Distance Traveled: 12,600 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX)
Flags Collected: 0
Time Difference: -3 hours (from Brisbane)
Time Difference: -3 hours (from Brisbane)
Soundtrack: Some of Howard Shore's compositions from the LOTR soundtrack, along with Smashing Pumpkins, are helping me to envisage a celestial war. Odd combo, but it works
Currently Inspired by: "You can't reach for anything new if your hands are full of yesterday's junk"
Stacks: Just waiting for the big one. It's been too long and the roads are way too uneven here. Tripped on a step in a toilet, but again, no bruises. Getting nervous.
Words written: 3,105 (at least it's going up, albeit slowly)Ahh, brains are wonderful, contrary things, aren't they? Not only am I struggling with a lack of desire to write my book, I have also put off writing this blog - even making a start on it - so many times that I think now I will have forgotten just about everything I have done (and it's a lot!) We shall see...
I shall start with Monday, and the Tiger Kingdom. It pretty much is what it sounds like, although anywhere there are fully grown tigers and no people with guns could probably realistically be considered to be their "kingdom". The keepers not only didn't have guns, they didn't have tranquilisers, electric prods or any other type of nasty device with which to keep the beasts in line. In fact, all they had were these 20cm wooden sticks that they used to tap on the ground and gently tap the tigers with to get them to move, which is awesome in theory, until you're walking into a cage all tasty and human-smelling with three fully grown man-eaters and a couple of guys armed with twigs. Nerve wracking, you say? Maybe a little ;) They were just gorgeous though, and the first two particularly were quite friendly. The last kitty kept roaring and actually moved away from us, and the keepers made me chase him and go up to pat so I could get all three of them, despite my insistence that I was perfectly happy with the two I had already pet, thank you very much, and would much rather escape with both arms still attached to my torso. However, we approached the third and petted without incident, and you'll be happy to know that everything that is supposed to be attached to my torso still is, and I don't have anything extra growing on there either, for anyone who wanted just that little extra peace of mind. The teenage cubs and baby cubs were terminally adorable. For photos of my visit to the Tiger Kingdom, click here. I also took two videos. For the one with the adults playing and looking far too awake and active about fifteen minutes before I went in, click here. To hear me talking in an embarrassingly babytalkish way to the teenage cubs, click here. (NB. My driver, when asked how many people the tigers have seriously hurt or attacked since the park has been open, blithely replied "Not many, not many! Maybe 100, 200". In addition we had to sign an indemnity document for death or maiming. So my fears were not unfounded.) On the way back, and to my sincere regret, we stopped at the Monkey School, where dozens of monkeys are kept chained to stumps at a length of about 30cm where they just run around and around and around in circles and chirp, until they are removed in tiny cages and brought to the "arena" where they are yanked forcefully around on leads and forced to perform all kind of demeaning acts for the laughing audience. I hated every second of it. If I was *that* kind of activist, I would break in there at night and release all of them. Not happy.
Tuesday night I went to the Kantoke Palace Dinner and Show. It's really the first time I've felt weird about being somewhere on my own. It was clearly a place for large tourist groups. Basically there were about three massive groups of more than thirty people each, a couple alone at a table for ten, and then me alone at a table for ten. The food they served me was clearly supposed to be for at least six, also, I'd say. See below:
Those of you who agree with my stance on food wastage (= bad) will be pleased to know that I made an extremely valiant effort at attacking the above. However, there is only so much one can eat, and I eventually slumped, ill and defeated, over a good 3/4 of it unfortunately. The show itself was terrific. Lots of really young and talented Thai guys and girls doing lots and lots of different traditional performances. Photos of Kantoke can be viewed here. In addition, I took two videos. One of a very interesting male performance with percussion and dancing HERE, and one of a female performance where they danced with parasols, which I found particularly engaging. Click here to see that one. Thai people are so gorgeous! I have no idea how they bend their hands back like that though... I tried and ended up hurting myself, of course :P
Wednesday and Thursday I was not very well :-/ Am fine now though!
