Elephants, Tigers, and Snakes, Oh My!

So, with the hustle and bustle involved in moving me from Shanghai to the Sanmen nuclear site where Michael works, I have fallen way behind on the blog. Therefore, I am going to quickly detail our last day in Thailand, letting the pictures and videos do most of the talking, and then start up again with my China posts.  So here goes!

Elephants

Elephant and Mahout

 

We spent the last day and a half of our trip in Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city. Robert, our insect guide from the Punjen Hideaway, was traveling there to trap moths in the city’s hilly outskirts and graciously offered to give us a lift so we didn’t have to mess with the train. He also agreed to stop at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang so Michael and I could see the elephant show and go for an elephant ride.

I had seen elephants before, of course, but always in a zoo or circus and always in a shamefully unnatural climate. I was excited to see an Asian elephant in Asia, not behind bars or in a traveling sideshow.

The Thai Elephant Conservation Center is a huge compound of forests, ponds, and trails. The Center’s vets and mahouts (traditional Thai elephant trainers) take care of more than 50 Asian elephants, including those of Thailand’s king and queen.

Feeding an elephant sugar cane

It was an hour before the next show, so Michael and I went for a 30-minute elephant ride around the grounds. Our elephant was a heavy, thick-tusked female. She hardly seemed to notice when we scrambled over her mountainous shoulders into the riding basket  buckled to her back. The elephant’s mahout sat bareback in front of us just behind the elephant’s head. He spoke to her conversationally in Thai as she walked us out of the gate.

The old girl bore the three of us easily and took her time wading through the Center’s ponds, crashing along the forest trails, and clomping down the paved road. You really get a sense of how big these animals are when you’re sitting atop one. The ground seems forever below you and when the elephant walks, its massive shoulder blades shift the riding basket up and down, producing an effect like airplane turbulence.

After the ride, we bid farewell to our mighty mount and her mahout and walked over to the elephant arena to watch the show.  The show was part living history, part gimmick. The amazing elephants demonstrated their beast-of-burden history in Thailand, where the country’s logging industry traditionally used the animals to move and manipulate felled trees and logs, by deftly pushing, stacking, and carrying, logs in the arena. But the elephants also bowed to the audience, played instruments (drums, a xylophone, and a harmonica), danced (unfortunately to Fergie’s “My Humps”), and used their dexterous trunks to wield paint-laden brushes with which they painted sixth-grade-worthy pictures of trees and flowers. It was all very impressive, if a little circusy. However, only the stoniest-hearted could leave the Center without a new appreciation for these mighty jungle kings.

 

Snakes

Jumping snake

Michael and I had failed to spot any dangerous, one-bite-will-kill-you-dead snakes while we were in Ban Pin. So, naturally, when we got to Chiang Mai, we told our driver to take us to the best cobra show in town. The place he recommended was a rambling collection of tin-roofed buildings prefaced by sun-faded billboards that advertised the joint’s snake handlers as, “The Best in The Business” and claimed that they had helped “train the cast of Rambo 4.”

Our driver walked us in, grabbed a newspaper from the front desk, plopped himself into a chair near the door, and began to read. Michael and I wandered around the showroom, which was little more than a cement floor lined with a few rows of wire snake cages, some potted plants, and a round, sunken show arena. Sunlight filtered down through the netted ceiling in bright squares. We peeked eagerly into the cages’ dark recesses and caught shadowy glimpses of jumping snakes, mangrove snakes, and the fearsomely beautiful monocled cobra.

We finished looking at the caged snakes and wandered over to the arena’s bamboo bleachers to wait for the show to begin. The cramped arena was lined with pilling green felt, and somewhere speakers thrummed with generically ethnic music that grew more frenzied as the handlers walked into the ring and readied themselves for snakes and spectacle. Our expectations were low, but the show turned out to be hugely entertaining: The handlers took turns sparing athletically with varyingly venomous snakes. The announcer ooo’d and awe’d along with audience and said things like, “Don’t worry, it takes at least two hours for monocled cobra venom to kill a human. By the way, the hospital is two and half hours from here…”

None of the snakes, which included a giant boa constrictor, two rat snakes, a jumping snake, two monocled cobras, and a king cobra (the longest venomous snake in the world), was defanged; a point the handlers drove home when they wrapped the riled serpents around the necks of the most willing whiteys in the audience (a.k.a. me an Michael) and shoved the snake’s open jaws in our face so we could give the ornery ophids a kiss.

Michael kissing reticulated python

The handlers were lithe and comical as they spun, parried, and danced around the watchful snakes. The cobras were especially poised. They stood tall, hoods concavely flared like the head of a spoon, above tightly coiled tails. The snake’s shining eyes followed the handlers’ every antagonizing move and when the men’s gamboling stopped in front of us, the snakes seemed to be looking directly at Michael and me, daring us to move or twitch or breathe. It was a marvelous feeling.

