By bedtime was mostly back to normal. Hoping she'll be able to go to school tomorrow. 13 hours ago
I was off line today because poor E was sick. Vomited every 20-25 minutes from 7 until noon. Pedi gave her anti nausea Med which helped. 13 hours ago
RT @feministtswift: You go talk to your friends / Talk to my friends / Talk to me / But you are never ever ever / Going to shame me for my … 13 hours ago
Since my small tidbits post from yesterday went over well, I’m going to do it again, as there are so many things I meant to post about while home and didn’t, or feel as though they might not merit an individual post.
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My in-laws were awesome and put up a tree for the girls!
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My super crafty mom made these. If I could’ve figured out how to get one home safely, I would’ve “borrowed” the one in the middle.
She also made some gorgeous things for the girls that I’ll have to showcase in another post, including a blanket she and my aunt designed and made that matches our “rainforest” themed baby furniture, a pillowcase with Ariel embroidered on it for Ellie, and a CNY decoration for the Year of the Dragon.
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How freaking cute is she in her winter coat, hats mittens and boots?
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On the subject of winter and cold weather, I was out with my friends Kate and Curt. I’d left Ellie with my in-laws, but had Rhiannon with me. We left the warm Prudential Center Mall to walk to Newbury Comics, which is a few blocks away. The look on poor Rhi’s face when we stepped out into the bitter cold can only be described thusly…
“Wha??? WTF??? MOMMY!! WHAT IS THIS???”
Her eyes flew open wide and practically bugged out and she was staring at me in a mixture of shock and horror.
As she was appropriately bundled, Curt, Kate and I burst out laughing.
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I’ve known that I have two children for a while now…but for some reason, seeing my car’s back seat cluttered with two car seats blew my mind a bit. Maybe it’s because when we first started dating, it was a fairly new car, and it was a huge sign of love when Ravi would occasionally let me drive it…the car predates our relationship, much less our marriage and our kids.
Poor car…you used to be so clean.
Speaking of the car, I don’t think I let Ravi drive even once. Which he was fine with–he doesn’t like driving, and I LOVE driving, so we make a fairly good pair when it comes to that. I also made a point of ditching both kids at least once so I could drive with LOUD MUSIC…which is one of life’s little pleasures. Driving and shrieking along to my favorite music is very high on my list of things I love to do.
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Friends.
I’m getting this picture framed and putting it in Ellie’s room. She asks to see it regularly and tells me that CJ and Z are her best friends. She also wants to know when they can come over to play….
Um….
Aimee, Zach….want to field that one?
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The trip to Maine to see my grandfather marked another first for Rhi-her first stay at a hotel. Here she is curled up with Ellie for storytime. I love this picture of the girls.
Thinking of hotels…with the girls, I have really fallen for the homewood suites chain (which is part of Hilton). Two rooms, a kitchenette, and space for all of us puts them high on my list. Which is a far cry from my preferred hotels when it is just Ravi and I (think the Waldorf Astoria in NYC, the Drake in Chicago, etc…the grand dame hotels of yesteryear).
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We also got to stop in and see our friends as Isis Parenting in Needham. I was especially psyched for Rhiannon to meet Nancy in person. I first met Nancy when she led one of Ellie’s mom/baby classes at Isis, and we’ve stayed friends since. She is a lactation consultant extraordinaire and my personal baby guru–if you have a baby, you should be following her on twitter–her streams of consciousness posts about babies, development, and breastfeeding are super helpful.
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One of the best things about being home was being in the same time zone as some of my dearest friends. I didn’t have to stop and think to calculate the time differential. I could just call them to talk about anything or everything. Facebook, email, twitter and the blog make keeping in touch easy, but I wish I could just give a quick call in the middle of my day…and not have it be the middle of their night.
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We saw Elanor’s gastroenterologist while we were home. Ellie is very small–she’s the smallest kid in her class, and as she has historically had weight gain issues, we wanted to talk to him about her growth. As it turns out, she has stayed on her own little 2nd percentile curve. He did suggest we talk to an endocrinologist in a year or two to evaluate if her growth hormone levels are appropriate, but he tactfully pointed out that neither Ravi nor I are terribly tall, so it’s not exactly out of the question that Ellie turn out to be petite as well.
