Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 4 (Mae Taman Valley)

The day started early, as we went outside the town to see the long-awaited elephants. Already approaching the place we saw various people riding elephants along the road and in the woods, the most ordinary thing for them and the most extraordinary for us...

It was fun to do bamboo rafting and even more trying to ‘drive’ it yourself, seeing natives laughing their pants off at your clumsiness and miserable attempts to keep the raft straight.

After getting to another side of the river, they let us have a ride on back of an elephant across the river and in the woods. At the end of the ride we found ourselves in a mountain village after which, an ox cart took us back to the valley.

bamboo boys

a girl from the Mae Tang tribe

On the way back to town, there were several roadside shrine vendors. And I bet they have quite some demand there as all Thais need to have a sort of their own ‘in-house temple. You are sure to see it in very house and every building, may that be a very basic shrine or a big pompously decorated one. All of them though will have a small statue of Buddha, an incense burner and some food/flowers.

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 2 (Bangkok - continued)

Getting back to the morning: it was less adventurous but incredibly beautiful. The Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha Temple is a huge premise, generously embellished with chedi towers, big and smaller shrines,  temples, passages, dragon-faced 3-meter tall guardian statues and bowls with water lilies.

By the way, some signs in English can sometimes be mildly confusing, like ‘Beware! Your belongings!’ & ‘Marry Holidays!’. Another funny sign I saw in the bathroom at the Grand Palace area said ‘Don’t wash your feet in the sink’. How many have tried, I wonder?

Entering any temple one should take off their shoes and do not walk around but rather sit on the floor. Pointing your feet soles at Buddha is disrespectful as well as stepping onto a high doorstep when entering, in fact should be overstepped.

At one of the temples where was a large bowl filled with water, so people grabbed water lily flowers dipped them in the water and then touched their heads with the flower as a sign of a blessing.

It got windier and bell jingling could be heard all around: the bells were hung on the borders of the temple roofs, sensitive to the wind’s mood swings…

After a half-day’s wandering, ahing, ohing, look!-ing and wondering how in the world they created all this beauty we got tempted by the colorful sign at the café door next to the exit, which said: ‘Try the best ice-cream of coconut milk in Thailand!’.  The list of flavors available was impressive and included, among others, corn and red bean flavors! However, there were just a couple of them in the fridge, so I grabbed the first one that came at hand: who cares, I’m sure I’ve never tried any of these! That ice-cream had a durian flavor. As I read the name I was wondering where I already heard this name… It’s exactly one of those cases when no matter how hard you try, you can’t put your finger on it. But as I unwrapped it, I kind of had a bad premonition: the ice-cream smelled awful. So, the light bulb of revelation switched on in my head as I remembered that THAT was the famous smelly fruit that you cannot even take into a hotel room or on board of a plane! I still resisted and ventured to try it… After 3 weak attempts I couldn’t overcome the taste of reminding of sweet rotten onion, so, ashamed of failing so miserably, I had to throw it to trash.

It made me feel a bit better though when I noticed that the trash bin was already full of uneaten durian ice-creams.