Me with Boa

When the handler’s got too close or too still, the king cobras struck confidently at the men’s abdomens, which were level with the snakes concentrated gaze. The handlers’ aim, according to the announcer, was to hypnotize or distract the snake’s attention so that the men could kiss the animal’s head before the handler’s mesmeric spell was broken and the snake moved it’s attention from the man’s twitching foot or wiggling finger to his face. This took some time and was clearly not 100 percent effective as many of the handlers had fingers missing or large, shiny purple scars on their hands and feet. The handlers stood close to the alert snakes, locked eyes with them, and bent slowly forward toward the serpents’ scaly heads until something about the animals would change, a subtle twitch, a slight muscle contraction, a cock of the head that said, “I know what you are trying to do, and it’s not going to work,” and the handlers would back away and try again.

After the senior handler had kissed his cobra, he invited audience members to walk into the ring and have someone snap a picture of us kneeling in front of the still vigilant and erect snakes. I would love to say I was more eager than Michael about the whole thing, but then, the snake didn’t strike at me and did take a full on lunge at Michael [See video] He still gets chills when he thinks about it. 

 

Tigers

Michael with juvenile tigers

The last animal attraction we saw that day in Chiang Mai was the tiger conservation and rehabilitation center.

Young tiger playing in its pond

The center raises and rehabilitates sick and injured tigers, so the animals there are very tame and used to people. This post is getting long despite my previous promise of brevity so I will just say that is was pretty cool. The tigers were large, apparently free of sedative drugs—though the largest ones seemed house-cat drowsy—and still had all their teeth and claws. Once you bought tickets, you were allowed to go into the tiger’s enclosures in small groups and take photos with the animals as the played and slept. It was pretty unbelievable. We had to sign a waiver, but we were actually allowed to lie down next to the largest the tigers and take pictures with our heads on their bellies.

Marian with large, lazy tiger

The younger tigers were very playful, as cats are, with string, bits of wood and toy balls, but were rather uninterested in us. Considering that my head could easily fit into the animals’ yawning, toothy mouths, their incuriosity was a good thing, no?  Their astounding banded, orange fur is  is one of nature’s best examples of disruptive coloration and, up close, the black bands are nearly patent in their glossy sable. Tigers are truly special animals and I think it’s pretty cool that there is a place that allows you to interact with the animals. I don’t know if it’s safe, exactly. But it’s pretty cool.

Wow! These Bugs Are Big: My Thailand Adventure, Part 3

Michael and me overlooking Punjen, Thailand

The next morning, before breakfast, Robert knocked on our bungalow door and said, “Hello! Pot’s found something for you…” I flew through the screen door and out onto the patio. Pot was cradling a long, forest-green stick insect.

Me with stick insect

Green stick insect

I had never seen a stick insect in the wild before, let alone one this big! “Pot found it crawling in the bushes near the kitchen,” Robert said. I let the living stick crawl from Pot’s hands into mine. The creature was so fragile, its legs painfully delicate. The insect’s body tapered like a blade of grass from one end to the other. For a while, it sat calmly in my open palms, but it soon began to sway back and forth, ever so slightly, from the knees. The transformation was marvelous: In front of my eyes, the insect morphed into a fresh sprig of grass, swaying gently in the morning breeze.

We ate breakfast quickly to get a jump on the day. While the guys readied the pony cart that would take us into the village, Ya, our guide for the day, led me to a small group of trees growing near the kitchen. “Have you ever seen and elephant bug?” she asked.

Lantern fly caught in web

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to discover that what the Thais call elephant bugs, we call lantern flies, remarkably odd-looking insects characterized by enlarged heads that resemble trunks or noses that I had always wanted to see.

Lantern flies (Pyrops candelaria)

The lantern flies (Pyrops candelaria) are bright green with chalk-white veins running through their yellow-spotted wings. They were resting in groups on the tree trunks, their hilarious noises pointed skyward. Lantern flies get their name from a never proven observation that the insects can illuminate their elongated “noses”. This viridescent species is common in Thailand, but it’s amazing nonetheless. Another bug off the life-list!

Me with Punjen village schoolgirl

We rode the pony cart to Punjen village where Ya was going to give us a tour of the school. The classrooms were separated by grade (from kindergarten to high school) and organized in a sqaure around a grassy field. The students learn both Thai and English and the rooms were filled with pictures of fruit, animals, and weather events with the corresponding English words written below the pictures. And, of course, there were many framed photos of the Thai King and Queen. The Thai’s seem very proud of their royalty, and Their Majesties’ pictures are everywhere; homes, grocery stores, gas stations, highway billboards, etc.