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There are things that merit their own posts, like the little get together we had for people to come over and meet Rhi, our visit with Marvin and Rosemary to Rein’s NY Style Deli, our visit with our friend Dawn’s family (which was Ellie’s first encounter with a real violin as well as a fun visit with a friend). I’ll be writing those over the next bit of time…poke me if I forget.
Ravi and I were starting to wonder if we’d hallucinated the whole thing. Perhaps the stress of studying for the test had grown so great that we somehow simultaneously dreamed that we’d taken and passed the Basic Theory of Driving Test? The standing in line? The endless paperwork? Because our licenses had not shown up, and we were approaching three weeks out.
But last Friday, we were thrilled to get our “registered mail” alerts, and on Saturday I went down to the post office and picked up our driving licenses.
I half apologize for the deliberately crappy picture. I wanted to make it difficult to see anything important, so I used my iPhone camera. I post-edited the picture to further eliminate personal info like a number, part of the barcode and my full name in the name of healthy paranoia.
I’m not sure if this is true, but according to R’s cousin, if you are a citizen or a PR (permanent resident) of Singapore, your license looks slightly different. Perhaps a color difference? Or maybe you can tell just by the number…my license number is based off my dependent pass ID number, so there might be something in that series that identifies me as a legal alien as opposed to a citizen/PR.
To the right of my picture is the crescent moon and stars superimposed over an outline of Singapore. The photo is a passport photo that I actually got to okay, which is a nice change from the mug shot look of US licenses.
Ravi’s and my licenses here are provisional for a year. We are kind of unclear as to whether or not that means we’re supposed to use the “learning driver” warning sticker in the front and rear windows like new drivers do, or if we’re exempted as we aren’t “NEW” drivers. As we don’t have a car, it’s kind of moot, but it is an interesting sight. It warns other drivers that regardless of your age, you’re a noob on the road, and to keep an eye out.
For my non-American friends, in the name of fairness, here is my Massachusetts driver’s license (not driving license, as we call them in Singapore).
In the US, each state issues driver’s licenses. This can cause variation in how old you are when you’re first allowed to get a learner’s permit or a license. If I recall correctly, it used to be that you could get a permit at 15 1/2 and a license at 16 when I was a kid, but it changed either just before or just after I turned 16, and is now (I believe) 16 for a permit and 16 1/2 to get a “junior operator” license, which means you can’t drive at certain hours or something. I actually didn’t get my license until I was 18, so I skipped “drivers ed” classes in high school and all of that jr. operator stuff. To the left, you can see the outline of my home state, Massachusetts in green. The heart at the bottom right indicates that I have signed up as an organ donor, and if killed in a car accident, would alert the medics/hospital of this fact, giving them permission to take whatever could help others before it had been too long for them to successfully do so. I don’t recall if Singapore has the same.
In case you’re curious, on my MA license picture I blanked out my number (I had the choice of using my social security number…the equivalent of an IC number or having a random one assigned…and have a random one), my full name and my address (even though the address on the front of my license is several addresses old) and my signature.
As Singapore doesn’t issue licenses to people under 18, which is also the legal drinking age, there isn’t a concern about trying to differentiate between legal and minor patrons at bars. Most states in the US have different licenses for under 21 drivers and over 21 drivers–in MA it (at least the version when I was 21) said in big red letters “UNDER 21 UNTIL” and then a date. Believe me, as someone who got her first license as 18, and spent 2 years after turning 21 with that same license, people don’t look at the date; they just see the red and hand it back to you saying “nice try, kid.” This is in no way helped if, like me, you look younger than you really are. They also carry other special security measures to make it harder to make fake ID cards, like the state seal that slightly overlaps both of my pictures on the license.
In the US, you don’t provide passport photos for your license…you go, do the paperwork and then stand awkwardly as the RMV or DMV (registry or department of motor vehicles, depending on your state) takes a terrible webcam shot of you for the license. Hence, having a GOOD license picture is almost rarer than a unicorn sighting, although I have seen a few in my day. I strongly prefer the passport photo approach in Singapore.
Wow…800+ words on licenses…who knew there was so much to say?
Again, I’m short on time, so I’m going to bullet point this out…
The Good
Seeing friends and family, having them see how big E is and what an awesome little person she’s turning into
Driving my car
Having great doctor’s appointments (E had some medical issues in the month after birth which have led to long term relationships with many pedi specialists…some of which may finally be coming to an end as she does not seem to suffer long term effects from her illness).
