Ko Samet: my island getaway

Back in early April, after surviving the Cambodian heat and landing in Ho Chi Minh City, I realized that the traffic and temperatures of SE Asia weren't about to let up. This month of travels was going to be more exhausting than I'd realized, and some beach time was in order. So I inquired about Ho Tram Beach, which I soon learned was much farther from Ho Chi Minh City than I'd initially thought.

A change had to be made to my carefully constructed itinerary. There was no way that this girl could do a month backpacking alongside the world's most beautiful beaches without sinking her toes into at least one of them. That is how I wound up spending my first afternoon in Ho Chi Minh City planted in front of my hostel computer, researching which city on my itinerary was closest to a beach.

Answer: Bangkok, where I'd planned to return for the last two nights of my month-long travels. From Bangkok, the island of Ko Samet and its glorious white sand beaches were only four hours away by bus.

The island of Ko Samet, a mere 4-hour bus ride from Bangkok, welcomes weary travelers.

A few hours and about $100 later, I'd modified my Chiang Mai-Bangkok flight, I'd altered my hostel reservations in Chiang Mai and in Bangkok, and I'd secured an Airbnb room on the island of Ko Samet, my new final destination on my month-long exploration.

My home on Ko Samet, thanks to Airbnb host Lizzie

To get to the point (not always my greatest skill), the island was totally worth it, 100%. I only wish I'd had another day.

Before I made it to the island, however, I was once again confronted by a culture phenomenon which I'd love to better understand: ladyboys. At first I'd simply assumed they were cross-dressing prostitutes. Having a label, I thought it made sense, though I'll admit I was thrown off when I saw one having ice cream with a Thai man in a fancy Bangkok ice cream parlor. And this couple were the only two willing to come to my rescue when I was struggling to order my ice cream across a language barrier. I'd been struck by how normal they'd seemed that day, how the ladyboy in this ice cream parlor hadn't turned a single head. At the port in Ban Phe, while waiting for my ferry to Ko Samet, the realization struck again: here they were, the ladyboys, serving me my Thai iced tea alongside cis-gendered coworkers. At another booth, a ladyboy was selling hotel rooms... to families. No one was shielding their children from the sight. So what was it about this country and their ladyboys? Who were they? Cross-dressing prostitutes? Homosexuals seeking out a culturally validated means of exercizing their sexuality? Transgender people? This was a question with which I'd leave the country.

Back on point, Ko Samet was stunningly beautiful. And the bikini selection on the island was surprisingly stylish, important as the elephants in Chiang Mai had muddied my previous bathing suit beyond repair. My Scottish host Lizzie was gracious and had a life of adventures to share. She welcomed me into her home and family for the evening, taking me out with her Thai and Swedish friends for dinner, a concert, a fire show, and an evening dancing by the beach. She showed me what Airbnb can be at its best: a means not only to find a bed for the night but also a welcome into the local community and a perspective on a place that a tourist simply can't attain after just a day or two in town.

Ko Samet, a fantastic island getaway readily accessible, yet worlds away, from Bangkok

I hope this won't be my last stay on the island.

Chiang Mai, my land of the elephants

The country of Laos is known as the land of a thousand elephants. However, Chiang Mai was my destination when it came to elephants. I had been fighting against my better self over the past half week to resist the temptation to visit an elephant park near Luang Prabang, where all visits included an elephant ride and mahout training. (Mahout is the title of an elephant trainer.) Elephants aren't always terribly fond of mahouts nor of giant wooden structures strapped to their backs in which tourists plop down for a ride. But things are different in Chiang Mai. Yes, there are still plenty of places there which will let you perch your butt atop an elephant, but if a different experience is more to your liking, this is the place to go. Online, I'd read up on the Mae Sa Elephant Conservatory, but upon arrival, my hostel owner suggested a similar site where a baby elephant had just been born: the Elephant Retirement Park. This was, hands down, the coolest thing I did on my trip.

Here, I got to know 26-year-old second-time mother Buathong, 10-year-old Phet, 15-year-old Ben, 3-year-old Ngam, et 13-day-old (eee!) baby Lanna.

Ben
Ben is a picky eater, and will only eat fully ripe bananas. (The elephants in this park also eat corn and sugar cane.) At 15 years old, Ben is not yet fully grown. While taking some tourists for a ride one day, she made a misstep and fell, injuring her leg. In response, her owners locked her in a cage and prevented the injury from properly healing. She is now on lease and is healing at the Elephant Retirement Park. (Elephants are very expensive to buy, so all the adults at the park are currently on lease.)

Phet
Phet loves to hug the visitors, but he wasn't always so trusting. He was rescued from an elephant camp after he simply refused to continue working because he had been so badly abused that he stopped responding to humans. A mahout at the Elephant Retirement Park had to kneel before Phet offering him bananas for many hours before he was even willing to interact enough to accept food from a human.

Ngam
Ngam is a little over 2.5 years old and he too was already seriously abused in his short life. He is a friendly one these days, and his trunk wanders a bit much when he goes in for his slobbier kisses.