The schools were great. The teachers appeared confident and the students seemed busy. They had books, clay, paints and even some old computers.

Rice miller machine

We walked from the schools to a rice mill across the street. The “mill” was really just a giant rice milling machine in a tumbledown barn.

Rice bags

Via a series of elevators, conveyor belts, agitators, and shoots, the machine  removes the grain’s brown husk, sorts the grains, and then shoots the husks out the back into a crowd of eager, expectant chickens.

Next, Ya took us through the village, a jumble of unpainted, wooden houses. She told us that two elderly people had died in the village the day before, and so many of the villagers were inside their homes, mourning. When a villager dies, the family keeps the person’s body inside the home for two days (the mourning period).

Villager shucking nuts with a hammer and knife blade

Grubs for sale at Punjen village market

The body is then taken to a crematorium and burned, which marks the end of the mourning period. Ya explained that, for the most part, the Thais view death as just something that happens, a normal part of life. Consequently, the mourning period is short and more celebratory than sorrowful.

In the village, a family was shucking nuts on their front stoop. We watched as the grandfather used a hammer and knife to expertly prey open the nut’s shell. He offered us a few nuts, the meat of which tasted like soft almonds.

These nuts tasted like a cross between an almond and a water chestnut

The villagers in Punjen lived up to Thailand’s reputation for friendliness. In marked contrast to the Chinese, or at least to the Shanghainese, who seem suspicious and defeated, the Thais are sassy, creative, and have a wonderful sense of humor.  We walked through the village’s small market street and the people, despite having very little, and spending most of their day knee-deep in mud or hand-reaping grain, seem happy and hopeful.

We found this rhinoceros beetle on a statue at the hill top temple

To get to the hilltop temple, we climbed this beautiful stone dragon stairway

We pony-carted back to the resort for lunch, then drove to a hilltop temple with a view of the valley, then walked to a waterfall where Michael and I went swimming, and then, finally, we went back to the resort. Whew! But the best part of the whole day, in my opinion, was helping Robert hang up a black light and white sheet at the back of our bungalow to attract insects. I’d seen researchers do this kind of thing on television, and I was giddy at the possibilities. As dusk fell softly around us, the black light’s weird purple glow burned brighter and, in an airy flutter of wings, moths and beetles flew past our heads and gathered in a jittery mass on the eerily lit sheet.

A beautiful orange Arctiid moth

There diversity of species was tremendous. There were sleek, streamlined hawk (sphinx) moths; colorful tiger moths; pale, papery luna moths, unreasonably big Atlas moths, large green katydids; small, hungry mantids, and a huge huntsman spider that stalked the sheet’s periphery, waiting to pounce on heedless insects.

a species of Geometer moth

One of the most charismatic insects of the night was a hulking five-horned beetle that buzzed loudly to the sheet. Robert picked it off and handed it to me. These beetles are some of the heaviest in the world but their legs and tiny, clawed feet are still awfully delicate, so as it crawled up my scarf, I was hesitant to remove it. Michael and I went inside the bungalow where the light was better to shoot some video of the beetle’s steady ascent up my scarf.

This huge Atlas moth camped out in the trees near the black light

By the time we got inside and readied the camera, the beetle had entangled itself in my wet hair and was desperately trying to free itself and summit my head [see video]. Its claws dug into my scalp and we were afraid that if we pulled at it too hard it would loose a leg. Robert to the rescue! In one confident swoop, he pulled the beetle off my head and tossed it in the air. It spread its wings and buzzed away into the growing darkness.

Before Michael and I hit the hay, Robert had one more surprise for me. I’d told Dwaila  in advance of the trip, that, bug-wise, I am particularly fond of arachnids. She  passed along this info to Robert, who promised to keep an eye out for interesting arachnids.  Robert said that he’d captured a curious little arachnid in his kitchen the night before, and had brought it with him to give to me.

He handed me a small, lidded plastic jar that contained a dark, scorpion-like animal. He called it a whip-scorpion, but I knew the strange little guy as a vinegaroon (Mastigoproctus giganteu). This was a relatively small one, probably just a juvenile. Adults of some species can be nearly four inches long.

With their spiny pincers, eight eyes, and long, thin tail, whip scorpions are fearsome at first glance, but they are harmless to people and are really quite adorable little things. I let this one walk around on my arm (see video) and I was struck by the gentle, probing way they used their elongated pair of front legs, which are not for walking but for  sensing and feeling. Soooo Cute! Vinegaroons are rather important pest controllers as they prey on crickets, grasshoppers, and other crop pests. Vinegaroons get their name from their ability to produce an acetic acid (vinegar) mist when threatened or attacked. Arachnids are the coolest!

Click here to see a slideshow of all the crazy cool insects we saw in Thailand!