Yummy food
Not sweating every time I step outside
Target/BabiesRUs/etc
Sales!
The ability to return stuff
The Bad
Missing Ravi, who isn’t arriving until this weekend (when I’ll be in Maine)
The drizzling freezing rain for the past 3 days
The getting dark at 4:30pm
persistent jetlag
missing my helper
waiting for my back-up drive to arrive with Ravi so I can restore my harddrive
The Ugly
Ravi/my helper asking me to solve problems from 10k miles away
the cold/sinus infection that just isn’t getting better
Living without a car and with a young child not yet old enough to venture out for the day without our stroller, I tend to take a lot of cabs. It’s just easier.
Taking 5-14 cabs a week means I have met quite the variety of cab drivers. The lost ones who have no idea where they’re going (even with a GPS inches from their face which they also don’t know how to program). The ones who haven’t bathed in a week or two (or who bathe, but have a broken air con in the cab, creating a mobile sweat lodge). The ones who opine about everything under the sun. The ones who like to tell me I live on “busybody road” (yup, that’s the Hokkien dialect translation of my road name).
Yesterday, I had the batshit crazy driver.
I had dropped into Bake-it-Yourself, which is (to the best of my knowledge) the only store in Singapore to sell the wilton cake pans/tips/food dyes/accessories, candy making materials, ready-made fondant, etc. Considering that we have three birthdays in 3 weeks (more or less), they know me by sight now. I was there to pick up a few last minute things needed to prepare for Elanor’s birthday party this weekend, and was heading home.
Feeling grateful to get a cab just as raindrops began to fall, I slid into the backseat. Once the driver knew where we were going, the ride passed in silence.
“They came into my house, into my room and stole my phone,” the driver spits out as we stop at a random red light about halfway home.
I look around the cab, trying to figure out if (a) he’s talking to me, (b) if I’m being accused of stealing his phone, or (c) if he’s talking on a new phone to a friend. He’s talking to me.
“That’s terrible?” I venture
“They stole my phone. I have a number that ends in 3 now. People who have numbers that end in 3 are thieves.”
I evaluate the sky and my chances of finding another cab if I ask him to pull over and let me out. It’s not raining THAT hard. On the other hand, three-five more minutes and I’m home. The sky is pretty gray…and I’ve been caught in sudden downpours on many an occasion.
“The police won’t even take your report if your number ends in 3. They all have numbers that end in 7. They only listen to people whose numbers end in 7.”
I decide this is not the time to volunteer that my cell number ends in a 7.
“They came into my home and stole my phone!” He hits the wheel for emphasis.
I can’t help but notice he has a red cell phone next to his gear shift.
“My number ended in 5!!! I had (unintelligible).”
We’re in the middle of a four lane road, moments from home. I pray for green lights, but am thrown forward when the driver hits the brakes and the light turns red. Damn.
“3. People who have number end in 3 are scapegoats. People hate them. They’re thieves. They steal your money, steal your life,” he rants.
I wonder if he said life or wife. I wonder if a dude whose cell number ended in 3 had an affair with his wife and he’s now a deeply bitter man.
“They made my hand bleed…you see?” he holds up a hand that has no visible scars.
I assure him that I see it. I wonder if they’ll ever find my body.
The car leaps forward.
“Uncle?” I try to tell him he’s in the wrong lane and that we’re getting close to home.
“My hand! They came into my house!”
“Uncle! Can you…”
“3! I had 5!!”
“Can you let me off just ahead behind that van?” We are across the street from my condo. Getting dropped off at home involves going up and doing a u-turn and I’m beginning to be a bit afraid and desperate to be out of this cab.
We pull up and his entire demeanor changes. “You’re getting lunch?” (I live across from a row of restaurants).
“Um, I live nearby. Thank you, Uncle. Keep the change.”
“You forgot!” He gestures towards my umbrella.
I gingerly pick it up and make my escape.
There are times when the exorbitant fees Singapore imposes on car owners don’t sound so bad.
In 8 weeks I’ll be on a jet with the Turtle heading home for a month-long visit. I’m nowhere near eloquent enough to express how excited I am, how homesick I am, and how nervous I am.
