2004-07-09 - 2:59 p.m.
Chang Rai, Northern Thailand
It's not every day that you find yourself awake at 6.30am with an uncontrollable flapping five foot appendage rearing up from between your legs. Here at the elephant training camp, it's par for the course, though. Now, considering my animal aversion issues, you may think that going for the most imposing beast this side of Jack Nicholson's libido might have been an unwise choice, but come on, elephants? Aren't they all just big cute Dumbo like creatures who let you walk up their trunks and trumpet with glee as you scratch them behind their big old floppy ears?
Apparently life is not like it's portrayed as on The Flintstones.
Lead by the elephant trainers (mahouts), we went for our fist lesson in pachyderm management. The first thing you learn is that getting on the fuckers means sacrificing your dignity in every way you ever though possible, and quite a few that you didn't. You can't just throw your leg over something that's six feet wide - you have to go through a series of undignified grunts and clinging onto folds of skin and kicking it harshly in the side as you pray for a foothold.
Once you're up there, it's just like driving a car, though. If that car had a mind of its own, an insatiable appetite for sugar cane and blasted out twice its own body weight in manure every five seconds. We were issued with some basic commands, which are apparently a mix of Thai, the local northern dialect and 'elephant language'. You know, elephant language! That one you hear them talking ALL THE TIME.
Jesus.
Anyway, you shout out commands in an attempt to guide them through the basic manouvres, and they respond with all the attentiveness of an autistic boulder, mainly just lumbering back to the stores of sugar cane and popping out and endless succession of whiffy football sized dumps. You soon realise that no matter what you shout, in elephant language this translates as "Please do whatever you feel like doing, and barely register that you have some idiot craning over your neck trying to tell you what to do". I guess I'd do the same in their position.
After this exercise in futility, we were let off to let our legs regain a cursory acquiantance with being in close proximity to the bits of the body that they're supposed to be in close proximity to, though now everyone is walking like they're about to give birth to a microwave oven.
I'm sure the afternoon's hike up and down buttock-clenchingly steep riverbanks and hills is performed purely for the amusement of the mahouts, who laughingly tell me my elephant's name. When I ask what it means in English, I'm, told "bitch" - trust me to get the one with attitude, an attitude that has no place on, might I add, a creature that can not even jump.
Anyway, it was quite fun, but telling you that you are in control at any point is just an illusion, I think.
Yesterday we went to 3 (count 'em!) countries in one day. We started in Thailand, firstly crossing into Burma, which I said I wouldn't do because the government are such murdering bastard fuckwad lowlives, but in the end I agreed to just step over the line, just to say you;d been there. It was very tedious and everyday, with not even any glaring border guards with twicthing trigger fingers.
Then we headed down the river to Laos, a counrty whose big claim to fame seems to be putting snakes in their whiskey bottles.
Still, it's all part of life's rich whathaveyou.
This morning I learned how to make a spring roll. You want to know the secret? They are seriously not worth the effort when, let;s face it, this kind of food is never more than a phone call away.
This afternoon - the 0pium Museum. I'm very much looking forward to the gift shop.