Buathong
Buathong just gave birth to her second baby, Lanna. The pregnancy came as a bit of a surprise to the Elephant Retirement Park. They hadn't realized just how friendly she'd been with another male elephant who has since been transferred to another elephant sanctuary. That wasn't a problem for Buathong since, in elephant social structure, only the females live together and they collectively care for the young. An elephant's gestation period is 22-24 months, so Lanna had plenty of time to beef up before her birth. Buathong was in labor with Lanna for a full day, and the entire surrounding village heard her screams and grunts. Her baby has only gained about 5 pounds since her birth, and at around 200 lbs, that's no easy birth. One surprising thing I learned when meeting Buathong is that elephant udders/breasts are unexpectedly high up on the chest, and there is only a pair of them. They looked weirdly human (just gray and wrinkly) compared to cows, cats, dogs, and goats (the only other animals whose mammary glands I've seen in person).

Lanna
Baby Lanna is only 13 days old, and is a little wobbly on her feet. She is also quite furry-- who knew baby elephants had so much extra hair? She is already very curious and wants to explore everything, so mama Buathong has to constantly use her trunk to keep Lanna in line.

The Elephant Retirement Park is an organization which rescues abused and overworked elephants. Instead of the guests riding elephants and watching them do tricks, we learn the commands to get the elephants to open their mouths (so we can feed them bananas), to hug us, and to kiss us. (Elephant kisses are kind of slobbery and involve a lot of suction.) They also taught us how to tell the elephants when they'd done well (the equivalent of telling a dog "Good boy/girl"). We spent the day feeding the elephants, bathing with them, and rolling in the mud together.

The elephants love to roll around and splash in the water with the visitors. It's a little scary when suddenly an elephant foot or trunk pops up right next to you in the water (mostly for the sake of your toes!) but it is so insanely cool. We scratched and scrubbed and splashed and pet the elephants. They were happy to interact. You could even put out your hand and they would clasp it in their trunk or even wrap their trunk around your wrist in a sort of playful elephant handshake. (From the strength in their grip, I was really happy that these elephants were not temperamental!)

We learned that elephants flap their ears and wag their tails when they are happy, but we didn't need that lesson to see that these elephants were clearly in a good place emotionally. And 13-day-old baby Lanna was the best thing ever. This place is a must-see for anyone visiting Chiangmai or anywhere in Thailand.

The Elephant Retirement Park: I can't recommend this place strongly enough.

It was a pity I wasn't able to squeeze in more time in Chiang Mai itself. I think Chiang Mai would be a great place to kick back for a half week or so. The food is up to the delicious Thai standard with which Bangkok had spoiled me, and yet the city itself is calm and laid back, a real hippie destination. Some fellow hostelers and I actually spent an evening at a reggae bar listening to a local band called the Reggae Croissant.

But late April temperatures outside were eating me alive, and I will confess that on my only full day in Chiang Mai, I checked off a few temples and monuments mostly to say I'd been-there-done-that. I proceeded to spend most of the day getting massaged and enjoying a Starbucks iced coffee that bought me a few hours of mid-day air conditioning. (Monsoon season in Southeast Asia begins around June, and the time building up to it can become rather unbearable.)

Chiang Mai: been there, done that, could use to do it again when it's a little less hot and humid.

Recommendations: Don't wait until late April to go to Chiang Mai. And be sure to visit the Elephant Retirement Park.

The Big Mango

Let's get one thing clear from the get-go: this post's time stamp is a lie. It marks the date I wrapped up my time in Bangkok, but it's hardly the moment when I found a chance to sit and write. Turns out that powering across Southeast Asia in just a month doesn't leave a lot of time for blogging, hardly even for selecting the photos for a daily facebook post. And returning home to jetlag, mutliple rounds of friends visiting, and a few trips scattered through Europe in between preparing to move out of Paris and attempting to catch up once more with each of my friends in the city of lights, well, it doesn't leave much time to document an amazing series of adventures from the other side of the world. So here I am, sitting on a bus heading back to Aarhus (I'll fess up: it's already late May), and I am trying to find a way to summarize an eye-opening, bewildering, and exhausting month of exploration while on the brink of beginning a new life as a postdoc in a small(ish) Danish city.

A random smattering of Bangkok

I began my grand tour of Southeast Asia in Bangkok, aka The Big Mango. Here, I discovered the true meaning of the phrase "the city that never sleeps." The steady flow of heavy traffic at all hours of the day and night sets the tone for this hectic city. Even on our night bike tour with our hostel owner, we found ourselves battling to dodge traffic.

Night biking through the Big Mango with out hostel owner

I also learned that people here will put just about anything (and any quantity of it, challenging the limits of physical possibility) on the back of a motorbike. You have to admire their industriousness.

Defying gravity: the Thai will put anything and everything (and as much of it as possible) on a motorbike

Juxtapositions between modernity and poverty were striking: on day one, I found that the metro system was modern, comfortable, even fully air-conditioned, but try to transfer onto a bus and you'll find yourself in a rickety vehicle with seats resembling school desk chairs nailed to the wooden floors, and a woman with a change tin walking around the bus in between stops to collect fares. 