I think excited and homesick are obvious, and need no explanation. The nerves are perhaps silly, but they’re present. Talking with my friend Aimee, I realized I have no clue about most movies that are current back home. After six months (plus) here in Singapore, while I don’t feel less American, I do feel very disconnected to what’s going on back home. I try to read Boston.com and CNN daily, I try keep more or less on top of the Daily Show (Jon Stewart is a far more legit source of news than FOX NEWS, thank you very much). But I can only do so much. I don’t know what songs are current (although I do have a number of the top iTunes songs on my iPod so I’m not thinking Captain and Tenille are still the shit or something–were they ever, REALLY?). We’re trying to make an effort to stay on top of new TV (are are super excited about New Big Bang and How I Met Your Mother in particular). But I haven’t driven a car in months, I haven’t seen anyone in person in months…and I’m just a little bit scared that I’ll be out of step there, just as I often am here. I know it will be fine, and I’m not trying to seek out tons of adoration…I know it’s a silly worry…but being back and feeling at home with you will cure of that soon enough.
So, what am I especially excited for?
1-Obviously, seeing friends and family. This is the longest I’ve gone without being with my close friends and family, so I can’t wait to hug you all, see how much your kids have grown, and give them big hugs too. Much as my mom and I have our stuff, I can’t wait to see her and my aunt. I’m also super excited that my friend B will be up from Florida for part of the time we’re there…I haven’t seen her in 5 years. I haven’t seen my cousin K, or my Uncle A and Aunt P in 16 years, and K’s daughter will be about a month old when I see them…I’m practically jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect. And it’s stupid, but the idea that I get to see the first half of Harry Potter 7 with my friends (the way we’ve seen most of the HP movies in some cases) in the theater on opening night is just the icing on the cake.
2-Food. While you can get western food here…it’s not great. There is NO good Mexican food here. There is no Friendly’s. Even Wendy’s is off. McDonalds and Outback are decent, but for the most part, I just sit around and longingly think of my favorite foods back home. Not to mention the cheapness and wide availability of things like Peanut Butter Cups, Wachusett BBQ Chips (yes, Shirley/Ayer/Acton/Lunenburg/etc peeps…I’m still addicted to them at 31…can’t help it, I grew up on them! Everyone else–they’re a locally made/sold potato chip..without being from our part of MA, you’ll never had heard of them). I’m also really excited to go to an American Grocery store. While you can get American food here (and no one needs to lecture me about how good we have it when compared to when you lived X or Y) the selection isn’t great and you have to often go to 3 or more stores to get all the things you want. The idea that I can go to a Shaws or Stop N Shop and just have almost everything I could ever want (except a great cut of meat) in a dizzying array of options is just…thrilling.
3-Microwaves–We have a “microwave” here. But it’s really more like a pseudo oven. It burns microwave popcorn before it’s even half-popped, and couldn’t bake a cake if the robot uprising depended on it. In other words it’s useless to do much of anything beyond melt some butter or warm a beverage (which I use the stove for anyway…in my mind it’s useless). I’ve never been a HUGE microwave user, but c’mon…who doesn’t love microwave popcorn?
4-Driving. My. Car.–At some point very very fast with very very loud music. Most of the time with a Turtle in the backseat, re-indoctrinating her to NPR. unapologetically. Yes, I get the podcasts, but it’s not the same. I am psyched at the idea of tossing my stroller in the trunk, leaving on my terms, not waiting for cabs that often don’t show, assuming rains means I’m stuck at home, and the power to just GO whenever I want.
5-Not paying 2-10X times more than what I’d pay in the US-As much as I’ve just been beaten down to the point where I meekly just paid the 25 SGD for a bottle of OPI nailpolish yesterday (I’m not really a waitress), I still resent it. I really need to start compiling my shopping list. We are coming with suitcases full of winter clothes we’re goign to leave in MA, and presents and going home with all the luxuries we’ve missed or stuff I didn’t realize was THAT expensive here and have just been doing without.
6-Gum- I don’t even like gum, but I’ve been dying for some strawberry bubble yum (bubblicious?) from CVS.
7-Knowing how to get places- I’m developing a rudimentary understanding of how to get places in SG, but at home I know the 5 ways to get to place X and which one is my favorite/the best at this time of day. I miss not being stupid about where stuff is in relation to where I am.
