Day 3 at ENP – 1.14.15 Wednesday

Posted by millionindentationsofhappiness on January 13, 2015

Shovel elephant poop in the morning.

Next we got in vans (which the driver played country music! ) to go visit hill tribes to bring packages we put together yesterday. On the ride I found poop in my pocket, elephant poop. Damp elephant poop. Must have fallen in there during chores. This Hill Tribe was about 20 minutes from ENP. We delivered clothes, blankets and toys to the adults and children. Although we are a bit unorganized the gesture is very moving. This Hill Tribe village is one of the providers of the crops (they are farmers) that are delivered to ENP for elephant and human consumption. Pom mentioned to me that they have made these deliveries to over 100 different Hill Tribes. This is amazing to me.

For lunch had delicious rice rolled in banana leaves. Delicious!! We ate near the Buddhist monk temple.

When we got back to the park Jodi recruited us to bring treats and toys ( trimmed branches ) to the Bachelor boys, Hope, Tong Suk, and Chang Yim. This is Tong Suk aka Jungle Boy!

Tong Suk aka Jungle Boy

After that we went to Steels enclosure to play with her and her mates. Steel is such a doll… gets a little possessive for our affection but a doll nonetheless.

Steel

Steel with red jacket, Gimpy 1 ( Thai Pei, white), Gimpy 2 (Son Luk, brown)

Steel with red jacket, Gimpy 1 (Thai Pei, white), Gimpy 2 (Son Luk, brown) & Sabine

Drinking a bottled Margarita now which tastes pretty good. Dinner is on in half an hour and then we go to the conference room land learn about Thai culture.

Day 2 at ENP – 1.13.15 Tuesday

Posted by millionindentationsofhappiness on January 13, 2015

Will have to add photos and notes later. Checking if I can post

Clean elephant park. Saw Navaan and family. Saw Mae Bua Loi and Mae Bua Kham. They were in blankets because they were shivering; it’s been quite cold in the morning.

Saw Dok Mai and family herd.

Learned that females produce milk ànd can give birth up to 60 years of age. Wow.

Played with cats after morning chore and had delicious lunch. It is freezing in the morning and night! !! But sunny and warm during the day. Actually quite refreshing. 🙂

This afternoon is elephant bath which I may just observe and photograph today. Snoozed a little in the sun after lunch first though. Get a chill out if the sun and the elephant platform is out in the sun.

Loving everything.

Even the fact that I will be cleaning elephant and cattle poo this afternoon .

She just came up to the platform!

Little bananas are cute.

Posted by millionindentationsofhappiness on January 12, 2015

Waiting for ENP van to collect us!

Sunday Walking Market (Tha Phae Gate)

Posted by millionindentationsofhappiness on January 11, 2015

p.s. This post was done from the bathroom, which is closest to the hallway, which is closest to the free WiFi. Nothing except typing was done while writing this post.

Finally the clear blue skies of Chiang Mai in winter! :).

We are on our way to Sunday Market, not Sunday Walking Market which is much bigger. We will go there when we return from the sanctuary. Some cool art work across from the market. I snuck in a little American influence in the bottom right of this picture (McDonald’s). Why would anyone not want to eat delicious Thai food only?!?!

This is a view of the start of the market at Tha Phae Gate. Hi, Sabine! The aisles for the markets are usually quite long and several rows deep. The day markets or walking markets are some of my favorites because the majority of the items are handmade. The Kilare Night Bazaar, which I still enjoy, is 50/50 designer knock-off tents and handmade goods.

Two aisles are dedicated to the locals who are preparing food to so sell to tourists. EVERYTHING is made fresh. Speaking of food, this was our lunch, homemade dumplings and fresh mango juice on the rocks. Yummy!

I was able to buy a few things but am limiting myself since I will have to pack it all up and take it to the sanctuary. I will do the heavy shopping when we are done volunteering. 🙂 When we were done with the market, we explored a couple of streets across from the market and, or course, I bought a couple more things. I made a friend at the bookstore we visited. He had a collar woth a bell on it which made me very happy since it mean he has a human. He was relatively small yet round:

And true to cat nature, when I tried to get a picture of his face, he gave me the cold shoulder.

At around 4:00, we decided we were done and took a motor-trike back home. By the way, there are no driving laws or lanes in Thailand. Part of the Thai charm 🙂

Here is more scenery on the way back to the hotel.

We will have a low key evening before the start of our volunteer work tomorrow. Probably have some pad Thai at Top Market (which has a mall on top of it) and then had back to our hotel next door. We pack up and watch a little t.v. — one American channel, woohoo!! I’ll write more in 12-ish days when we return from the sanctuary!

Saturday Night Bazaar

Posted by millionindentationsofhappiness on January 10, 2015

The most eventful part of this was the motor-trike back to the hotel. The driver drove like a maniac. Thank god for the oh-shit handles. Of the 2 lanes of one-way traffic, we were in the third lane– the dotted line separating the 2 lanes. I had images of one or both of us rolling out of the trike into traffic.. or the trike tipping over. holy.shit.

