Phuket:

Beaches, Elephants and Monkeys

Even at my age, there are new things to learn all the time. When my wife, daughter and I first landed on Phuket Island, Thailand’s largest island, I learned that if you were a disciple of Hooked on Phonics, you need to learn real fast to forget those principles and pronounce Phuket like the natives do. (Poo ket) Phuket is the heavily-forested and beach-rimmed glamour island a short, one-hour flight southeast of Bangkok and is the first destination on our family’s two month-long trip that includes visits to Thailand, Australia and a total of six islands. Phuket has a rich history as a tin producer but today boasts a modern, burgeoning tourism industry that brings nearly 10 million visitors a year from all over the world mainly to sample the outstanding beaches and decadent nightlife. Travel Channel recently listed Patong Beach on Phuket (pictured) as the top beach destination in the world. My idea of a vacation is to work at it harder than I do at my regular job, so along with sun-worshipping on the exquisite, sugar-sand beaches, we looked for other things to do in Phuket, activities that would add to our learning. Well today, I learned that elephants smell a lot like hogs. Did not know that. They have coarse black hairs all over their gray bodies, the hairs rather long and spaced a couple of inches apart.

Found out too, that they have beady brown eyes, discovered when I tried to climb on the ample, gray back of the one I was assigned to ride. The look it gave me was a cross between a challenge and a laugh. The third aspect I learned about these massive beasts is that they move awfully slow, almost as slow as my brothers used to when they were doing farm work. But when we talk elephant slow, we are talking side to side, front to back, up and down slow.

Riding an elephant gives you plenty of time to contemplate life while your butt is sliding one way and at the same time, the upper part of your body is stretching the other way grasping for the safety bar on the bench seat. Nothing happens very quickly while astride one of these languid fellows. Together he, his handler and I rode through briar patches, crossed rivers and bridges and climbed green, forested mountains culminating in startling vista views, but all of this was done in slow motion. The three of us traveling together signed up for an hour’s ride. If I knew then what I know now, I would have asked if there was a 7 minute ride. After the initial thrill of the first three steps away from the loading platform, everything is excruciatingly the same. The only difference between a 7 minute ride and an hour’s ride is the number of vertebrate suffering 6 hours later. One other gross fact I learned today that I could have lived quite well without knowing. Periodically, the elephants relieve themselves quite gigantically on the trail. So what is a trekking company to do? Well, the solution is simple. They hire a diminutive Thai woman to wait along side of the trails with black plastic bags to keep the trails clean. In evidently what is a cost cutting maneuver, the poor woman was not observed to have any kind of shovel, only thin plastic gloves. Seeing this, my job back home suddenly became much more attractive. Every person reacts a little differently to the experience of riding these critters. I won’t say that our daughter Meghan was afraid during her ride, but the fellow guiding her ‘phant said she set a new record for this safari by breathing only three times in an hour. Companies using elephants in the tourism industry are actually providing care for elephants that they would not otherwise receive.

Elephants in Thailand used to be a mainstay in the logging industry and were carefully cared for by their owners. At one time, over 100,000 elephants were gainfully employed in Thailand alone. But with the onslaught of technology, few are used today and Thailand is faced with homeless elephants that roam the countryside, creating a real nuisance. Around 300 elephants roam parts of Bangkok alone, begging and foraging for

food. Overall numbers of elephants in Thailand have dropped to an estimated 3-4,000. After our elephants had deposited us back at home base, we were leaving with our guide in his Toyota Camry when we saw a small commotion on the road directly ahead of us. As we pulled up to the small melee, we spotted a deadly, coiled cobra in the middle of the road, its head about a foot and a half off the ground, daring anyone to interfere.

I jumped out and ran as close as I could, turning on my Nikon 4300 Coolpix hoping to snatch a quick shot of him as we do not see many of these in Crosby.

Suddenly a young feller runs up to the snake, stops about 3 feet away from him and slowly inches toward the snake before he stuck out his hand and placed it upon the head of the cobra, forcing the snake’s head to the ground whereupon he gathered it in his arms, jumped on the back of a friend’s motor scooter and took off. Now what was that all about? Nice pet. A visit to a Monkey School where monkeys are trained to help in coconut harvesting provided some comic relief in the midst of a hot, sultry day. My wife was stunned to find several of the students there

recognized me, something about long lost cousins.

Our guide for the day, Chan Chin, was a young policeman doing moonlighting work as a private tour guide to augment his $7000baht monthly salary, about $180US. He was a delightful young man who spoke little English, but was proud to haltingly share about his daily life and the financial struggles he and his wife had in their quest to make a life for themselves. We found the Thais to be a universally friendly people, eager to smile and help out any floundering tourists. The amount of English spoken here is very, very minimal and though there are some dual

language signs, most are in Thai only. The Thais we have had more contact with are surprised when they find out we are Americans as they receive comparatively few Americans here out of the 11 million annual tourists. The main groups of tourists are from Europe and Australia. One of the more seedy aspects of Thai life here in Phuket and is even worse in Bangkok, is the pairing up of old, white predator Western males with young teenaged Thai girls. It is not uncommon at all to see men in their 60’s and even 70’s with girls between 15-18 years of age and sadly, sometimes even younger. .

I had a small scary situation happen to me late this morning on the beach here in Patong Beach. Hundreds of people were enjoying the warm sun and water as I left the sidewalk and threaded my way through the crowds down towards the water. I heard a siren blast and lots of shrieking police whistles and suddenly I was surrounded by a number of beach officials. They

ended up giving me a sarong to wear while I was on the beach, saying something about people in this part of the world had never seen such white, spindly legs and it was frightening them. After getting our fill of lazing around in Phuket, we were eager to fly to Bangkok, the city once called the Venice of the East.