Thailand Wildlife

After giving elephants a blog post all of their own, we realized that we also needed to recognize some of the other animals that we've came across since arriving in Thailand.  Moving here, we knew we would be exposed to all kinds of wildlife that we would not typically come into contact with in the United States.  Sure enough, we've had wildlife encounters that range from cute little geckos to pretty frightening scorpions.

The geckos are the most useful of our "pets” in our house.  Small ones (about 2-6 inches long) can be found all over our house, and are a good sign because they eat bugs.  We also have one large one, which is close to a foot-and-a-half long, that we rarely see but often hear at night.  

This gecko wanted to read the letter my mom sent me.

Bugs win the prize for being the most numerous pet.  We live in a pretty rural area, so bugs are everywhere – and they definitely make themselves heard at night!  Bugs here range from the annoying: spiders, ants, and mosquitoes… to the beautiful: an awesome giant grasshopper, beautifully colored butterflies.  Our personal favorite, though, has to be the giant beetles that some of our students keep as pets and will even bring to class with them.

Beautiful, multi-colored butterfly.

The scariest of all of our wildlife encounters was this scorpion.  We were following a line of ants to see where they were going, so our heads were pretty low to the ground when we moved an empty crate of water bottles out of the way…and found this guy right in front of our faces!  After recovering from the surprise, we got a broom and swept him out of the kitchen and into our back yard (where we haven’t ventured since).  

         Another one of the more charming of our pets was this tiny frog.  These are found all over the place here, and we've also had some bigger ones come into our house - once discovered they quickly hop their way back down the drain and outside!

Right in our neighborhood, we have even more pets.  Dogs are ubiquitous throughout Chiang Saen.  Some of them are strays, some of them are pets, but all of them roam free.  They can be found all over our school campus and throughout the city.

This dog looks so happy because he just relieved himself on my bike tire.

One of the school dogs, heading up to the second floor.

Play day with the elephants

The expat community here in Chiang Saen is made up of the farang teachers (us and the Fulbright teacher at our school) and the farang researchers at a nearby elephant camp.  Since we have arrived in Chiang Saen, the researchers have been very welcoming, and invited us to come visit them to meet the elephants.

The elephant camp is based at a nearby hotel, Anantara Golden Triangle Resort, and part of their funding comes from tourist activities, like elephant rides, offered through the hotel.  Elephants are extremely popular with tourists throughout Thailand, and many can be seen on the streets of major cities like Bangkok and Chiang Mai.  Unfortunately, this is a terrible situation for elephants – they do not experience any interaction with other elephants, the concrete hurts their feet, and they often are not fed well. 

The elephant camp at Anantara offers an alternative for elephant owners – bring your elephant to our camp and we will provide free lodging, education, and health care to their mahouts (the men who take care of the elephants) and their families. While the mahouts work with the elephants, their wives weave scarves from silk they’ve gathered from silkworms.  In addition to tourist activities at the camp, the elephants at Anantara also participate in research – this is the part that our friends lead.

These houses are where the mahouts live with their families

A mahout on his elephant

       As we walked up to the elephant camp with our friend Rachel, she told us the one rule –do not approach an elephant that is not with its mahout.  Respecting the size of the elephant seems obvious, but she said you would be surprised at the number of tourists that rush up to the elephants and hug them without thinking about their personal safety.

Our experience visiting the elephants was unforgettable.  The mahouts indulged our curiosity, giving us bananas and sugarcane to feed the elephants.  The elephants themselves were breathtaking, my favorite being the 4 year old “baby” that was incredibly curious and playful. She kept using her trunk to explore us, seeming particularly fascinated with our shoes.  We were also lucky to even witness interaction between a mother and her baby.  Many baby elephants are taken away from their mothers at a very early age so they can start making money as a tourist attraction.

Mom and baby bonding

Feeding an elephant sugarcane and bananas

Temples of Chiang Saen

             Chiang Saen – our home away from home here in Thailand!  After our first weekend trip away, the realization that this place had truly became “home” sunk in.  We had a great time in Chiang Rai – we definitely enjoyed the air conditioning, fast internet, and Western food!  However, we missed knowing exactly where to go to get the best pat see ew, egg rolls, or pat pak (veggies with rice).  We missed having bicycles that could get us everywhere, and we were happy to get back to a place where we weren’t inhaling toxic fumes from stopped traffic.  Last but not least, we were happy to get back to a place that isn’t filled with old white men with their young Thai girls…creeeeepy.

            Chiang Saen’s claim to fame is that it is a historical city.  It was the original capital of the Lanna Kingdom, and is filled with temples built hundreds of years ago.  People believe that by building a temple they are showing their devotion to the Lord Buddha, and people in Chiang Saen put that belief into practice. Within the Chiang Saen city walls, an area about as big as downtown LA, there are 76 temples!  Needless to say, wherever we go – the store, school, a restaurant -- we pass at least three temples.

The most amazing thing about all of these temples is that they are all different.  They range in size from as big as a building to little more than a mound of bricks.  Some are modern and are currently in use.  Some are hundreds of years old and in various states of disrepair.  Some house a headless Buddha, some have just the head of a Buddha.