8-Free standing grocery stores/ movie theaters–I never thought I’d be the one to say it, but seriously if I never see another mall after SG, it will be too soon.
9-Crisp, cool weather.–I’ll be bitching about it within 2 weeks, but I can’t wait to wear jeans without sweating, and to need a jacket. I’m hoping to catch the last glimpse of fall colors, or to at least teach E about the joys of jumping into a pile of raked leaves and crunching them as we walk on the sidewalk. Fall is my favorite time of year, and while I have no real sadness about not being in New England in February and March of 2011, I really am bummed to be missing the apple picking, pumpkin carving, trick or treating, perfect 60 something degree days, and driving down a highway with the leaves in full color. I’m really upset I didn’t do the foliage photography day I kept meaning to take last fall.
10-Not feeling out of place–For all of my nerves about being out of step, I’m so looking forward to being in the US. Where people have the same cultural references, the same slang, all of that. Boston is home, and I’m dying to be back there.
Ravi and I debated at some length what, if any, adventures we wanted to seek out beyond the resort. One of the recent seasons of “The Amazing Race” had an episode in Phuket, and I’d been impressed by the part of their adventure that required them to get a picture taken with a tiger at the Phuket Zoo. We also had a copy of the Lonely Planet’s mini-book on Phuket, which recommended the aquarium. However, we were told the aquarium wasn’t impressive, and it was quite far away, leading us to eliminate it from the list of possibilities. We had decided to the do the zoo until I started reading reviews of it…that the pens were small, the animals malnourished and mistreated, the tiger drugged off its ass in order to safely take those pictures the tourists (and The Amazing Race) so treasure. While Ravi and I are fans of zoos, we elected to take a pass on the Phuket Zoo.
I turned my gaze to the Fodor’s book on Southeast Asia. In its very small section on Phuket they talked about Elephant Trekking, which is a major component of the tourism industry (one of the resorts going so far as to have its own pet baby elephant to draw tourism dollars). Interestingly enough, elephants are not native to Thailand at all. However, they’ve been used as work partners for hundreds of years, and some websites claims there are still some wild elephants in the extreme north of Thailand (although most sources say there aren’t any). With industrialization and urbanization, the elephant, which is even considered a symbol of Thailand (and used to be on the flag and the money), has lost its place in society. And thus has been relegated to a tool of tourism…according to several sources, about only 2500 elephants still remain in Thailand today, almost all in captivity, many taken from their mothers as babies (the mother is usually killed to be able to take the baby).
So with that knowledge the question was whether or not we could do elephant trekking ethically. The Fodor’s guide recommended Siam Safari, which has been recognized for their humane treatment of elephants and efforts to preserve Thai nature and culture. They seemed like a good way to ethically do the trekking, and they offered a longer day trip-for about $70 USD, we could have a six hour adventure that included a ride in 4×4′s, elephant trekking, learning about Thai farming and cooking, and a sunset cruise. I decided to go, and Ravi eventually decided to come with me.
Incidentally, the day we did our trip with Siam Safari was Thailand’s Mother’s Day, a national holiday to celebrate the Queen’s birthday (pictures of her were everywhere), and in honor of which all bars were supposed to be closed.
We were picked up in a jeep where the back had been converted for seating, like the tuk-tuks on the road. Unlike the tuk-tuks, the jeeps at least had doors that closed to keep everyone in and safe.
We were driven about 15 minutes to a base camp where we were divided into the groups that were just elephant trekking and those of us doing the longer tour (the color of our stickers helped). I also took the chance to use a western toilet as I live in fear of squat toilets. We were driven up the same mountain that the Big Buddha sits atop, which had a really steep grade. On our way there, we drove past several other Elephant Trekking tours…including one where the elephants were being housed in a garage that was half fallen in on itself, standing it what was clearly filthy straw, making me feel sick and sad.
We were dropped off at a different camp with no elephants in sight. There was a cow type animal (a water buffalo) and a sign for the “monkey show” along with a notice not to touch the monkey. A monkey was tied off to a fence, waiting for us and the show to begin.
We learned about the various stages of training monkeys to work with humans to harvest coconuts and saw them demonstrate the various stages of the learning process.
He was rewarded with fruit when his demo was over.
