Two Beers and a Pretzel

Now for the much anticipated update on India…

I got sick.  We’re talking loss of control of some major bodily functions type of sick.  I’m better now, but avoiding spicy fod for a while.  The neat thing is that I saw a doctor and got two different  prescription medicines for 70 rupees.  That’s $1.55 for a doctor visit plus medication!!  They say the US has the best available healthcare (and if I need a major surgery, that’s where I want to be), but geez, we’re paying out the arse for all the little things…

Anyway, on the 20th, Sreekanth went rock climbing while I hiked around the hills and took pictures.  It was a really cool rock formation about an hour South of Bangalore.  They didn’t have a harness to fit me, or time before the rock face got too hot for me to climb, but I had plenty of fun hiking around and snapping photos. 

That afternoon, we caught a bus to Mysore, met Sreekanth’s parents, and crashed there for the night.  The next day we hired a cab to take us to the Kabini River Lodge near the Rajiv Ghandi National Park.  This lodge used to be the private hunting grounds for the Maharaja of Mysore, and has hosted such dignitaries as Prince Edward and Admiral Halsey back in the 1920′s…  so it was pretty nice.

We met my friend Roopa there with her husband and brother.

Before lunch, we walked thru the camp and saw some local insects, birds, and monkeys.

After lunch and a brief stint in the tree house play area before a quick nap and then setting out on the safari.

Unfortunately, I started feeling bad about an hour after lunch, but held in the discomfort to ‘enjoy’ the safari.  It was worth it, but painful.  We saw spotted deer, peacocks, monkeys, wild boar, wild elephants, eagles, woodpeckers, wild cattle, and a host of other animals.

The grounds of the lodge were on the riverbank between 2 national parks that boast the largest density of 3 different apex predators of any park in Asia (tigers, spotted panthers, and wild dogs).  One reason there are so many predators is that the park is well protected from poachers, and there is an abundance of prey – especially spotted deer.  Since the safaris are only allowed in about 5% of the park, we didn’t see any of these.  They did mention sighting a tiger in our camp a few days before, but that didn’t do much for me – having not seen it.

The next day we took another jeep safari in the morning, and went out on the crocodile infested river in a native craft not too dissimilar from a 5 ft diameter upside down wicker umbrella covered in tar.

A bit after that, we took a boat safari in the late afternoon.  I thought I was feeling better, but lost it on the boat ride (again, about an hour after lunch).

The river was damned in the 70′s to create a reservoir, which aside from forcing the relocation of a few villages, also has some unforseen advantages…  Many plantations has blocked the migratory paths of elephants during the dry season to the lush mountains.  Now, grasses grow year round, so the elephants can stay and are not killed as frequently by the electric fences of the plantations along their old migration paths.  The practical upshot of this is that there are wild elephants everywhere – among a number of other animals…

Yesterday I started a tour of the countryside on a dual-sport (on road / off road) motorbike.  It was really just a glorified moped, but it did have off road tires and a beefy suspension.  My guide, Ped, took me on the busy streets of Chiang Mai where I became one of the thousands of mopeds weaving thru traffic.  Then we went about 40 kilometers on paved roads, and another 60 on dirt tracks.

The dirt quickly became very slippery mud with a brief monsoon.  I laid the bike over a few times when the wheels got caught in a rut going the opposite direction of my momentum.  A few cuts and scrapes, and I’m no worse for the wear.  The only scary one was a rut that sent me down a very steep 10 meter mud slide.  I jumped off before the bike rolled over me.  The mirrors came off the bike, but I was fine.

I did regain my composure enough to cross a tree over a river…

Then we made it to a village near the border with Myanmar/Burma (or whatever they want to call it now).  This wasn’t the long neck women, but tht’s OK with me, because they kinda freak me out anyway.

We stayed with Suchat, his wife Kaecher, their daughters Fai (14), Pachi (8), and Tidee (2).  Ped and Kaecher cooked dinner while I took a nap and the girls played with Ped’s camera.

Here’s Pachi, Tidee, Kaecher, Suchat, Ped, and me.  Fai was the photographer.

An interesting thing about Fai…  she’s 14, recently divorced, and has a new 31 year old boyfriend (her parents are 32).

Regardless of things hill tribe people do differently, they were a very welcoming and exceedingly happy family.  And the food was something else… Sweet and sour chicken, some kind of chicken curry (red, but not red curry or panang), a variety of cantaloupe, fresh banana (they live on a banana farm), small steamed crabs that Pachi caught that afternoon in the creek, hand thrashed rice, spicy mushrooms and bamboo.  Wow, it was good!!  We ate together sitting on the floor of the 1 year old addition to their bamboo hut.

The next day (this morning) we left early, but not before I bought some handmade souvenirs from Kaecher and Pachi.  Asking why, I showed them pictures of my twin nieces. Which led to the bunny becoming friends with Pachi…

Then off to the countryside again…

Where I rode an Elephant thru the jungle…

And then went mud-water rafting on a pile of sticks…  (ok, a real bamboo raft)

After getting back into town, I booked an early flight back to Bangkok tomorrow so I can go to the massive weekend market, then get my visa for India on Monday before heading to the islands in the south for a week…