This is the peak tourist season in South East Asia, but compared to the other places I've been (except Siem Reap), this is the first place that I don't feel like I ever get away from the swarms of tourists. I hear it gets worse when I head south to the islands and I'm starting to think that I might not experience Thailand in exactly the same way that I imagined it.
For the last half dozen days or so I've been keeping myself busy in Chiang Mai. There are plenty of adventure tours and treks, the local food is delicious (and cheap), and there are a variety of social scenes to check out as well. I won't say I'm surprised, but the trekking is a little more expensive than I think the average backpacker likes to spend, as most tours/treks seem to fall between 30 to 60 USD. Fortunately, tourist outfitters seem to be at every street corner and within every guesthouse, so no one is making travelers work hard to blow their money.
My first adventure was a zip-lining course called Jungle Flight, which consisted of abseiling and zip-lining between 34 platforms. The longest zip-line was 300 meters in length; the highest abseils was 40 meters, all for about 55 USD. It also included decent and well-maintained safety equipment, a few enthusiastic guides, one crazy guide nicknamed "Monkey", transportation to and fro, and a buffet lunch. It was a fun day, but I wasn't totally convinced that I had gotten my money's worth at the end of the day, probably because at no time was I scared out of my comfort zone (and I guess for some reason I wanted that if I was paying $55). But an American I met there said he paid about 3 times as much in the US for a course that had only 4 platforms, so I take solace that I tried it for a good value.
Figure 1.1. Zip-Lining into the Abyss
The next adventure tour I tried was a one day Elephant Training course at a wallet busting price of 60 USD. (At this rate, I'll be broke and flying home by the end of February. Make up the bed, Mom). That morning me and 5 other travelers met our guide, Woody, and he drove us to the elephant ranch about 50 minutes outside the city. The ranch was situated at the base of a hill next to a little stream. The elephants looked happy enough and had plenty of food, but I can't deny that Woody said during the early stages of training they do use physical force to train the elephants. If you look at the pictures of the day, you'll see a little mallet with a hook on the end, and you should know we did not use these with any force -- just with a light touch while speaking out commands.
And you might say, "Well, these elephants are only trained for tourism, so why part-take in the activity?" Personally, out of all the problems in the world, I'm not that concerned about paying money to help feed enormous domesticated animals which in the wild are having their habitat depleted by other humans at a drastic rate and affecting food availability. At the end of the day, I was left with the impression that these elephants had good caretakers that were responsibly part-taking in tourism and looking out for the elephant's well-being.
In the morning, Woody taught us commands and then we went out and got familiar with a few of the elephants by feeding them bananas. It was exciting and a little nerve-wracking at first to be in front of such an enormous animal and sticking a hand into its mouth. After that, each of us practiced getting onto the elephant, going forward and backward, stopping and steering left and right, and all the commands to do it. The rest of the day included a hike up the mountain, feeding sugar cane to the elephants, giving them a bath in a stream, and then going for a swim. The most fun was the swimming. At the end of the day, I really felt happy with spending that 60 USD.
Figure 1.2. Group Human and Elephant Picture.
Somewhere in between the zip-lining and the elephant training, I visited the local rock gym hoping to meet some folks that had gear to share and needed a climbing partner. No dice on a climbing partner yet, but the American owner told me to come back at 7pm for a showing of the documentary 11th Hour, where I could meet some people in the climbing community. The movie focuses on sustainability of nature and looks beyond some of the symptoms caused from a lack of sustainability (i.e. climate change, pollution, species diversity depletion, and species population decreasing). It attempts to single out that the culprit has been humanity's perception, and by extension corporations too, that nature is a limitless commodity, which is a view that has been adopted in the post-industrialization age.
Overall, I liked the documentary and thinking about those problems and potential solutions (if there ever will be any) was a nice change of pace from the generally care-free life I'm living right now. Some of the noteworthy snippets from the movie were: 1) Humans talk about nature being in danger, but in reality, the human species is in danger of having to live in a sullied world they don't want to live in; 2) Economists never factor in the cost of doing the things that nature does for free to sustain life, and if humans needed to provide that service to people today to survive, some have estimated that it would cost 35 trillion dollars a year; 3) Species at the top of the food chain (e.g. humans) are most susceptible to catastrophe when nature and the food pyramid is imperiled; 4) Plants and animals will continue to survive and adapt on Earth regardless of whether humanity changes their ways. The final interviewer of the movie says: The Earth has all the time in the world... and we don't.
