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Tortuous Massage, Snakes in Pants, and Beasts of Burden

Thailand- (December 17-31, 1997)

As soon as we crossed the border of Thailand, we hopped on a train headed North to Surat Thani. This is the coastal town where you catch the ferry to the island paradise of Ko Samui. We were able to upgrade to first class on the train and enjoyed our own little cabin with bunk-beds and food service. We arrived at Surat Thani in the middle of the night, and trusted a taxi driver in a super-charged old Chevy to deliver us to a decent hotel. Early in the morning, we had to pile downstairs to the lobby to get the bus to the ferryboat. We got in the elevator and another tourist came in after us. The elevator stopped at the next floor down, the doors opened, and there was an old man standing there in the process of hawking up a big one, we all cringed when he let fly but he hit the wall, and the doors to the elevator closed.

When we arrived on the island, we wandered around until we found a good place to spend a few days relaxing. Well, we found it. A beautiful resort called "Blue Lagoon". For $18 a night we had a luxurious bungalow with air-con and stocked fridge. There was a pool and white sand beach. There was even a bar in the pool!

The resort also offered a one-hour "traditional Thai massage" for $4. So we signed up. In Thailand, the really traditional massages are performed by old blind men, in our case "Uncle Tom" was his name. But after we experienced his massage, we fondly remember him as "Tom the Torturer"

Don was first. Tom twisted, stretched, and prodded. Finally he pounded. He used his hands, elbows, feet, and heels. In the end, Don was ready to be breaded and fried. I watched as Don's session ended with the grand finale of Uncle Tom putting his index fingers deep into Don's ears, then yanking them out, proclaiming satisfactorily "DAAAA!"

I really wanted to get out of my turn, but I had a reservation.

The first thing Tom did was have me lay on my stomach, then he proceeded to stick his thumbs into my calves, then he sat on them! I had tears coming out of my eyes. I tried to escape several times but he had a good hold of one ankle. He didn't get to do the ear trick on me though, instead I settled for having all my fingers and toes yanked out of their sockets.

When we weren't enjoying all the pleasures offered at the resort, we rented a motorbike and toured the island. One attraction touted to tourists, was the "Snake Farm" - daily shows at 11 and 2.

This was basically a freak show. Young Thai men would display deadly snakes, centipedes, and scorpions, then eventually put them down their pants. We watched a man walked around with scorpions on his face, torso, and inside his pants. Another man walked around with a centipede stinging him constantly so the tourists could get a photo. Don joined in at one point and had several snakes draped around his neck. He did not put them down his pants however.

We flew from the island to Bangkok. The first day out I decided to put a 2 inch piece of masking tape on my shirt, so at the end of the day I could see how much dirt had settled on my clothes, not to mention inhaled into my lungs. Our first visit was to the Grand Palace, home of the King. This is a magnificent gold Buddhist extravaganza of spires, dragons, and Buddha images.

The King of Thailand is extremely revered and loved. He is a good king.

He spends three-quarters of his time visiting the impoverished in the countryside and devising programs to better their lives. The King's birthday is December 5th, and the decorations celebrating this event were still evident on the streets - thousands on lights and giant photos of him hung in his honor. The King is so respected that when you go to a movie in Thailand, before the main feature begins, everyone must stand for the national anthem while a photo-montage of the King shows on the big screen.

After Bangkok, we flew to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.

Here we went separate ways. Don on a 3-day jungle trek (I had already had this experience 6 years ago) and I to a 3-day Thai Cooking School. When we were trying to find a trek for Don to join, we stopped in one travel agency, but were met by "Light-Fingered Louie" as we called him.

This was a little boy, maybe 5 yrs old, who greeted us by first patting down Don's pockets looking for something to steal (and depositing some unidentifiable sticky residue in the process). He then patted me down, but just found my sunglasses and tissues. Needless to say, we didn't choose that trekking company.

The Trek:

We started by hiking to a nice waterfall and then visited some hot springs (our guide then told us there were some snakes around there we should have watched out for). Next, we hiked for a couple hours in the jungle to a village inhabited by the "Karen" tribe. This was actually Christmas-eve, so after a tasty Thai dinner, our guide borrowed a guitar from the tribe and played Christmas carols as well as a few choice selections by the Beatles and the Eagles.

The next morning, we hiked through a couple more villages until we reached a "Lisu" tribe village on a river where we stopped for lunch. Some people swam, but I had been forewarned that elephants prefer to relieve themselves in the water when they cross it.

After lunch, our rides for the rest of the day showed up.

These were about a dozen elephants with little kids sitting on their heads, who encouraged their beasts to move lively by yanking on their ears and pounding the tops of their heads. Now, as one of our group put it so eloquently- "You don't want to piss of something that can poop soccer balls!"

Fortunately, these elephants were very mild mannered. For example, later, one broke away from his tether to a tree and meandered off to munch on some weeds and small shrubs. When a Thai boy discovered this, he yelled at the beast, and pointed back to the tree. The elephant sadly walked back to be chained up, but not until it had snagged one last shrub.

We rode 3 people to an elephant- two on the back in a sort of basket, and one on its neck. Being alone, and a guy, I got the neck position. While this was not as comfortable (trying to keep my knees above an elephant's ears for a couple hours), it was not as frightening as I had thought. The very first thing we did was to go down a very steep riverbank and walk through knee-high (to an elephant) water. Fortunately, elephants are quite levelheaded, in all respects, and I didn't fall off.

Our guides walked along beside us, and encouraged our progress by screaming at the elephants, and occasionally shooting them with a slingshot. We countered this by talking soothingly and said we didn't condone this activity.

We arrived safely at another village where we were to spend the night. Karen had told me that a lot of the schools in the mountains are terribly supplied, so I had brought a couple boxes of pencils to give out. When I brought out the pencils, all the kids lined up to take one. But I hadn't brought a sharpener, so the kids then formed a line while I sharpened all the pencils with my pocket knife.

That night, all the kids in the village dressed up in traditional clothes and stood in a circle around a bonfire, singing Thai and Christmas songs.

The next morning, our guide showed us a standard hill-tribe rifle - basically a musket. He fired a shot off, but then when he tried to reload it, the ramrod got stuck in the barrel. He had several people try to help him yank it out until it finally came free. A little bit later, I saw some of the young boys (5-10 yrs) running around the village with the gun, and a bit after that, I heard a shot in the jungle. No one was hurt, though, it was all fun & games...

The last day of the trek, we rafted down the river on some rafts hastily made of bamboo poles and tied together with palm fronds. These worked quite well, and even got us through some light rapids. At one point, however, we pulled off to a bank to let some of us off, since the next set of rapids had destroyed previous rafts. As we walked around the rocks on the bank, we were charged by a snake, but our guide leapt to our rescue and beat it to death.

Once we safely arrived at the final village, we dined on some tasty Thai noodles, and rode back into the civilization of Chiang Mai.

Cooking School:

Meanwhile, I (Karen) was learning Thai cooking from a master chef. We made Thai soups, curries, and noodles. I even made my own curry paste with mortar and pestle. I will make everyone a Thai feast when we return!

We have since flown back to Bangkok to pick up our visas for Vietnam. We are staying in a $10 a night hotel in the middle of the city. There are a few cockroaches in the room but no more than were in our $40 a night room, so we decided to cut our losses.

I think we are getting a little travel worn after two months. Yesterday, we were eating in a restaurant and when the waitress brought us our bill, she threw in a couple of parting gifts: a paper fan and a stick of deodorant. We must be getting pretty stinky!!!

Happy New Year! We will be celebrating in Saigon.

Love, Karen & Don

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