My favorite James Bond in the end...
It's difficult to write updates when I haven't been doing much, but after a couple of lazy days on the beach, plus a trip into Phuket town to pick up a few more used books (I'm averaging one a day - it's heaven!), I finally roused myself to get out on a tour. They picked me up at the hotel this morning for the "007 tour" (which here in Phuket is called the "zero zero seven" tour) and I met the other folks who would be along for the ride. Now I haven't met many Americans this trip, but when we stopped at the next hotel a guy climbed into the van who wound up being from Bellevue! He's also traveling solo and also just going back to school for a new degree and also worked on some Dept of Defense IT stuff (I did that too by the by) and also has completely different politics so we had a lot to chat about. After being on my own for the past couple of weeks, it was fun to have a long conversation with someone about anything, but particularly about coffee and he knows of a Starbucks on the island here! I'm off on a hunt for it tomorrow.
The first stop on the tour was to a cave temple where natural caves have been turned into religious places (as opposed to Turkey where man-mad caves were used as temples). It housed a reclining Buddha, though not as big as the one in Bangkok of course, and a lot of bats. There's also some wild troop of monkeys that live around the cave and have become dependent on the 20-baht bananas that tourists buy to feed them. I took some pictures, but every time I looked at their little monkey faces I saw herpes virus B and ebola and other creepy crawlies, so I kept my distance.
Next we went to an elephant show and rubber demonstration which weren't really connected, but while I wasn't very interested in seeing the elephant show, the rubber demonstration was neat. Rubber is the #1 export from Phuket and rubber trees are grown all over the place. The guides demonstrated how trees are scored to release sap which is collected in a hanging coconut (sounds very Gilligan's Island, doesn't it). The sap is mixed with a couple of things which make it gel and then it gets put through the wringer - three of them actually - and hung out to dry. Over two weeks in the sun it goes from white to yellow to brown, which is when it's shipped to a factory for more processing and then sold internationally to companies who will use it for tires or toys or condoms.
The elephant show was different from what I'd seen before and two young elephants played the harmonica and walked on two feet and performed other assorted tricks. The final trick was having one elephant "massage" a volunteer. They had the person lie face down on the ground, put a grimy looking cloth over their butt and lower back and then had the elephant step all over the person while playing the harmonica. When the massage was finished the elephant gave the person a very noisy kiss with her trunk. A number of different tourists volunteered for this - not me - and for the last "come on, one more volunteer; a special massage", they dragged the guy from Bellevue, protesting all the way, into the ring. They had him lie down on his back this time...which had him a little concerned but probably not as much as he should have been. He was covered with the cloth and the elephant started stepping on him. So far so good, but things quickly took a turn for the worse. One of the handlers must have dropped a handfull of peanuts under the guy's groin and the elephant started looking for these with her trunk. And looking. And looking. You could tell the guy was at a complete loss for what to do - elephant foot on his stomach, elephant trunk in his crotch, 30 people watching all this, his options were pretty limited. It soon ended and the elephant's by now sloppy kiss landed on his lips. This was his first experience with elephants in Thailand...and I'm guessing it may just be his last as well.
So we went to the local dock and took a long-tail boat (I'll have to post a picture) to a village that's up on stilts for lunch. The village is all Muslim and has its own mosque and school. They have to bring water and electricity from the mainland, but otherwise it looks pretty self-sustaining. I wandered around their streets (though it's probably more accurate to say docks) and was fascinated by the birds they kept there. There were a lot of bird cages hanging in the house eaves. The only type I could identify were the turtledoves, but there was a really wide variety including something that looked like some type of eagle. I guess if you live in the middle of the ocean, you have to bring in your own songbirds?
Next we took the boat out to an area dotted with rocky islands (the result of ancient volcanoes, I later learned) that have little grottoes and caves throughout them. We transferred to 3-man sea canoes and were paddled from place to place, at some points lying flat on the raft so we could fit under whatever rock loomed over us.