(Pictures have been posted in the top right. Oh, and I failed miserably at keeping blog posts short).
For the last half dozen days or so I've been keeping myself busy in Chiang Mai. There are plenty of adventure tours and treks, the local food is delicious (and cheap), and there are a variety of social scenes to check out as well. I won't say I'm surprised, but the trekking is a little more expensive than I think the average backpacker likes to spend, as most tours/treks seem to fall between 30 to 60 USD. Fortunately, tourist outfitters seem to be at every street corner and within every guesthouse, so no one is making travelers work hard to blow their money.
My first adventure was a zip-lining course called Jungle Flight, which consisted of abseiling and zip-lining between 34 platforms. The longest zip-line was 300 meters in length; the highest abseils was 40 meters, all for about 55 USD. It also included decent and well-maintained safety equipment, a few enthusiastic guides, one crazy guide nicknamed "Monkey", transportation to and fro, and a buffet lunch. It was a fun day, but I wasn't totally convinced that I had gotten my money's worth at the end of the day, probably because at no time was I scared out of my comfort zone (and I guess for some reason I wanted that if I was paying $55). But an American I met there said he paid about 3 times as much in the US for a course that had only 4 platforms, so I take solace that I tried it for a good value.
Figure 1.1. Zip-Lining into the Abyss
The next adventure tour I tried was a one day Elephant Training course at a wallet busting price of 60 USD. (At this rate, I'll be broke and flying home by the end of February. Make up the bed, Mom). That morning me and 5 other travelers met our guide, Woody, and he drove us to the elephant ranch about 50 minutes outside the city. The ranch was situated at the base of a hill next to a little stream. The elephants looked happy enough and had plenty of food, but I can't deny that Woody said during the early stages of training they do use physical force to train the elephants. If you look at the pictures of the day, you'll see a little mallet with a hook on the end, and you should know we did not use these with any force -- just with a light touch while speaking out commands.
And you might say, "Well, these elephants are only trained for tourism, so why part-take in the activity?" Personally, out of all the problems in the world, I'm not that concerned about paying money to help feed enormous domesticated animals which in the wild are having their habitat depleted by other humans at a drastic rate and affecting food availability. At the end of the day, I was left with the impression that these elephants had good caretakers that were responsibly part-taking in tourism and looking out for the elephant's well-being.
In the morning, Woody taught us commands and then we went out and got familiar with a few of the elephants by feeding them bananas. It was exciting and a little nerve-wracking at first to be in front of such an enormous animal and sticking a hand into its mouth. After that, each of us practiced getting onto the elephant, going forward and backward, stopping and steering left and right, and all the commands to do it. The rest of the day included a hike up the mountain, feeding sugar cane to the elephants, giving them a bath in a stream, and then going for a swim. The most fun was the swimming. At the end of the day, I really felt happy with spending that 60 USD.
Figure 1.2. Group Human and Elephant Picture.
Somewhere in between the zip-lining and the elephant training, I visited the local rock gym hoping to meet some folks that had gear to share and needed a climbing partner. No dice on a climbing partner yet, but the American owner told me to come back at 7pm for a showing of the documentary 11th Hour, where I could meet some people in the climbing community. The movie focuses on sustainability of nature and looks beyond some of the symptoms caused from a lack of sustainability (i.e. climate change, pollution, species diversity depletion, and species population decreasing). It attempts to single out that the culprit has been humanity's perception, and by extension corporations too, that nature is a limitless commodity, which is a view that has been adopted in the post-industrialization age.
Overall, I liked the documentary and thinking about those problems and potential solutions (if there ever will be any) was a nice change of pace from the generally care-free life I'm living right now. Some of the noteworthy snippets from the movie were: 1) Humans talk about nature being in danger, but in reality, the human species is in danger of having to live in a sullied world they don't want to live in; 2) Economists never factor in the cost of doing the things that nature does for free to sustain life, and if humans needed to provide that service to people today to survive, some have estimated that it would cost 35 trillion dollars a year; 3) Species at the top of the food chain (e.g. humans) are most susceptible to catastrophe when nature and the food pyramid is imperiled; 4) Plants and animals will continue to survive and adapt on Earth regardless of whether humanity changes their ways. The final interviewer of the movie says: The Earth has all the time in the world... and we don't.
(Pictures have been posted in the top right. Oh, and I failed miserably at keeping blog posts short).
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