Northern Thailand and the Slowboat Down the Mekong

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The next day, the city went to sleep so we went to the jungle. Stopping at an orchard orchid to perve the flowers, it was time to get up close with an elephant. Indian (or Asian) elephants are still used by traditional hill tribes in Thailand, and also by savvy tour operators who have set up elephant parks around Chiang Mai. We got to play with their trunks, feeding them sugar cane and bananas, stroking Dumbo’s coarse skin and splinter-like hair. The babies were gorgeous, if not exactly cuddly. Well known to be amongst nature’s most intelligent creatures, there is something unnerving about an elephant’s yellow-orange eyes - they looked at me as if I was a naughty child. No doubt they were smart enough to realize that blowing harmonicas for tourists is a lot easier than lifting logs in the forest, and with their daily baths and feeding, I wondered exactly who was manipulating who. Mounting an elephant named something in Thai (my ears seem immune to Thai vocabulary), I rode into the jungle while his jockey walked alongside us, poking my massive friend with a sharp stick. I doubt he could even feel me on his head, so I decided to massage his enormous skull and focus some reiki energy, you know, be one with the elephant and all that. He stopped, gave me a blow kiss with his sticky, slimy trunk, and we carried on our merry way. I now want an elephant. But someone else has to supply the 125kg of food each day, and also, clean up it’s poop.

After stopping in on a traditional hill tribe, I packed Minesh and Jessica from Perth in the back of an ox wagon, and rode the beasts to town. The beautifully ugly ox was not amused at the moron steering him forward. The day trip continued to a Buddhist cave, where I thought back to my caving experiences in Budapest, or the spidery island cave in Malaysia. I paid my respects to Buddha, who has answered some prayers of late, and explored a striking white temple where white dragons were fiercely sculptured. Like the churches of Europe, I could feel the onset of Temple fatigue. Old women at traditional herb stores kept offering me blends to help with erections, as if they know something I don’t want to.

The Long Necks are a tribe originally from the Myanmar/Thai border, famous for the way copper is permanently wound around the necks of women, thereby elongating the necks dramatically. Visiting the Long Necks is one of those tourist things you do around Chiang Mai, but I didn’t expect the Thai government to have set-up a refugee camp with Long Necks for the sole purpose of tourism. Much to the discomfort of our group, our brusque guide pointed and prodded at a young girl as if she were a harmless yet-fascinating animal. It reminded me of visiting a shantytown in Soweto, where a tour guide brought us into the squalid shack of a down-and-out family. Like all zoos, there was an edgy balance between exploitation and benefit. The families, or the Long Neck refugees, gain income from tourism, but they also become caricatures of themselves, playing a role for the camera. Yet the women were placid, happily weaving stunning scarves and allowing the cameras to roll. Their beauty was striking, but their situation was appalling. The men of the tribe were watching sport on television.

Gonzo Gallery for Northern Thailand and the Slowboat Down the Mekong

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