IT’S NOT easy defying gravity, especially when you are perched, two up, on the back of an elephant that has just snacked on sugar cane and now has its eyes on a more succulent main course poking tantalisingly from a tree farther down the one-in-three incline. The rollercoaster ride threatens to tip father and son, and wife and daughter on an equally hungry elephant to the rear, head first into the lush Thai jungle.
This was our mode of transport on a two-hour trek over the mountains, a few hours’ drive from Chiang Mai, to a Lisu hilltribe village where we were to spend the afternoon and night among one of the many tribes dotted all over northern Thailand.
It was hot and sticky and a world away from home. George, 8, had jumped at the chance to “drive” the elephant, sitting awkwardly on its wire-brush head. “Ow! Its hairs are really spiky,” he whooped, not balking at its constant sneezing, which showered us with water, mud — and something rather more unsavoury.
The Jungle Book sprang to mind, especially when it had connections to why we were here in the first place. We had set out to find a holiday that was far removed from the predictable Florida theme park break aimed at keeping youngsters fully occupied, safe and whinge-free. We wanted real travel: dusty, sweaty escapism from the daily routine.
My wife, Jane, travelled around Thailand as a student nurse, and had promised herself that she would return. She probably wasn’t envisaging taking two young children and a husband with her, but it was her destiny.
Emily, 11, and George are very pampered. Tidying their bedrooms is their biggest hardship, so choosing a 16-day break that would take in mountain hiking, the elephant ride, sleeping in the jungle and surviving the traffic mayhem of Bangkok was a gamble. But one that paid off.
What we wanted was a mixture of adventure and culture, ending at the beach. It was surprisingly simple to organise. We contacted Travelbag — a company specialising in the Far East, and explained where we wanted to go (Chiang Mai, Bangkok and one of the islands to the south), roughly how long we wanted to stay at each place and a guide to cost. With a few minor scheduling tweaks, what we ended up with was not a packgage as such — we had opted only for the security of knowing we had internal flights, transfers and some hotels prebooked.
Off the elephants, we trekked through fields of swaying grass and over rattling streams into a time bubble. We were surrounded by a dusty collection of dogs, scrawny chickens and inquisitive children, staring at their equally dusty guests.
The village was a huddle of wood and bamboo homes, around a square of ruddy baked earth, the only concession to the modern world being a couple of battered mopeds. But the welcome was warm, sincere and discreet, the latter being something we would yearn for a few days later in Bangkok. Our “hotel” was a hut on stilts and our bedroom a giant mattress for four (or more if you have a bigger family), with a colourful collection of blankets and a mosquito net flowering out above.
We danced the evening away, watching and joining in with our hosts, decked out in colourful costumes. Then we retired to our beds, with torches and a single candle, for a night the children will never forget. Apart from the incessant sound wave of bugs and beasts, we woke in the pitch dark with a bat fluttering in our room and fireflies darting above our heads. It was with some sadness that we left, mid-morning, to take a four-wheel drive vehicle back to the elephant base camp and civilisation.
We spent almost five days within striking distance of Chiang Mai, tailoring our itinerary with the help of All-Thailand Experiences, a small company specialising in eco-friendly tours that keep well away from the usual tourist attractions. We had a guide, driver and air-conditioned van for four days, forsaking two of our booked hotel nights for the stay-away trips.
Our Thai guide, Odd, was a mine of local information and fantastic with the children. She knew every plant, every fruit and how many dozens of each species there were. We ate at roadside restaurants with no western face in sight, sampled dishes that we would never have dared try on our own and stopped to buy strange and exotic fruits and delicacies at roadside stalls.
We river rafted, climbed the country’s highest mountain, crawled through caves, fed giant carp, and dropped in at many tribe villages. It brought Thailand to life in a way no all-inclusive package could have done. And the beauty of having your own driver is being able to change destination when the weather turns foul. When torrential rain cancelled a river trip we went instead through tea plantations to the Golden Triangle, on the Burma-Laos border.