Some pretty lights that I will bring home once the girls decide which ones they like!

all my elephants are aligned…

Posted by millionindentationsofhappiness on January 10, 2015

So as some of you may know, there was a slight issue with my 2 week reservation volunteering at Elephant Nature Park. We are volunteering the week of the 12th and the week of the 19th. Sabine’s reservation went through for both weeks but mine only went through for the 2nd week. We called this morning to confirm the Monday morning van pickup to the ENP office. I explained again that my first week reservation seemed to be dropped, so they suggested that I volunteer the first week at Elephant Nature Park for dogs. That way I can still be on the premises yet have housing; there was no housing available for elephant volunteer. I agreed to go to the ENP office at 11 a.m. since it was too late to make an online reservation.

We decided to leave a little early and arrived at the ENP office at 10:30 a.m. Who should be in the office (which is like a little tropical office space loaded with office cat and dog rescues, the resident 4 leggeds) but Lek (founder of ENP) having her picture taken with stacks of boxes of donated clothes. We saw her and she immediately smiled and said ‘You back!’ We said yes, every 2 years has been our plan. She said how nice it was to see us and we tried to scoot aside so that she cold finish with her photo-op moment. 2 young local Thai volunteers at the registration desk offered to assist us and I proceeded to tell my story again and then agree to do the first week with the ENP dog volunteer

alternative. As we were talking, sweet, tiny little Lek comes up behind our chairs and puts her arms around us to say hello. She said how she is so glad to see us again. She asked if we were volunteering again and I explained my situation aaagggain – not to get any preferential treatment but just telling her that Sabine was doing 2 weeks with the elephants and i was doing first week with the dogs and 2nd week with the elephants. And she says…

‘Oh, no, no… you can do both weeks with elephants’. And I said how I was told it was full. But she said, ‘no, no, we make room for you.’ And then I said thank you but I know there is no more housing available. And she says, ‘I always have housing for you, especially when you keep coming back…’ I stared at her, then jumped off my chair and threw my arms around her, and, of course, started crying. I could not stop saying thank you…. and she smiled and kept hugging me back. I was overwhelmed at her gracious gesture. I would NEVER ask for preferential treatment and would gladly accept working with the ENP dogs.. although my preference is the elephants. But it was like everything aligned just right at that moment: getting there 30 minutes early, running into Lek at the office, Lek recognizing us and insisting that there is enough room for me at the park. And even further more, when the 2 young men were registering us, and we said we would pay the balance now (rather than the typical Monday morning during pre-park registering) we realized that the balance was less than what we owed. When we said this, they said, ‘no, Lek told us to give you a discount’. What??? I was just filled with emotion. So, to not offend and tell her that the discount
is unnecessary, we accepted her ‘gift’. And I will be making an online donation to the park in the near future.

We had a slightly bumpy time since the start of our trip, but now everything has fallen into place. I am beyond happy!!! Thank you, Lek… angel and my heroine.

Jumping into Thai time zone… 12 hours ahead of home. Feeling a little fuzzy and happy.

Thailand or bust.

Posted by millionindentationsofhappiness on January 9, 2015

Not the happiest camper. We actually arrived at the hotel by 12:00 a.m. ish on 1/9/2015. It is raining which it never does in Thailand in January. This saddens me… Frazzled and exhausted because the flight from NYC to Seoul was delayed which made us land in Seoul 5 minutes AFTER our boarding time for the 2nd leg or our trip (Seoul to Chiang Mai).

I had about 472987234987623957 hot flashes (I have noticed that some of my hot flashes can be triggered by stress) while running from arrival gate, through security (again) where the line was 43958736729768725621340685868234 people long, to the next departure gate. The whole time I think I may have been yelling that we are to miss our next flight. The entire process was very unorganized and not ‘typical’ of the Seoul airport experience.

The rest went relatively smoothly until we opened the door to our room… and it was warm, and muggy, and 2 post-grad graduates could not figure out how to turn on a single light switch in the room. In fact, some seemed to be missing… I was ready call the front desk, but not only could I not see the phone, but the power to the phone was also off.

I’m not sure what made Sabine think to put our keycard into a little slot by the entry way to our room, but when she did, the lights went on, the air-conditioning turn on, the mini-fridge turned on… I guess this is a slightly clever idea so that guests do not lose their keys so easily AND they are forced to shut off the power when the leave the room. But it would have been nice if this was explained to us.

This deluxe room seems to be 2 deluxe’s less than the last 2 times we were here and I have to be standing in the hallway or near our toilet (which is nearest to the hallway) in order to get an internet connection. Skyping is loud and disruptive on a 12 hour time difference, but whatevs.

I (we) am (are) showered and clean and ready to comfortably rest on our beds while we loosely plan our next couple of days before volunteering…

over and out.

I’m gonna miss these guys…

Posted by millionindentationsofhappiness on January 2, 2015

and their papa too…

Kelly (16) and Jen (15)

“The Marks of Human Passage”

Posted by millionindentationsofhappiness on December 29, 2014

“It is a better world with some buffalo left in it, a richer world with some gorgeous canyons unmarred by signboards, hot-dog stands, super highways, or high-tension lines, undrowned by power or irrigation reservoirs. If we preserved as parks only those places that have no economic possibilities, we would have no parks. And in the decades to come, it will not be only the buffalo and the trumpeter swan who need sanctuaries. Our own species is going to need them too.
It needs them now.”
–from “The Marks of Human Passage” by Wallace Stegner, included in “This is Dinosaur: Echo Park Country and its Magic Rivers” (1955)