Traveling Lite With heavy hearts we boarded our return flight from Paro to Bangkok. After such an amazing experience in Bhutan, we knew that our yardstick for the trip had grown and our perspective on so many things had Chianged. The sights we saw and people we met in the past few weeks had given us a sense of understanding and closeness to Bhutan that is a direct contrast to the majority of experiences to be had in more commercialized tourist destinations, especially major vacation hubs like Thailand.

Prior to leaving Bhutan, we had decided that we would travel ultra light in Thailand, so we packed our bare essentials into our daypacks and the top section or "brains" of our big packs. We left all the cold weather and camping gear in the backpacks themselves and when we arrived in Bangkok, we checked our packs into luggage storage. It was great to finally have the sense of freedom of traveling with only carry-on bags. From there we hopped onto a flight to the southern city of Krabi on the western Andaman coast. Krabi is the nearest airport to the beaches of Railey Beach, where Naomi spent several of months of her last trip to Asia in 1996-97. This is also one of the regions of Thailand that was affected by last year's tsunami, though no where near as severe as other countries. This area of Thailand known for its beautiful, secluded beaches that are surrounded by lush jungle and towering limestone cliffs. These beaches are unique in that most are accessible only by boat. The "longtail" boat, a traditional Thai boat design modernized by a small car engine with a long propeller extending from the rear and a steering handle in the front, is the primary type of boat used for interisland and beach transportation. The longboat men wander the waters of the region acting as water taxis, taking everything from tourists to construction materials to the remote beaches.

A Long Tail From Krabi, we grabbed a longtail to Railey Beach. The boat ride ended up being a reminder that we were in Thailand at the end of the monsoon season. As we left Krabi town, the sun disappeared, the sky darkened and the downpour began. A bit wetter, but no worse for the wear, we arrived in Railey. The next few days were a welcome bit of sun and relaxation after the long trek. For the next few days, We hopped around the various beaches, staying in bungalows that cost around five dollars a night, drinking Singha beer, and enjoying the beach bum lifestyle once again.

After five days of chilling, checking out caves and beaches, and taking cover for the daily rainstorms; we moved onto the seaside town of Ao Nang for a few days. The highlight of this stay was a trip to an elephant preserve. For years, Thais used elephants for logging in the jungles. In the mid-90's, the government banned the use of elephant labor and owners were faced with the decision of what to do with these mighty creatures. Several owners had the foresight to see the tourist value of trained elephants. This has led to a niche tourist industry in Thailand, elephant treks. We took a day trip to a preserve and went for a fun afternoon's ride. A metal two person seat is strapped to an elephant's back, similar to a saddle for tourists and the elephant "driver" sits on the animal's massive neck directly behind its head. Steering is accomplished by a combination of pressure from the driver's feet and knees behind the elephant's ears, verbal commands, and an occasional prodding from a length of bamboo or hooked prod. We went out into the jungle for about a two hour long walk and it was fun experience, sitting fifteen feet in the air, feeling the massive shoulder muscles through our feet and getting sprayed by the elephant trunk-snot as we lumbering through the bush.
An ElephantMost of the elephants were around 40 years old and after a hard life of logging work, they showed their age with tattered ears and scarred backs. After the trek ended, we were able to get up close and really get a feel for these animals. They are slow, but incredibly powerful. Given the opportunity, they will eat all day long consuming hundreds of pounds of vegetation a day. When forced into labor, they will do so begrudgingly and often with a mind of their own. If your elephant wants to stop and eat or go a different route, the driver has marginal control at best - what can a 150 pound Thai man really tell a several ton elephant to do? The preserve, also served as a rubber tree farm, growing the trees and harvesting the rubber from them. The operation looked a lot like collecting maple syrup, with slices cut into the tree to release the rubber and coconuts at the bottom of the tree to collect it. You could walk up to a tree and see the white lines of dried rubber running down the tree. You can grab the end of one of these lines and pull several feet of dried rubber from the tree. Roll a few of these lines together and you have a very effective bouncy ball.

The culinary highlight of our time in Ao Nong was the pair of food vendors on the street outside of our guesthouse. This was Brice's first experience and a welcome return for Naomi. The first vendor sold about a dozen Thai dishes prepared to order. We often walked down and ordered a plate of Pad Thai or Curry for 20 Baht ($0.50 US) and sat under the blue tarp behind the vendor's cart and enjoyed some unbelievably good Thai cooking. After the meal, we would walk ten feet sown the sidewalk to the Thai roti vendor. A Thai roti or pancake is a very thin piece of dough loaded up with various fillings and fried: a real sweet treat. Our roti lady had an incredible selection of fillers, from fresh coconut to banana and chocolate, to eggs and veggies. Once again, fifty cents for an awesome dish.

