Elephants

Well, what do you do when you visit Thailand? Ride an elephant of course! In general, I’m kind of big on organizing my own trips, finding my own transportation, etc. but when the folks were here we chartered a day trip through Grace’s Boutique House and they took care of everything. The first stop was an elephant camp. The elephants were fitted with seats across their backs onto which we clambered via a raised platform. I realize this is going to sound profound but riding an elephant is very cool! It’s kind of like riding a horse but they are just so massive and oddly graceful. You’re so high off the ground and just sway back and forth as the beast lumbers along. At the elephant camp we saw a two-day old elephant that was still a bit unsteady on his feet. Even on animals this size, babies are just sooo cute!

After the elephants we visited a Karen “Hill Tribe” Village and saw some beautiful weaving on small looms before trekking down through jungles and rice fields to a nearby waterfall. On the way out, we hiked through a Hmong Village where the three generations of Braunwarth males took turns shooting a wooden crossbow used by the Hmong for hunting, while Grandma and Maya bought handicrafts. The Hmong houses and the Karen houses were interesting but different. The former are on the ground while the latter are on stilts. Both are extremely primitive compared to anything we have in the states. Such poverty must take a toll, particularly in the form of decreased options for future generations but there was something appealing about the simple life lived by the villagers. They seemed somehow better off than those living in squalor in the cities. Interesting if slightly posed-for-tourism time over, we drove a short ways to a small nearby river where we boarded bamboo rafts. The rafts consisted of a dozen or so 20 foot large bamboo pieces lashed to smaller bamboo crosspieces at each end and at the middle. Maya sat on the cross piece in the middle while Zak and I took turns guiding the raft from the back with a bamboo pole while a guide in the front did the same. George shared a raft with an Argentinian girl named Claudia Marina Campos who had joined us for the day. Good times were had by all.