We learned a little about Thai farming, and how they used to use Water Buffalo to help pull the plows. Today, there are technologically cheaper and easier ways to farm. But at Siam Safari, you can sit on one and take a photo or get pulled in a Water Buffalo tuk-tuk.
The guide discussed the importance of coconuts to the Thai people. He talked about their various uses, and we saw a demonstration of how they make coconut oil (they were selling a small bottle of coconut oil for about $2USD), Thai Curry with coconuts, and a type of coconut pancake that they serve with sugar. Each of these stations required a bit of a hike through some of the forest they own and preserve.
After boiling the coconuts for hours, the brown stuff below remains, and they use it on top of ice cream. It was pretty yummy. The little boy is a mahout’s son (mahout-elephant driver) and will grow up to be a mahout as well. He was pretty adorable.
A big part of the forest that they’re preserving is planted with rubber trees. We saw how they get the rubber sap and how the sap is turned into what you and I would recognize as rubber. The process is long, and the best time to harvest trees is around 2-3 am, so not only is it difficult work, but it requires working during hours none of us would be happy to work. The payoff for a small piece of rubber is also quite small, and it’s difficult to see why they would bother maintaining the trees other than as part of cultural heritage and tourism (which is essentially their mission).
in the second part, you can hear the guide say that tourism makes more money than rubber
Walking through the forest, especially for a city girl like me was fun, right up until I saw one of these guys (the image is the third spider I saw and the only one not above me in a tree, making me terrified to take a picture from fear it would fall on me). In case you’re wondering, it’s bigger than my hand. Each leg is longer than my middle finger. EEEK.
We moved onto the baby elephant show. The elephants can’t stark trekking until they’re about 8-10, if I recall correctly, so when they’re babies, they do the baby elephant show to get used to humans other than the mahouts and to start learning commands. I realize it’s pure pandering to the tourist who just looooooooove baby elephants…but what can I say…it works. I do just loooooooooooooove baby elephants. They did a few standard tricks, and then we got to feed them a basket of fruit for just under $2 (which I imagine helps subsidize the cost of feeding baby elephants).
You can certainly argue the ethics of all of this–but in my opinion if it’s going to happen regardless, then it’s best to support the people who are doing it humanely. If you remove the elephants from the equation, you have an ethnic group without work or training to do anything else (the Karen people, from Burma or Myanmar if you prefer/upper Thailand), and an animal who suddenly has no value other than its tusks and various body parts without enough forest to support its life in the wild. It’s an ethical dilemma without easy answers.
From there, we moved onto the elephant trekking. We had to walk to where the grown-up elephants and mahouts were waiting for us, and we walked past the Karen’s living area. The Siam Safari attraction isn’t just an attraction…the Karen live there working the rubber trees and tending the elephants 24/7. It felt distinctly strange to walk past people’s homes (which were on platforms about 8 feet from the ground). Especially since at first I thought they were just another part of the tourist show. I wonder how many other people realized they weren’t?
I figured it out when I saw these…
and
The elephant trekking lasted for about a half hour and basically consisted of trekking down to a point where you had an unobstructed view of Chalong Bay (where we would have our sunset cruise) and a view of the Big Buddha’s head at the top of the mountain. The trek was very clearly cut out of the road, worn down (and muddy at times) from repeated elephant treks throughout each day. Rather than sitting directly on the elephant (and I have no idea why I imagined that), there was a sturdy seat atop a bundle of padding, both to (I imagine) reduce the feeling of a metal contraption on the elephant and to reduce the motion for the rider (although it was still a bit roller coaster-ish at times, especially when the elephant headed down an incline).
The mahouts *do* actually sit directly on the elephant, where the head meets the neck, with their feet resting behind the ears, as you can see. I couldn’t quite understand our mahout’s name as he had very limited English (enough to point to the Big Buddha and identify it, and the same for Chalong Bay), and most of our “communication” was via hand signals and smiles. I was really happy to see that he was gentle with his elephant, letting her stop to eat or to look at something she found interesting (only females are used during trekking-males are too unpredictable and have the potential to do damage with tusks-it is my understanding that they have a few males for breeding, but Siam Safari generally donates males to zoos, who also will take good care of them and use them for breeding). We were told that the mahouts are paired with the elephants from a young age and they tend to work exclusively with the elephant, making a close relationship. An elephant will work in trekking for about 25-35 years and then will be retired to the elephant preserve near Chang Mai run by the government. When the elephant dies, they are brought back to Siam Safari and buried in a graveyard.