            We are a little obsessed with these temples, and have made it our mission to photograph every single one that we can find in the city.  To give these temples true justice, we are creating a special blog just for them: Temples ofChiang Saen.  You can also find a link on the top right of this blog.  To make it easier for our readers, we will let you know on our Trojan Tales blog when we update the temples blog.  However, the first post about one of the oldest temples in Chiang Saen is already up, so check it out!

A Day in the Life of a Teacher at Chiang Saen Wittayakhom

7:00 AM          Wake up! Usually to the sounds of Thai music being piped through loudspeakers around the school, construction happening outside our window, and students laughing as they walk around the campus before school starts.

7:45 AM          Breakfast at the canteen.  Jon gets chicken with rice and egg, while Carolyn gets rice with two eggs on top.  The best part of this meal is definitely the sauces that we put on top:  one is a sweet red garlic sauce, the other is a spicy green sauce.

Our breakfast and sometimes lunch

8:00 AM          Morning assembly.  Every school day begins with an all-school morning assembly.  The assembly begins with the school marching band playing the Thai National Anthem, followed by Buddhist prayer and a moment of meditation.  There are also usually announcements/presentations by students, and the assembly finishes with the marching band playing the school song while the students sing along.

All 1,200 students at the assembly

One of our students giving a speech in English...we were so proud!

8:30 AM          School starts! The school day is divided into 7 periods from 8:30 AM to 3:05 PM.  Depending on the day, we teach anywhere from 2-5 periods.  At this point we are lucky enough to teach together, but one of the English teachers is leaving this school soon and our schedule will change then as we pick up his classes. So far, we have been teaching conversational English: names, greetings, feelings, age, and so on.  

Kru Jon preparing for a lesson

Students walking to their classes

11:50 AM        Back to the canteen for lunch!  We either stick to the same meal from breakfast, or get “suki”, a kind of noodle soup.  There are four different restaurant stands at the canteen and so far we have only tried two, but we will continue to branch out as we improve our Thai so we know exactly what we are eating. 

3:05 PM          School has officially ended, but there is a big academic competition coming up and we have been helping the students prepare for it.  This has been pretty fun as events range from skits to speeches to storytelling to a spelling bee.  If no one comes to us for help we usually help some students who have started playing Scrabble every day during this time. 

4:30 PM          School ends. We usually go back to our house, relax for a little bit then head to dinner.  Our favorite place to go is a restaurant called “Three Men”, where we get delicious Thai food for 30 baht, or about $1.00.  The food is delicious and all of the ingredients are fresh from the marketplace.  After dinner we might bike around, visit a coffee shop, wander around the street vendors, or go to the Tesco store that is the only thing that resembles a grocery store here.  This is also when we take care of our chores – like doing our laundry.

Jon washing our laundry!

Wandering the streets of Chiang Saen...debating purchasing some bugs for a nice snack!

Chopping up some papaya.

9 or 10 PM      Bed time! Usually after watching an episode of The Wire or practicing some Thai, we are in bed early and ready for the next day! 

Chiang Rai Night Market

Every city in Thailand has some form of a market where everyone – locals and tourists alike – can go shopping for whatever they may need.  Visiting these markets is an experience in itself, as you can see everything from a pig’s decapitated head to a range of fruits and vegetables.  On Saturday nights in some of the cities, the markets grow even bigger than usual.  Vendors come from all over the surrounding region to set up their carts, and they sell pretty much anything you can imagine.  During our weekend in Chiang Rai, we took some time to wander around the night market, taking pictures of some of the vendors and stalls that were particularly interesting to us.  

Serving up some soup

Sushi

Setting out some jewelry

A Thai favorite: meat on a stick

We bought our dinner from this woman...delicious noodles for 10 baht

BUGS

From the beautiful handmade crafts to the bugs being served up to the locals, the night market in Chiang Rai is an unforgettable cultural experience. 

Black House (Baan Dam) in Chiang Rai

The Black House of Chiang Rai (Baan Dam) is considered the “hell” to White Temple’s “heaven”.  The Black House was about a 30 minute songthaew ride north of Chiang Rai, tucked away in the back of a residential area.  Built by an artist named Thawan Duchanee, we were struck once again by the dedication one man put forth to make his artistic vision come true.  Walking around the Black House, you definitely have a sense that you have entered into a different reality.

The oversize furniture decorated with skulls and bones makes you feel like you are touring the house of giant monsters!

The Black House is actually a compound of over 40 architecturally diverse structures that serve as art galleries for Duchanee’s furniture, sculptures, and wood carvings.  In accordance with its name, the Black House has a very dark feel to it – animal bones, skins, furs, and skulls are found throughout the complex.  The structures are all scattered on a large garden that even has some horses grazing on the grass – leading to an interesting contrast between the artwork in the structures and the peaceful setting outside.

The table in the biggest structure on the compound.

Snakeskins used as a table runner.

One of the Black House structures.

Animal skulls along the side of one of the structures.

Inside of this submarine-esque structure was what looked like a torture chamber!

An entire skeleton of an elephant, on display underneath one of the structures

Although some people find a visit to the Black House discomforting, we enjoyed the strange and mysterious nature of the complex.  It is definitely an unforgettable and unique place to go!  Our visit to the Black House also served as a personal victory for us, as we were able to walk to the main road then communicate in Thai enough to figure out how to catch a bus directly back to Chiang Saen!  Learning Thai is definitely difficult (paasaa Thai maak yaak!) but we are progressing every day!

My favorite sculpture at the Black House