Written Roamingly by John Irvin                           No. 27                                  October 1, 1999

Bouncing Around Thailand, Laos, and the U.S.A.

It's been a couple of months, but although I've wandered far and wide, suffered computer deprivation, and lived out of a backpack for weeks, I have survived to write once again about Thailand.

Since last month was my final one in Thailand (at least until my next reincarnation as a farang), I decided to have one last fling, and travel around and see as many things as I could. It was a hectic month, with moving piled on top of everything else. Late in August I set out around northern Thailand, intending to go up to Laos, and then on to Sukhothai, if I had the time. My final journey toward Bangkok would allow me to see Ayuthaya, a place I had never seen before. Then I would be off to the U.S., and my time in Thailand would be history.

An Elephant in Distress

The first part of my journey took me to Lampang, and on the way I stopped in the Elephant Conservation Center, made famous by its elephant shows and also by its care of sick and mistreated elephants. During the month of August, the center's most famous patient was Motola, a 37 year-old female who had stepped on a landmine in Burma, shattering her left forefoot. The publicity and outpouring of sympathy in the Thai press had made her a celebrity, and had already raised over a million baht. I happened to walk in on the day the elephant was scheduled for surgery, and there was a big crowd of reporters and onlookers on hand.

I did not want to be a gawker or a looky-loo, but since I was there I decided to see the elephant and the damage. When I first saw the animal's injured front leg, I thought they had tied ribbons of cloth to her foot as some kind of treatment. Then I realized that what I was seeing was ribbons of flesh, and that her foot was literally hanging by shreds. The elephant was just standing there, probably wondering why all this was happening to her.

Elephant surgery is problematic because elephants were not designed to lie down -- it may hurt their internal organs to do so. Bleeding must be controlled, and anesthesia presents a danger because the vets don't want to give the animal too much, nor too little. This was all complicated by the fact that Motola, like many elephants who work in the logging industry, had been fed large quantities of amphetamines to make her work harder, so that, in addition to everything else, the doctors were dealing with a drug-addicted elephant (many elephants in Burma and in Thailand are abused through overwork, use of amphetamines, and lack of adequate care such as food and water.)

For the surgery to take place, it was necessary to lead the elephant down a ramp about 30 feet in length. The elephant's mahout, or trainer, was not able to be there, so there were no people whom the elephant could respond to easily. About six workers at the center had to push and tug Motola in order to get her to move down the ramp. Everybody lined up along the sides of the ramp to watch.

Friends, I have rarely seen anything as sad as watching an injured elephant trying to move. Suffering is difficult to view in any case, but with an elephant the scale of this suffering is so big and so obvious. As Motola tried to walk, she was forced to bring all her feet close together and then hop on three legs to avoid putting weight on the injured leg. I was deeply moved by this image and couldn't get it out of my mind for days.

For those who want to know, the surgery on Motola was successful (they cut off parts of the injured foot, so she is now an amputee). But post-surgery complications have made this a tough battle. There was an infection which had to be dealt with, and later the elephant refused to let doctors put a splint on her leg. An American company donated the materials to make her an artificial foot, which is very important, because she has been supporting her weight on only three legs now for about six weeks. But as of this moment, she seems to be recovering and in good hands. And, she is a millionaire.

Navigating Laos

After my trip to Lampang, I went to Chiang Rai, Chiang Khong, and then entered Laos. But it wasn't that easy. I applied for a Lao visa in Chiang Khong, and the paperwork took almost 48 hours. Chiang Khong is not the kind of town where you want to spend this much time; there isn't much to do there, and we (all the backpackers who had collected waiting for their visas to come through) were all pretty bored.

Finally, our visas came. But the timing wasn't too good. The plan was to cross the Mekong river into Laos and get a boat down to Luang Phabang, but the visas came just as the boat was leaving, about 5 minutes too late to catch our ride. This put us in the position of having to bargain with individual boat owners, unless we wanted to spend another night here. But after waiting two nights already, none of our group wanted to wait another day. I wondered how much of this "bad timing" was by design, in order to get more business out of us. To give the Laos some credit, the whole thing may have just been a plain, honest, lack of efficiency.

In any case, many people in my group decided to take the speedboat (very dangerous, many accidents), and I didn't, and I somehow ended up at the dock with a group of complete strangers, none of whom spoke Thai or Lao. I became the spokes person and negotiator for about 30 farang tourists. I think I got them a fair deal on the price (400 baht per head down to Luang Phabang), but the boat driver didn't make it to the night stop at the end of the first day, so we had to sleep on the boat and eat packaged noodles for dinner. I didn't like being the negotiator when something like this happened, but there was nothing I could do except tell the driver he had better get us into Luang Phabang the next day before sundown. He did.

The boat trip was filled with beautiful scenery, and I can see why many people rave about this trip. Now that I have done it once, I would try to set things up better and get a better boat at the beginning. If anyone is doing this trip soon, I highly recommend getting your Lao visa ahead of time, so that you don't have to wait in Chiang Khong. But, it's a worthwhile trip.

One of the other side benefits of the Lao trip was the other travelers. Often, I avoid my fellow backpackers, largely because I feel they are absorbed by their own interests and have their own peer group, and that I could experience more if I hung out by myself. But in Laos, the travelers were a very interesting bunch; their minds seemed very open, and I had many interesting days and evenings talking them, and collected a lot of addresses (now, let's see if I actually write to them :)

After Luang Phabang, I stopped in Vang Vieng, a very small town but a major stop on the road to Viantiane. I liked it so much I ended up spending three days there. I hiked out into the country, through rice fields, with stunning cliffs rising up in the distance, and dark grey storm clouds gathering above them. The next day, I rented an inner tube, and floated down the river for about two hours -- a very relaxing experience.

All around Laos, people were friendly, and for the most part, trustworthy. The infrastructure is not as developed as in Thailand, but it seems like most travelers go to Laos to relax anyway, so they don't seem to mind. Some of the bus rides passed through very beautiful country, and were fairly pleasant, albiet slow. But the road has been improved in the last couple of years; before, I understand it was a really rough trip.

Getting Ready to Leave

I exited Laos in Viantiane, spending only part of one day there, and bused my way down to Sukhothai, the original site of the Siamese civilization. After spending a couple of days there, I arrived back in Chiang Mai, exhausted but happy, with many kilometers of recent travel under my belt. After a week of packing and saying goodbye to friends, I was on my way to Bangkok, stopping at Lopburi (where I made friends with many monkeys, which seem to roam freely about the town), and at Ayuthaya, where I saw many Siamese and Khmer (Cambodian empire) temples.

I finally departed Thailand and flew to the U.S.A, where I am now trying to fit all the pieces together.
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© Copyright 1999, John Irvin

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