Surin Day 1

The bus kept stopping at bus stations along the way. The lights would turn on. The bus hostess would walk down the aisle, passing out water, cookies and extremely loud rustling bags of chips. I would fall asleep, but I kept waking up every time the bus stopped. Fortunately, we didn't make many more stops after 12 and I was able to sleep (almost soundly) until 7:00.

We had two rest stops, one at midnight and one at 4:30 in the morning. We had food coupons for both stops, but I only ate at the first one. It was a very basic cafeteria style place.
Everyone got a bowl of rice flipped onto the plate so it was a neat mound of rice. We could choose what side we wanted: spicy chicken with brown sauce and onions or non spicy chicken with semi sweet scramled egg (Kenji said it reminded him of tamago-yaki) and some sort of melon veggie. Half a boiled egg was optional.

On the way back to the bus, the boys were playing with two baby kittens. They were so tiny and cute! I wanted to take pictures, but my camera lens was fogged over because they keep the inside of the bus around 23 degrees.

During the second rest stop, I woke up when Chet walked by with a big bag of cup noodles. I wondered if it's for us. Then I went to brush my teeth. When I came back, I almost couldn't find my seat because everyone had their faces covered with a blanket.

I woke up at 7:30. Everyone was waking up and gathering their belongings. Our bus arrived at our stop at 7:45. The trip in total took 13 and a half hours. We unloaded our luggage, rolled it across the street and loaded everything up in a van. The van idled while we waited for another volunteer (Megan) that would be joining us here from Bangkok.
At 8:30, we found out that Megan's hotel was 50km away from city centre and she was still there. We hopped onto the van and went to a nearby spot for breakfast. There was meat with rice or veggies with rice. I wasn't really hungry for rice in the morning, so I passed on breakfast.

When everyone was done eating, the driver took us to Big C. It was a department store complex with a food court. We each got a 100 baht debit card. I ordered a fried rice with pork for 35 baht to go and a Thai dessert for 30 baht as breakfast. I could pick three ingredients. I chose sweet brown beans, water chestnuts and a sort of tapioca (that was a bit crunchy with black spots and made me think they were seeds?). The lady poured in syrup, two ladles of crushed ice and coconut milk. The food court was cool, so I took out the ice. It was a good breakfast :)

Until I watched a really sad Thai music video. Then, I lost my appetite. I've found that Thai music videos are really just filmed stories with a song in the background. Unless the singer is also acting, they are barely shown in the video. The stories are very easy to understand even if you don't know hay they're singing about.

To my delight, we watched music videos in the van all the way to the project. I discovered another type of music video. It's the filming of what appears to be a staged live show. The singer standing with a handful of backup dancers on stage. I took a nap the first time I saw one of those videos. I woke up almost an hour after when we started driving on (paved but) bumpy road. Soon, we arrived at the project.

The first thing we saw when we went through the gates was a wide open paved area. The left and right were lined with market stalls selling refreshments and souvenirs.There were houses on stilts all along the road with elephants tied up underneath them. We passed by an arena where they have elephant shows twice a day, once at 10am and once at 2pm. There are supposed to be 160 elephants in Surin. I thought they would all be in one area, but they were separated with their owners/mahouts. I was surprised by how many babies I saw!

The van parked across from a baby and its mother beside a platform. We unloaded our luggage and were shown where we would stay. I was at a hut with three elephants in the front. There were two rooms. I had the one on the left. Megan (we found out she wasn't feeling well and will join is later) would have the one on the right when she arrives. I unpacked and folded up all my dirty clothes for laundry. Then I went to the platform with Chris and Eleni, hoping to catch a little breeze while we ate our takeout. I finished about half of it. I put the other half in the fridge and brought my laundry out to do. I added my load to Chris and Eleni's to save water.

We played with the baby while its mother munched on some banana trunk and leaves. The baby kept flinging banana trunk layers onto its back. We can't play with the baby unless the mother is distracted with food, or else she gets very protective over her.

At 1pm, we met on the platform for orientation. Chet went over the rules. It was the same as the park, with added expectations. He introduced all the elephants and mahouts to us. We went to the kitchen and brought over around 10 bags of corn.

When it was feeding time, all the elephants of the project (seven) except for the pregnant one down the road, had their chains taken off and came to the platform. They were so hungry, we couldn't peel corn fast enough. In the beginning, they just ate the whole thing, husk and all. Unlike the park, these elephants had a sort of desperation for food. I've seen Kham Pan SO hungry, grabbing trunkfuls and stuffing it into her mouth.. But it wasn't the same as seeing these poor elephants.

All of a sudden, the baby squealed over something. All the elephants stopped feeding and surrounded the baby in a protective circle. It's nice to know they've formed a family group even though they didn't choose each other.

After feeding, we got to walk with the elephants to the nearby pond for a bath. The mahouts made them lie down so they could wash the top of their heads and back too. They seemed to really enjoy splashing in the water but bath time was quickly over. We walked back on a different path. I saw even more baby elephants. We passed by where Meg and Adam are staying. They have baby elephant twins next door! Two baby boys at six months old :)

Dino gave the baby some water in a bucket. We watched her greedily suck it up in his trunk and then tilt her head up and squirt it in her mouth. He let her have water until she started to play with the water. She was blowing bubbles and squirting it out. Then he took away the bucket and poured it out.

The girls all walked around the park to check where the shops were. We found those with no problem but we had to do a little guess and check for where the beauty salon is. It turned out that we walked in a big circle and the salon is very close to where we're staying. They offer hair styling and massages. When we got back, I laid down in bed just for a bit.. But I ended up falling asleep for an hour and woke up just before 5pm. I was so sticky, I wish I only napped for 20 minutes and then took a shower.
I quickly got changed for the welcome ceremony. I had to make sure I was wearing something that covered my knees too. The shaman was half an hour late, so I had time to journal a bit. I actually finished the second half of my fried rice lunch while we waited for the ceremony to begin.

The volunteers sat in a circle in front of the shaman and the centre piece. They unwinded string from a spool and walked around us so the string rested high on our backs. It was the same ceremony as the one they do at the park EXCEPT people behind us started throwing leaves at us halfway. They did this four times during the ceremony. Everyone giggled when they threw leaves at us. It was supposed to scare all the bad things away. At the end, we received bracelets from everyone. I have bracelets on both my arms because twice, I had two people blessing me with bracelets.

Chet made us a wonderful dinner. I wasn't that hungry because I had my fried rice but I still tried everything. We had a vegetable soup with cabbage, carrots and egg tofu (so soft!). There was also an omelette, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, minced pork, veggies (morning glory.. I think it's "hong choi" in Cantonese. That's what it tasted like), and plain rice.

After dinner, we chatted for a bit. Then, Dino brought out scrabble for us to play. I was last the first game. Everyone went to bed (even though it was only 9pm) so it was just Dino and I the second game. He practically only got vowels so I beat him by a lot!

I'm showered and in bed. I can hear somewhere snoring in another house. It's 10:30pm. If I read in my room, all the bugs will come in. If I read outside, I'll probably get more bites. I guess I'll try to sleep. I wish I was at the park with Duke, Baumi and the pack..