The final stop on the tour, and the point of the name, in case you were wondering about that, was JamesBond Island. Back in 1974, they filmed portions of a Bond movie there (10 points to whoever can name that movie!) and the Thais officially changed the name from "Nail" Island to "JamesBond" - all one word - Island. I don't remember enough of the movie to know what the significance to Bond was, but that really didn't matter. We got to take in the beautiful scenery, hike around the rocks, marvel at the size of the cliffs, and bask in the warm Thai sun as we considered our luck to be at this place in the world on such a lovely day.
The first stop on the tour was to a cave temple where natural caves have been turned into religious places (as opposed to Turkey where man-mad caves were used as temples). It housed a reclining Buddha, though not as big as the one in Bangkok of course, and a lot of bats. There's also some wild troop of monkeys that live around the cave and have become dependent on the 20-baht bananas that tourists buy to feed them. I took some pictures, but every time I looked at their little monkey faces I saw herpes virus B and ebola and other creepy crawlies, so I kept my distance.
Next we went to an elephant show and rubber demonstration which weren't really connected, but while I wasn't very interested in seeing the elephant show, the rubber demonstration was neat. Rubber is the #1 export from Phuket and rubber trees are grown all over the place. The guides demonstrated how trees are scored to release sap which is collected in a hanging coconut (sounds very Gilligan's Island, doesn't it). The sap is mixed with a couple of things which make it gel and then it gets put through the wringer - three of them actually - and hung out to dry. Over two weeks in the sun it goes from white to yellow to brown, which is when it's shipped to a factory for more processing and then sold internationally to companies who will use it for tires or toys or condoms.
The elephant show was different from what I'd seen before and two young elephants played the harmonica and walked on two feet and performed other assorted tricks. The final trick was having one elephant "massage" a volunteer. They had the person lie face down on the ground, put a grimy looking cloth over their butt and lower back and then had the elephant step all over the person while playing the harmonica. When the massage was finished the elephant gave the person a very noisy kiss with her trunk. A number of different tourists volunteered for this - not me - and for the last "come on, one more volunteer; a special massage", they dragged the guy from Bellevue, protesting all the way, into the ring. They had him lie down on his back this time...which had him a little concerned but probably not as much as he should have been. He was covered with the cloth and the elephant started stepping on him. So far so good, but things quickly took a turn for the worse. One of the handlers must have dropped a handfull of peanuts under the guy's groin and the elephant started looking for these with her trunk. And looking. And looking. You could tell the guy was at a complete loss for what to do - elephant foot on his stomach, elephant trunk in his crotch, 30 people watching all this, his options were pretty limited. It soon ended and the elephant's by now sloppy kiss landed on his lips. This was his first experience with elephants in Thailand...and I'm guessing it may just be his last as well.
So we went to the local dock and took a long-tail boat (I'll have to post a picture) to a village that's up on stilts for lunch. The village is all Muslim and has its own mosque and school. They have to bring water and electricity from the mainland, but otherwise it looks pretty self-sustaining. I wandered around their streets (though it's probably more accurate to say docks) and was fascinated by the birds they kept there. There were a lot of bird cages hanging in the house eaves. The only type I could identify were the turtledoves, but there was a really wide variety including something that looked like some type of eagle. I guess if you live in the middle of the ocean, you have to bring in your own songbirds?
Next we took the boat out to an area dotted with rocky islands (the result of ancient volcanoes, I later learned) that have little grottoes and caves throughout them. We transferred to 3-man sea canoes and were paddled from place to place, at some points lying flat on the raft so we could fit under whatever rock loomed over us.
The final stop on the tour, and the point of the name, in case you were wondering about that, was JamesBond Island. Back in 1974, they filmed portions of a Bond movie there (10 points to whoever can name that movie!) and the Thais officially changed the name from "Nail" Island to "JamesBond" - all one word - Island. I don't remember enough of the movie to know what the significance to Bond was, but that really didn't matter. We got to take in the beautiful scenery, hike around the rocks, marvel at the size of the cliffs, and bask in the warm Thai sun as we considered our luck to be at this place in the world on such a lovely day.
posted by Imle at 4:41 AM
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