Understanding tourist impulses quite well, we all stopped and the mahouts took pictures of each of the teams with Chalong Bay in the background (it was hazy, so the view is a bit hard to see) using the tourists cameras. At one point, someone from Siam Safari also took a moment to take a picture of each of the teams and we were offered copies of the photos back at base camp for about $6 USD, which of course we bought.
Chalong Bay and the Big Buddha’s head are obviously the biggest scenic moments, but it was also cool to see preserved rainforest…
After our ride, we got to feed our elephant (a much bigger basket of fruit for not much more money).
And we got to learn more about our elephant
We stopped long enough to get souvenirs and soda, and a bathroom break before heading back to base camp at the bottom of the hill. There, a few more people left (I guess they weren’t doing the dinner cruise) and we had the chance to purchase our picture on Tong Yib. We bought a reusable Siam Safari bag, and a seated Thai Buddha (which looks different from the standard Buddha). The Buddha was the same thing I could buy at any tourist place in Phuket (or Thailand, if I’m being real), but I made the conscious choice to give my money to Siam Safari. Over the course of the day, I tried to keep a critical eye and I have nothing but respect for how Siam Safari does their programs, treats their animals and tries to raise awareness while dealing with tourist who are just there for a good time.
After about 15 minutes at base camp we were driven down to the docks of Chalong Bay and transferred from our jeeps to a trolley that drove us the (not too long) length of the pier to where our ship was docked. I took a moment to enjoy the view and play with my camera. The yellow boat isn’t ours…but I thought it made for a cool opportunity to use the color accent feature. In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t have a picture of the boat we were on.
We had full roaming of the deck and it was a big enough boat that no one felt cramped. Ravi and camped out near the bow of the boat, and enjoyed watching the islands and water pass by as we floated out into the Bay.
One of the things I saw was a shack, which I was told was a “Sea Gypsy” home. They, like many groups in Thailand are suffering due to the country’s development and further industrialization. It’s hard to make a living as a fisherman when there are boats that can do five or ten times your catch in a day, and drive down the market price per kilogram of the fish you do catch.
Cruising around, it was easy to see why Thai islands often feature in Hollywood movies. There’s even an island (not where we were) that’s just become known as “James Bond Island” because part of “The Man With The Golden Gun” was filmed there. “The Beach” with Leo DiCaprio was also filmed in Thailand. But the beaches look so deserted, and so wild that it’s easy to see their appeal (and with the strength of the dollar, I’m sure there are plenty of other incentives as well).
We were fed on board (although the food was a bit cold, no big deal) and everyone had a free glass of wine, beer or soda (we generally elect for soda) and we watched the sun start to set over the bay. I took far too many pictures, but here are a few of the ones I like best.
But the shot I’m most proud of is the following. You need to click on it to make it larger, but if you do, you’ll see the Big Buddha atop its hill just to the left of the red anchor.
It was a lovely and relaxing way to end the day. Sadly we didn’t stay out on the water until dark, when the sunset colors are best, re-docking as the sun was still just a bit above the horizon. We got to get into luxury vans as opposed to the jeeps, and were sent home tired and relaxed.
It’s hard to sum up a day like this. On one hand, it’s exactly the kind of thing that appeals to tourists–a brief glimpse of local culture, some education (but not too much), some guilt for us liberals followed by a massage of our ego (but *we’re* helping those who are doing it ethically), feeding elephants and a sunset cruise. Plenty of photo ops, but no real face to face time with the distasteful parts of the local culture that might make us unhappy or unlikely to give them more money. On the other, it’s really obvious how the people of Thailand are suffering as they “benefit” from modernization. iPhones, internet gaming, facebook references, and McDonalds are popping up everywhere…and tourists are bringing big bucks to a part of the country that was practically untouched and unvisited 50 years ago, except those who were interested in tin mining or rubber plantations…but those who live here are sometimes caught in many worlds, none of them representing economic advancement and respect of their way of life both. Supporting companies like Siam Safari seems like a good way to find balance (supporting tourism, ethical treatment of animals and learning about a different way of life) but it still does seem a bit disrespectful to treat a way of life like a zoo or museum exhibit.