Friday belonged to the Golden Triangle. A loooong day. We were gone for 14.5 hours, and 8 of those were taken up with driving. Lest this blog end up taking that long to read, I shall be concise. We stopped at a hot spring in Chiang Rai, then the White Temple which really has to be seen to be believed. My photos don't do it justice, but you can see them in the same album as the Kantoke stuff, if you haven't already looked at it. Breathtaking. Following that we headed up to the Mekong River where we caught a dirty and rickety-looking (but probably quite safe) boat over to Laos, where we were kindly offered a welcome drink of rice whiskey with dead animals floating in it. Not kidding... there were a bunch of different tubs of the whiskey, each one containing a different animal: cobra, armadillo, geckos, tiger penis, scorpion. Apparently they each bring their own quality to the drink. 2 of the 35 of us took a drink of the snake whiskey, and after seeing their faces, the remainder of us politely declined :) It is weird that you can come to this little bit of Laos without going through customs or immigration. You don't even require a passport! There were a couple of official looking men in uniforms sitting at a half dead trestle table under a ripped makeshift tarp / cover, but they barely even glanced at us, so I wasn't sure of their purpose. I suspect the issue resides more in getting out of Laos than trying to get into it. It was dirty, poor and sad. It appeared poorer than Thailand (it is), and more hopeless. I was glad to leave, even though it meant negotiating this awfully strange and dangerous set of makeshift stairs / ladder thing that I ended up most ungraciously kind of half-crab walking down to get to the boat! No, there are no photos of me doing that :)
Following Laos, we went to the northernmost part of Thailand to the border of Burma (Myanmar) and then headed back, stopping at a village on the way, where I saw six of the cutest little puppies I think I've ever seen, and their mother who was heartbreakingly emaciated from lack of food. I fed her all the snacks I had and a couple of guys on the bus followed suit, which made me happy. Poor thing was so hungry she scoffed down dried banana and rice cakes. It really upset me (as do all the skinny dogs I see around here). It's a sad and often overlooked aspect of poor countries... starving animals. I spent a large portion of the return bus trip trying to concoct a plan to fix it, and to also send these village kids to school. The only way I could manage it was to become richer than the pope, so this book needs to be GOOD (and more importantly, needs to be WRITTEN AT ALL). The other reason I was so angry is that there were two male dogs there were looked perfectly healthy (presumably one was the father), and I wondered why that was? If they simply had better hunting skills / instinct then fine, but if they were being fed and the female wasn't, or she wasn't being fed sufficiently to replace everything she was giving to her puppies... I mean, who knows? It got me thinking furiously about cultures in the world where women are basically treated as sex slaves / punching bags, then incubators, then milk machines, and no one ever gives a crap about them as an individual with human thoughts and desires and SUPPOSEDLY, rights. *sigh* It's pretty hard to escape those kind of thoughts here. However I think this is a good thing. It's all very well to jump on my soapbox at parties after sitting in my expensively refurbished lounge room looking at a glossy brochure of people suffering in third world countries, but seeing it in person provides a tangible and lasting effect. If I ever had any doubt about my commitment to human rights causes (please understand in this context I am referring to poverty as I believe it is the No.1 social injustice on the planet) then those doubts are banished forever. Click here to see the Golden Triangle pics, including the whiskeys!
A funny aside... Most of us slept for a while on the way back, as it was a four hour drive and it had been a very long day. However, as sometimes happens when I sleep sitting up and my windpipe gets blocked, I woke myself up doing an absolutely gigantic snort, followed by a fit of hysterical and uncontrollable giggles. My snort woke up three of the other people on the bus, who turned around in their seats, looked at me and then began giggling like mad as well, which made me even worse. So the four of us giggled for several minutes together, which was great, because they didn't speak much or any English so we hadn't interacted all day. Fortunately, laughter translates :)
NOW, if you have made it this far, congratulations! Not long to go. Sorry for the waffle, but I really have done a huge amount this week! Yesterday's activity was my favourite...
YeePeng Sansai
This is the Buddhist festival where they release the floating lanterns. Where the participants do, more accurately, including us (I and some lovely people I met here in Chiang Mai). We caught a songthaew out to Mae Jo where it was being held. There is a field with about ten thousand stands each with a candle on top. You buy your lantern all folded up, have some (free!) food, then grab yourself a candle and sit down for the religious part of the festival. Not being Buddhist or in fact religious in any way, I found that part pretty boring... probably only slightly less irritating than sitting through a full Catholic Mass, and it only possessed that slight advantage because I couldn't understand what they were saying. However, once all the candles were lit we were able to fill our lanterns up and release them. One of the most incredible things I've ever seen or experienced. Really, I recommend anyone thinking of traveling to Thailand / Chiang Mai around this time of year at least attempt to co-ordinate the dates. Again, photos don't do it justice, but you can see the ones I took by clicking here. We lost track of ours almost immediately :) I find it really interesting who you attract when you put things out into the universe. The group of ladies I met predominantly know each other from the organisation in which they work here, which is a human rights organisation that deals particularly with women's issues, helping them use the law effectively and just generally promoting women's human rights in the Asia Pacific Region. So it was amazingly fortuitous that I managed to encounter all these fabulous ladies! Incredibly chuffed about the whole experience really. One of them took a quick video of the fireworks that came on after the main release, you can still see some stragglers sending their lanterns up. Click here to see the video.
Well that's all from me for this week! A massively long one, I know. I shall definitely do less touristy stuff and more writing this week. Discipline, and all that.
Til next time,
*LOVE*
N
