Mon Cham & Elephant Park
Trip Start
Feb 08, 2010
1
8
28
Trip End
Apr 07, 2010
Bangkok, TH.40, Thailand
Monday, February 22, 2010
One of the projects we visited was the Mon Cham camping resort not far from Manfred and Jaidieo's house. It is in the hills and has camping facilities in a very majestic site. There's hydro and water and a restaurant which serves food from the produce that is grown by this project. When we were there, a group of people from many other countries including Afghanistan, Uganda, Angola and Korea were visiting for lunch. They were studying the various methods of farming and the implementation of the King's Project.
We had a delicious lunch of barbecued chicken, sticky rice, lightly battered vegies and Chang beer. One of the things that Maurice found most interesting was the new and the old: they cooked on a propane fired giant wok outside and inside, there was a brand new commercial espresso machine. It looked somewhat out of place: thairoyalprojecttour.com
Afterwards we stopped for a swim at the Queen's botanical resort. It is surrounded by a beautiful garden and rooms are available for about 1250 Baht per night. We had the pool to ourselves for a few hours and were served drinks poolside: botanicresort.org
The following day, we were awoken at 6:30 am by the sound of music blaring and a voice over the community loudspeaker, urging all villagers to spend part of their day picking up garbage in the surrounding forest.
After breakfast, we went on an excursion heading north from the B & B. We stopped first at the Bamboo Country Lodge. The bamboo bungalows are built in the hill tribe style and offer many activities like white water rafting, visits to the elephant camp, trekking etc. To check it out, visit bamboo-country-lodge.com
From there, we continued our journey to the Elephant Nature Park. This park has been featured in a National Geographic documentary about the plight of the Thai elephants. It rescues many elephants from abusive situations throughout Thailand. There are over 80 elephants at this park, free to roam on a huge private property. We had an opportunity to feed them, with bananas that we had brought along. The camp also had more bananas and small watermelons to feed them. It was so fun to feed them; they curl the end of their trunk around the fruit, then take it to their mouth.
There were many dogs roaming about, as there are thoughout Thailand. Most of the street cats that we saw were in Bangkok and many of them have the build of and sound like Siamese. Overall, in the forest there are very few wild animals left. They are hunted by the local people even though meat is readily available at the stores.
On our drive south, we had a quick lunch and looked at the rooms at the Baan Rurk Rapee resort. Wow! Website address is: baanrurkrapee-resort.com
Returning to the house, Toy gave Maija a traditional Thai massage. Toy took her training at the Wat Po massage school. This massage focuses on pressure on the muscles at various points of the body, with the masseur using their hands, arms, calves and feet to apply pressure. The body is also stretched into various yoga poses-not what could be called a "spa" treatment. But it got all the kinks out!
Supper every night is super-northern thai cuisine, spicy, lots of vegies, noodles, small amounts of meat (usually chicken or fish) and le vin rouge.
Last night, M & J invited their friends Bri and Wat over for dinner. Great food and company, as always. The evening's entertainment was computer karaoke, first in English and as the night wore on, in Thai. The village bar down the road also had their karaoke evening. Chaiyoh! (Good health to the King)
We are having some difficulties with getting connected with the internet; hopefully the next entry will be sooner than later!
Comments
Maija, You look like you are soul mates with that elephant. Love those animals--lucky you. The area you are in seems like an ideal place to dream and get inspired. Expecting snow storm tonight-oh well. Take care
Yeah Lin, those elephants are real sweethearts. Wish I could have spent some more time with them. Thinking of you guys in winterland; hope it ends soon!!