Elephants!

I hadn't planned on going to Lampang, but Michael, the German photographer, said he was going there for a day, mostly to check out the Elephant Conservation Institute, so I tagged along The complex serves a number of purposes. It puts on elephant shows for tourists, of course. Here is one of them painting.



I bought this piece of art. The lesson here, as always: I am a dork. (Or a ding-dong, as my friend Kellda so aptly called me, after I explained how I messed up my plans to visit her home country of Vietnam.)

The facility also offers multi-day courses where tourists can learn to be mahouts, or elephant drivers. The elephants perform with the mahout trainees on their backs.

It also has (so they say) the world's first elephant hospital, and offers a mobile clinic with which they will treat a wounded or sick elephant free of charge. This poor old girl was rescued after she stepped on a landmine and nearly died of infection.



She may have lived but her left front leg is horribly twisted, making it difficult for her to walk. But without this facility she would be dead.

It was a geeky, touristy way to spend a day, but seriously, who doesn't love elephants? They're endlessly fascinating. And it was quite touching to watch how gentle and patient they were with the Thai schoolchildren visiting the camp.



Here I am feeding one a banana.



The town of Lampang was pleasant enough, and the Riverside Guest House was fantastic, but the main sights to see are temples, but, quite frankly, I've seen enough temples. I did ride a bike just a bit outside of town to visit Wat Chedi Sao Lang, known for its 20 golen chedis, or monuments. It was worth the trip. There were a number of groups of schoolchildren but we were the only tourists there. And the temple itself was unlike any other we had seen.



It is customary here to remove your shoes before entering a temple (or a home) so all the kids' shoes are piled up at the foot of the stairs. And guarding them are just a few of the many stray dogs at the temple.



This place had perhaps the highest concentration of stray dogs I've seen since I've been traveling, and that, my friends, is saying something. Maybe it's because here, at a Buddhist temple, they don't have to worry about getting run over or kicked. Or maybe it's just a nice place to lie in the sun.

No ... more ... temples

I've covered a lot of ground since I left Bangkok. I wanted to make my way to northern Thailand and visit a few of the historical sites along the way. I took the train to Ayutthaya and spent a day there. I took the bus from there to Sukhothai and spent a day there. I took the bus from there to Lampang and spent a day seeing the town and the Elephant Conservation Center. Now I'm in Chiang Mai, the tourist hub for northern Thailand.

The temples at Ayutthayah and Sukhothai aren't nearly as large (or impressive) as those at Angkor but they're also not as crowded. The sites are elaborately landscaped and dotted with canals and ponds. The weather is unusually cool here so I was able to spend a couple relaxing days riding a bike around the ruins. But my brain is full to the brim with temples and it's time to see something else.

I've got lots of good pix but I'll update the blog and respond to email when I have the time and a decent connection. In the meantime I'll probably be sitting on a bus, to where I haven't figured out yet.

I'm online with a lousy connection doing some research for the next leg of the trip. I've got a little over a month to spend before I have to be back in Bangkok to meet a friend who's coming to visit, so I need to prioritize what I want to see and plan wisely.