Two weeks of fun

It's been great having Stu here. It was nice to finally be able to show him why I love the park so much. We spent his first week there, then decided to take a small trip around Northern Thailand, so that he could see a little more than just elephants.

Set off Tuesday morning for the village of Chiang Dao. The village is well known for its caves, so we thought an afternoon of spelunking was in order. Unfortunately, we hopped off the bus & discovered that the village is well known for its caves that you have to drive to. Neither of us were prepared to hike 10km to reach them, and the village didn't have any public transportation to them, so we abandoned that idea & hopped on a bus to our next destination, Tha Ton.

Tha Ton is set on the Kok River, virtually on Burma's (or Myanmar, as it's referred to every but Thailand) border. It's a sleepy little town whose main attraction is the river & the boats that travel along it. There's a public long-tail boat system that travels 95 km down-river to the city of Chiang Rai (pop. 40,000) which is where we were headed. Unfortunately, because it's the end of the dry season, and tourist season is more or less over, the public boats weren't running as scheduled. Spent the better part of an evening humming & hawing, but in the end, we ended up chartering a boat with two other guys (one Scotish - and very Scotish at that, and one German).

Set off Wednesday morning on what was probably the best part of the trip. The ride took just under 4 hours, but the scenery was beautiful - travelling through the jungle and past small hilltribe villages. I can only imagine how breathtaking it would have been at the end of the rainy season when everything would be more lush.

Spent the last day & a half in Chiang Rai, getting thai massages, meandering, renting bikes (a warning to anyone planning on renting bikes in Thailand - test ride it first!) and eating. Came back to Chiang Mai yesterday. Today we've signed ourselves up for a thai cooking course (so that Stu can put away the Kraft Dinner until I get home), and we're spending our last night in a swanky downtown hotel that has a BATHTUB! Ok, I suppose you need to have spent your last 7 weeks in the middle of a jungle with only cold water showers to be really excited about that.... ;)

Newest Charges

Back to playing Doctor Megan. Lek brought me two kittens on Thursday (they appear to be around 3 weeks old) who seem to have been born with rather severe eye infections. As always, there's a bit of a language gap with the vet, but it would seem that because they've gone untreated for so long, one will likely be permanently blind, and the other will probably be blind in one eye.

Twenty-four hours after arriving at the Park, their eyes look a lot better (I suppose it's all relative - the completely blind one's eyes look nothing like eyeballs & likely never will, but they're not all pusy like they were when they arrived.) Both are eating well, and while the blind one seems a little more reserved than his adventuresome brother, I think they'll do fine. I introduced them yesterday to Stevie Wonder, the Park's blind cat who's been a happy resident for the past few years. He seemed quite interested in them, and so I'm hoping he'll help look after them. :p

Suggestions on names are more than welcome - both are black with white paws...

My better half is here!

An impressively alert Stu arrived at the Chiang Mai airport last night just after 8:00. Considering he was in transit for 36 hours, he seemed amazingly alert. Can't really believe he's actually here, although it's great to see him. For once I'm actually more tanned than he is! :) Spent the morning sightseeing. Heading off to get a foot massage this afternoon (thailand's specialty), then we're off to the park tomorrow morning. Am super excited about finally getting to show him the place that I've fallen in love with.

Things I've learnt...

Have learnt a lot here during the first half of my second visit to the park. Have been working on a fundraising campaign for the park, which has taught me a lot (who knew Amazon.com would ship a book on fundraising to Thailand for only $11?!). I've learnt how to build a thai style house (for one of the mahouts), have learnt how to build a well & how to climb out of one without a ladder (took a couple of tries before I perfected the technique), and I've got over my squimishness (sp?) of both blood & creepy-crawlies by picking 19 maggots out of a wound on one of our dog's paws.

Haven't quite mastered the art of capturing rogue cows, and nor have I learnt how to speak thai without having everyone laugh at me, but I suppose those will come with time...

Doctor Megan

It would seem I've taken on many different titles since I've arrive back at the park. The latest one is Doctor (or I suppose that should be Vet) Megan. Just over two weeks ago, a bird that was hit by a car was brought to the park. Several people seemed to think it was a kingfisher, although we later discovered it's actually an Indian Roller. Vets here are fairly useless (sorry to any Thai vets who might be reading this blog). They're generally people who didn't have the grades to make it into medical school. The vet that the park employs took a look at the bird & told me that it was fine - it just had a sore foot, but she gave it a calcium injection & said it should recover soon. Took it back to my guest house & had a closer look at it. I'm not a vet, but the two things that jumped out at me were that one of its wings appeared to be broken, it was bleeding from its mouth, and it was missing an eye.... Guess those weren't as important as a sore foot.

Brought it back to the park & luckily one of the women there had volunteered in a bird sanctuary for a long time. Managed to set & bandage its wing. Seems the bird isn't actually missing an eye - it's just swollen shut. Hopefully with enough care it will recover enough to fly again....

My second run in with Thai vets occured a couple of mornings ago when we woke up to discover one of the park's puppies had died. An hour after we discovered her, we noticed her sister was really sick. One of the staff drove me into the nearest town to take her to the vet. Just as I carried her into the office, she started bleeding from both ends. I put her on the vet's table & the vet took one look at her, laughed and told me it was too late. Splendid beside manners. Most vets here are buddhist, and because of their beliefs they refuse to put animals to sleep. Instead was had to sit there for 10 minutes & watch her slowly die. Sweet dreams, Nat & Nina.