In every direction, the cacophony of novel and exotic sounds, smells, and colors could easily become overwhelming, especially when blanketed in a tropical heat. And so the temples were a welcome respite from the energy of the city outside their walls. I made a point to visit Wat Pho and Wat Arun, two temples boasting very different styles.

Wat Pho

Wat Pho was built between 1656 and 1783, though it later underwent some major renovations. Not only was it a holy site, but it is also Thailand's first public university. Here, King Rama III had scholars collect the wisdom of the age on topics such as poetry, history, religion, medicine, political science, literature, and linguistics, and had this information carved into over 2000 tablets which were posted around the temple grounds. Wat Pho is famous as the home of the reclining Buddha, a 46-meter-long, 15-meter-high, lacquered and gilded Buddha statue which you can see in the middle of my Wat Pho collage.

Wat Arun

Wat Arun, or Temple of the Dawn, was built around the same time period as Wat Pho, but it has a very different feel. This temple is located right along the Chao Phraya River, so I navigated my way past the Royal Palace and Wat Pho, through some markets, and into a ferry to make my visit. Much of Wat Arun was under construction, and so we couldn't climb the central, Khmer-style tower for which this palace is known. Wat Arun was smaller and felt less regal than Wat Pho, but it held a different sort of charm, especially with all the mother-child animal sculptures scattered around the base of the central tower. And who can complain about warrior sculptures guarding real-life napping cats?

With some new friends, I spent part of my last day relaxing on the Golden Mount (Wat Saket), which offers some fantastic panoramic views across the city. Here, a friend taught me about some tidbits of Buddhism. The half-empty bottles we saw lying around the statues here weren't trash but rather food offerings to the gods represented in the statues. I learned that the bells and gongs can be used to make beautiful sounds which are also considered to be offerings to the Buddha. When watching my friend cringe as a tourist rang a gong four times, he explained that only certain numbers are considered auspicious (like 1, 3, and 5) and should be used in offerings.

The Golden Mount

No description of a visit to Bangkok is complete without some mention of the royal family propaganda. Photos, billboards, and posters of the members of the royal family are plastered all over this city. For the most part, it seems harmless enough: the people here are rather fond of their king, who they feel makes a particular point to travel around the country to get to know his people, for whom he has real concern. Still, things can easily become a slippery slope. Remember, this same king supported the military coup. (Locals will tell you that he did this to stop the warring factions from killing so many people, but then again, the locals who sing another tune don't face such great outlooks these days.) At least what I can tell you from a tourist's perspective is that the coup increased military presence in the city and thus improved security for foreigners. Whether I should feel guilty about this or not, the military coup certainly wasn't bothering me.

Thai Royal Family propaganda is all over this city

My mouth has never been so happy as it was in Bangkok (and, believe it or not, my stomach too!). The freshly squeezed pomegranate, passion fruit, starfruit, and orange juices awaited me on every corner, readily poised to satisfy me as soon as the craving might strike. And the coconut ice cream was served in coconuts cracked open and shaved upon order. I had never realized that fresh coconut shavings could be so slimy, almost mango-like in texture!

Coconut ice cream eaten out of a fresh coconut with its own shavings is even better when shared with friends

I soon learned that there's nothing like a refreshing, mildly sweet papaya salad for an afternoon snack on a sizzling summer day (maybe minus the tomato slices.) I even found a vegetarian restaurant, May Kaidee, which offered a ridiculously delicious and accessible cooking class full of lessons on curries, spicy soups, salads, and a mango sticky rice dessert. By chance, I was the only sign-up my day, so I even got a private half-day cooking lesson!

May Kaidee vegetarian Thai cooking class: highly recommended

A quick swing by the Flower Market a couple of days later enabled me to stock up on all the exotic spices I'd need to hone my Thai cooking skills back home. (Now to just find the time to put those new skills to good use!) 

The Flower Market

My muscles also didn't have much about which to protest as, at $5/hour, I was a very regular client at the Thai massage parlor just across from my hostel.

The massage parlor had little towels folded up like elephants and topped with orchids on every chair.

It's a hectic place but I absolutely loved it and hope to return. Bangkok ranks high up on my list of cities to visit.

Recommendations:

-Enjoy the curry and the fresh fruit dishes.

-Make a stop at May Kaidee's restaurant

-Get as many massages as you can squeeze in. If the full-body thing isn't for you, at least sit back in an arm chair and let your feet be pampered after a long day of walking across the city.

-If hosteling, check out Born Free Hostels. Run by a Swiss-Thai couple with a perfectly blended local and international flavor, they get give you advice as locals and insight into the culture in the context of a broader Western perspective. The hostels cultivate a social environment ideal for meeting fellow travelers, especially important for solo travelers.

Entry/lounge area of the traditional Thai home converted into the Born Free hostel where I spent my first five nights in Asia. Recommended, especially for solo travelers. Great atmosphere and layout for meeting new people.