Heading back to the awesome Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand! I first visited this place 4 years ago and met Pha Mai as a month old baby. This time I’m visiting with Xue Nee and we got to see another 2 babies, and was there for Pha Mai’s Birthday! She was fed a birthday “Cake” of lots of fruit by her sponsor Tom Oliver, who plays Lou Carpenter in Neighbours! I haven’t seen Neighbours in 20 years but I still recognise him, he’s been on the show that long!
But Lek Chailert is the true star here, as she started this park and rescues not just Elephants but dogs, cats and other animals. This place is an amazing refuge. Despite the Asian Elephant having such cultural history in Thailand, being the national animal and revered in Buddhism, they are treated terribly throughout the country. Lek rescues Elephants who have been injured, mistreated, working hard labour, rides etc. She uses only positive reinforcement to gain their trust and respect and you can see how close she is with the Elephants.
In the visit, we got to feed them, both to their trunk and directly into their mouths, wash them in the river, learn about the park and each Elephant etc. And they serve a great Vegetarian buffet lunch! In my first visit I won an ENP bag by naming the new baby Elephant, Pha Mai. This time I won an ENP Calender by naming the new arrival, Dok Mai 
DO NOT ever go Elephant riding, give money to street Elephants or visit other so-called rescue parks in Thailand, THIS is the only place that truly cares for the Elephants and other animals at the park.
Its an awesome place and so worth the visit!
http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/
FYI Only the newborns are kept in Pens, for their own safety and others. They still get let out for visits to the river and when they are a bit older they are allowed into the park with the others 
« Art of Brick
Songkran is the Thai New Year, and what started as a tradition of bathing the elderly is now basically the world’s largest water fight! For an entire week literally the whole country gets involved. You can’t walk down the street without the possibility of getting hit with a bucket of ice water hahaha. Yes, they don’t just use tap water, they add ice to it! Super cold haha. They also put clay/mud on the face.
We went to a few clubs which also get in on the action and it was awesome! Foam parties, buckets of water, water pistols, performers etc. Being the only white guy there I was an immediate target and soaked in about 20seconds haha. I also spent one day at Koh San Road and another at Silom where they had full on fire hoses blasting people!! Just check watch the video and check out the photos
Bintan! »« Thailand, April 2012
Back to Thailand! Got a week or so before Songkran kicks off, so I met up with Justin who just happened to be about. We headed to Amphawa to see the floating markets, drink some juice (Roselle and Gac juice, never tried before!) watch some Muay Thai guys training and hang out with Ultraman!
Back in Bangkok, there was a royal funeral for a princess who died almost a year ago. It was really strange and eerie to walk along this main road in Banglamphu near the Palace and seeing no cars on it, completely silent, and cops every 100m or so. Unfortunately we couldn’t find any information on it so we missed the cavalcade, and we waited hours in the park near the palace and of course just after we left the cannons went off and the procession started. Oh well. A lot of people turned up, they were offering free food and drinks in the park, and of course there was loads of security around, a rare outing for the Thai King.
We also made a trip Ayutthaya, the old Capital of Thailand, where we rented a scooter and buzzed around the old sites for the day. We had a map that basically listed the sites but no real road structure in between, no street names, and we didn’t even have an address of the place we rented the scooter from. But somehow we managed to find everything and make it back in time. We got navigation skillz bro!
A quick little video from Thailand to go with the photos
Songkran 2012 »« Singapore Air Show 2012
My mate Lukas and his wife Sheryl were over from Singapore so I met up with them for New Years Eve in Bangkok! Its kind of an odd event in Bangkok really, It’s such a huge, crazy city, but no one really cares that much about it. Probably as the Thai New Year is a few months away. We were at the shopping malls till almost 10pm and they were still rammed, barely anyone out on the street. Until getting really close to the fireworks location, you wouldn’t think today was anything different!
The main road in front of the display is closed off and security didn’t drinks of any kind in, but you couldn’t by any inside either. So we sat in the 30C heat waiting for a couple hours with nothing drink! Everyone was sitting on their 20B plastic sheets made from what look like product packaging sheets from a factory. At one point an Ambulance was trying to get through and everyone kept standing up and sitting down not sure if it would try to pass, in the end they gave up and turned around!
At the temple they were chanting/singing and everyone wraps a piece of string on their head from an above grid, connecting all of them together, wishing out bad omens from the current year and good fortunes for the next. We also saw Wat Arun (temple) did some shopping in the malls & markets, boat ride on the river
Chinese New Year 2012, Singapore »« Xmas in KPH
