Elephants, Snakes, and Pandas

This past week, I travelled north to Chiang Mai, what in some travel guides in known as the "spritual capital" of the Thailand. It was a great little city, a lot less hectic then Bangkok but with a lot to see. Most of the tourist destinations in the cities are temples (or wats) and they are all unique in some way but have the traditional Thai architecture and they all have a ton of Buddha representations. Chiang Mai is no different. We arrived and immediately we were off seeing temples. Some are really impressive, some are just touristy, and at some you can really feel a strong spritual presence. I was wondering why I kept going to temple after temple, but then it is just like so many other places, houses of worship draw the spiritual as well as the visitor!

The point of the entry however and to say that one of teh things we did in Chiang Mai was check out a bunch of animals. I was sent up north with one of my students Ekky and his father's secretary/driver/"go to" guy. When we arrived at the airport we met our driver for the next two days and off we went. We went to the snake park, and then the elephant park, and then the next day we also hit the zoo to see the Pandas and Koalas! We were constantly on the move. AFter being here for a while, I am not sure that my sister, the vet, would really approve of the treatment and cages for the animals. They were somewhat primitive and I wopnder about whether it is really good for the snakes. We saw the "snake show" which was entertaining, but also a bit hectic. They would antagonize the snakes to get them to strike, etc etc and then left them in their little pens until the next show!

The elephant show was much better! They made the elephants do a bunch of things that may be unnatural for the elephant, but they also clearly had an appreciation of the animal and what it can do. We watched them kick soccer balls and move logs and swing their trunks and play harmonicas. But the most impressive thing that they did was paint pictures. Now, I thought it would be a gimmic. But I watch with my own eyes as about 10 elephants actually painted recognizable pictures with their trunks. There were trees and flowes, an abstract work (he must still be in training, but the most impressive picture was of a branch of a tree with some birds. After he painted the birds the elephant then painted "I love my mother" in Thai! Pretty incredible.

WE headed off to the zoo to ssee the pandas. Much like at the Memphis Zoo, the pandas are kept in a special enclosure, purposefully built to house them with climate control and everything to make them happy. These Pandas were a gift to Thailand from China. The Thai's did a nice job with it. I was excited to see them, not just becuase theyare cool to watch, but it was the first time I have seen a panda where I haven't been jostled by a crowd of people. There were very few people watching them so it was very relzed and actually quite nice. Also, there wasn't glass between the Pandas and me. There was a ditch (moat) but not glass. It was great to see them!

All was good in the north of Thailand this week.