, but i didn’t quite get where exactly this is.
we got an elephant each for the ride, and had a very enjoyable time swaying about in the tree tops, on one of the many little paths winding all over the extensive camp.
it is a wonderful way to get around.
the elephants are so sure-footed ad strong.
they hoist themselves up steep inclines without any apparent effort.
we had no near-death experience like last time, but it was still a lot of fun.
too soon, it was all over and we were taken back to the city….very impressed with how things have progressed at mae sa.
last night, we attended an evening cookery class in basic thai food.
there were only four people, it was intimate and fun.
we went with the pad thai cooking school….but i think the chiang mai school of thai cooking is superior.
we made pad thai (of course)…tom yum or tom kha gai…green chicken curry…chicken with cashews (cooked with dramatic flame roaring out of the wok)…green curry paste…..sticky rice with mango.
and then we ate the whole lot.
i’ve made all this stuff before, so i was somewhat of a teacher’s pet, hehehe.
maurice had a good time, and the other couple were very nice.
thai food is marvellous, because all the ingredients are fresh and really, once you have things chopped up, the cooking is very swift.
if you put the rice on to steam, you should be able to have a curry made before the rice has finished cooking.
one more dentist session today and we are all finished.
thank god.
it’s been a long 8 days in many ways, but i know this work would have taken months to complete at home and cost thousands…..so i feel very grateful.
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