Mixing culture, adventure in Thailand
Riding atop elephants through the jungle, petting endangered young tigers all in a day’s travels
BY JEFF GROBERMAN, FOR THE PROVINCE JULY 15, 2013
The trek to Mae Sariang involved a four-hour ride affixed atop elephants followed by a sleepover at a local village. Photos: Jeff Groberman
When one thinks about Thailand one usually visualizes Phuket’s crowded warm tropical beaches, the Phi Phi Islands, or historical Buddhist sites; but Thailand is much more.
Recently I took a G Adventures tour to Northern Thailand. Why Northern Thailand? One item on my Bucket List (item 142) was to walk across the bridge on the River Kwai (from the 1957 Academy award winning film of the same name). Of course (SPOILER ALERT) the movie is essentially fiction: It wasn’t filmed near Thailand and the current bridge looks nothing like the bridge in the movie.
Other than that, who wouldn’t want to whistle Col. Bogie’s theme song while marching across the bridge?
This isn’t my first G Adventures tour; last year I visited Colombia with them. It must be a highly popular tour, because every time I cross the border the officials want to revisit all the details of that particular trip. Perhaps it was my optional lunch with Pablo Escobar’s brother, Roberto, who claims to have cured cancer in race horses.
I enjoy the small groups of G Adventures and their knack of combining culture with adventure. There are many opportunities to rub shoulders with the local population and the company practises sustainable tourism using local resources wherever possible.
One thing to keep in mind if you’re planning to travel to Thailand is it’s a long trip — about 16 to 20 hours. I flew Cathay Pacific and the layover in Hong Kong was mercifully short. Cathay Pacific’s service was right up there with Singapore Airlines, which helped make the trip tolerable — even in tourist class.
Upon arrival in Bangkok I met the other 12 members of my tour: There were two from the U.S., four from Germany, another Canadian and five from England. With the exception of two couples, all were travelling alone.
Thailand is the land of Buddhas — millions of them: standing Buddhas, sitting Buddhas, reclining Buddhas, crouching Buddhas, and Phil, our Thai guide, was determined to show all of them to us.
On the first day, we visited the Wat Pho temple, home of the giant reclining Buddha, and about a zillion of his buddies. This is a fairly commercialized operation — enough to make the people at Universal and Disney jealous. In contrast is the World Heritage site at Ayutthaya we visited later in the tour.
Ayutthaya was the capital of Thailand until the 18th century when much of it was destroyed in wars with Thailand’s neighbours. It’s a quiet park where one can wander in solitude among the unadorned ancient Buddhas, many of which served as models for their more ornate brothers in Bangkok. For me it was far more impressive than the hustle and hustling at Wat Pho.
Our first stop after Bangkok was Chiang Mai, where we had a choice to partake in either a cooking class or spend some one-on-one time with tigers at Tiger Kingdom. Sitting in a tiger cage seemed safer than eating my own cooking.
Tiger Kingdom, a branch of the Ubon Zoo, was chiefly created for the preservation of the endangered Indochinese tiger. For a fee we were allowed to spend supervised time with young tigers. Evidently they are quite tame until they’re two years old. I stayed away from any tigers with birthday cakes with two candles on them.
Like all G Adventures tours the emphasis is on “adventure,” and this trip didn’t disappoint. We travelled by sleeper train to Chiang Mai, an overnight adventure in itself which featured very little in the way of sleep due to a rampageous group of young Aussies in the next car.
The adventure continued with a four-hour trek to Mae Sariang where we rode through the jungle affixed atop elephants followed by a sleepover at a local village.
I thought I was through with camping but we were informed there was a change in our itinerary: Instead of spending TWO nights in the village, we would spend the second night tenting in one of Thailand’s National Parks!
The following morning we rafted down the Ngao River for several hours to reach our campsite.
The rafts were not quite what you might envision. Here at home, river rafting usually takes place in big rigid hull inflatables holding eight to ten people. These particular rafts consisted of three or four sticks of bamboo lashed together with vines. The load limits were scientifically determined by loading bodies on until it began to sink; then removing one person. They also had a nasty habit of coming apart every couple of miles.
The good news was that we were at the height of the hot season which meant that water levels were low —sometimes not more than a few inches in places. After a few hours of river bottom scraping we arrived at Mae Ngao National Park.
The park people created a nice little tent camp for us at one end of the park. I was assigned a four-person tent along with a young British couple and Nikki, a young woman from Calgary. The British couple decided to spend the night on a bamboo platform built over the river. I declined sleeping on one, knowing if I rolled over I’d end up in the river. So Nikki and I shared the tent.
In the middle of the night I noticed she’d pulled off my sleeping sheet. I pulled it back — she pulled it off again. This went on till she grumpily informed me it was “HER sheet.” I retorted that I damn well knew it was MY sheet. She reluctantly relented. If 40 years of marriage has taught me anything, it’s how to hang on to my bedding.
Later in the morning when she got up I noticed I had both sheets! While she was out of the tent I folded them up so she wouldn’t discover my mistake. She figured it out. Upon recounting this misadventure to my wife she replied “ ... and she BELIEVED you when you said it was yours? She has a lot to learn!”
Other fun activities included hiking, cycling, and a trip to the Erawan Waterfalls to visit the man-nibbling fish that inhabit the ponds.
On the last day of the tour I finally got see the bridge over the River Kwai. Not “the” bridge — it was long gone, but a more substantial railway bridge built about 15 years later.
Still I managed to walk over it whistling the theme from the movie. Most of the other tourists and the monks gave me a wide berth — attributing my strange behaviour to the heat.
All in all, the tour was a lot of fun. This particular tour had a nice balance of activities and free time which allowed one to shop in the market or just chill out by the pool.
I like the way G Adventures utilizes their guides, or CEOs (Chief Experience Officers) as they refer to them. Our CEO, Phil, worked hard to make our trip enjoyable. He was there to facilitate the trip — not act as a “camp counsellor.”
On many occasions we had the opportunity to explore on our own. Phil looked after all the details that put me in a panic: making sure all the travel arrangements and hotels were booked, keeping an eye on our luggage, acting as a guide and providing local information that just isn’t in the guide book.
After we checked into a hotel, he waited to make sure our rooms were up to our expectations. The accommodations were more than adequate — every hotel we stayed in was locally run, modern, clean, air-conditioned and had a swimming pool — which was essential after a day’s activity in the heat. The hotel staff bent over backwards to try and make us happy.
If you like tigers, elephants and river rafting this adventure might be for you. Keep in mind you need to be reasonably fit to enjoy the hikes. The company certainly knows how to pack a lot of fun into 12 days.
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