With a week of beach time under our belts, we were ready for something different, so we hopped on a plane to the city of Chiang Mai, which is located in the northern mountain region and is the second largest city in Thailand. Significantly smaller than Bangkok, Chiang Mai offers a much friendlier and accessible atmosphere than the sprawling capitol city. Chiang Mai is known for several things, including its night bazaar, where hundreds upon hundreds of street vendors set up stalls along a network of city streets every night, offering an array of goods from local handicrafts to bootleg movies. It is an elbow to elbow spectacle and we did some quality shopping there.

Cooking School There were two real highlights of our visit to Chiang Mai. The first of which was cooking school. One of the hottest tourist to-do's in Thailand is to take Thai cooking lessons. It is a brilliant idea, allowing any Thai that knows how to cook traditional meals to make a good living and allowing tourists to learn the inner workings of this delicious and popular cuisine. The day started off with a trip to the street market to identify all of the necessary ingredients. Our energetic and spunky teacher identified many of the mystery items we had pondered passing through the market. Everything from the difference in chilies and types of basil to how you grind coconuts and buy curry paste. From the market we headed to the classroom that was a few kilometers outside of town. It was a cool set up with two walls lines with gas cookers and stacks of woks hanging from the walls. The middle of the room consisted of two preparation tables and an eating table. The menu for the day included pad thai, spring rolls, green curry, sweet and sour vegetables, coconut and prawn soup, sticky rice and mango, and black sticky rice pudding. It was a fun process, making a dish then eating it - not a bad way to spend the day. Brice related well to rolling the spring rolls - made him lovingly think of burritos. We walked away from the day with full bellies, plans for Thai meals when we get home, and some new friends.

Is this a stick shift? The other highlight of our time in Chiang Mai was our overnight trek in the mountains. There were six of us on the trek we were joined by four wonderful folks from Salt Lake City, We loaded in the back of a truck and were driven north from Chiang Mai towards the mountains - we joked that we had no idea exactly where they were taking us - and headed out onto the trail with our guide, Tee. After a few miserable hours slogging through some very hot jungle, we arrived at an elephant camp. We hopped on a trio of elephants and headed further up into the mountains. This ride was quite a switch from the last; these elephants meant business, going fast through some gnarly, steep trails. After a while, the guy driving our elephant let Naomi switch positions with him. For the rest of this leg of the trip Naomi navigated from the elephant’s neck. Pretty cool! The elephants dropped us off in the village of a hill tribe. This tribe, the Palong, immigrated from Laos many years ago and had settled in a remote section of jungle and are still considered to be refugees by the Thai government. We spent the night with the Palong in one of a family’s guest hut. The night was spent joining in dance and song with the villagers and then a good old fashioned drinking session with the folks from Salt Lake. It felt very good to be able to hang out with such good people and enjoy the easy communication of like-minded people that come from home. One of the more unique beverages that enter Brice's stomach was a local cocktail of whiskey with a mildly poisonous centipede pickled in it. The locals felt that the poisons mingled with the whiskey put fire in your blood and made you strong - sure looked like an oversized tequila worm though. After hiking out the next day, we finished the last leg of our trip, by floating down a river on bamboo rafts. Once we met up with our truck, it was back to Chiang Mai and promises for visits to Salt Lake City in the future.

The Grand Palace We made our way into Bangkok from the airport and spent the evening poking around the touristy areas, including Bangkok's famed red light district. It was 6pm on Halloween night and all of the "establishments" were decorating - things weren’t really open yet, but we saw enough to realize the debauchery that that would be occuring in a few hours. Our guesthouse was in the backpacker haven of Kao San Road, where there was also plenty of Halloween celebrating on the streets. We weren't much for partying so we watched the last of the bootleg Alias DVDs that Naomi is so addicted to.

We really lucked out the next day for sightseeing. Turns out it was a Buddhist holiday and to celebrate and to help with tourism, the government offered a deal for the city's registered tuk-tuks. A ride around the city to see a half dozen of the most famous wats for 20 baht a person, so off we went. Entrance to the wats was also free for the holiday. We saw the World's tallest Standing Buddha, the Lucky Buddha, the Sitting Buddha, etc. The tour ended with the Grand Palace, a monumental royal palace, a massive Wat and one of Bangkok's most famous sights. We ended the evening with our last Thai meal and were giddy about heading to Chile yet dreading the 36 hours of impending travel time. The next morning, we couldn’t get out of the city fast enough; we were tired of the smog, traffic, noise, and the insistence of all of the vendors. We were ready for Chile, and the language school that awaits us.