On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.
So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.
You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.
For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
Today, pictures from valued commenter satby.
Since everyone enjoyed the volunteer vacay photos, I thought I would send a few more about the elephant portion of the trip.
More homestay elephants
The volunteer here is Jane, who really developed a bond with Nun Loc (trunk raised). The other elephant was a sibling, the families bring the elephants to visit each other!
Silk weavers in San Kamphaeng
San Kamphaeng is the silk village outside of Chiang Mai, you can watch them dye the silk thread and weave silk fabric. And then shop for all sorts of silk goods!
Making elephant poop paper.
Another way for the families to earn money is to collect elephant poop (which is pure cellulose) which is brought to the elephant temple complex and processed into paper by hand. It’s been cleaned and boiled, and no, it doesn’t smell ? My roommate Rosemary wasn’t too sure about this ?
New baby!
He’s actually a few months old, and we weren’t allowed to let or feed him because it made the mother elephant nervous. Both mother and baby were in the first elephant proof enclosure, and the hope is that this one lives out his life more naturally, with minimal training for safety.
Monks sculpting new statue
At the elephant graveyard they’re building a new temple. This statue is in front, the monks were working on it while we were there. Everything is done by hand.
Elephant Wat under construction
This is the new temple under construction. There is an existing temple also on the grounds, a regular classic Thai Buddhist Wat. I think that when this is done the elephant funerals will be held here, the funeral we attended was held in front of it. It faces the elephant graveyard.
Thank you so much satby, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
Sab
I had no idea that baby elephants are so fuzzy.
raven
Spectacular!
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
Terrific! Baby elephants are totally cute.
debbie
Impressive!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Speaking of elephant poop paper. yesterday, we took some of the art we bought in Laos (made from elephant poop paper) to the frame shop..
satby
Thanks all (and Alain, too).
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: after we made paper we were assigned the job of making padded picture frames with it. For almost every activity in the elephant project we had a task to do. Really helps you understand all the manual labor involved in everything around you there that otherwise would be invisible.
p.a.
Really great shots, wonderful vacay story.
rikyrah
Those pictures were great, satby ?
arrieve
Thank you, satby. The baby elephant will make it possible to begin my Monday.
Lapassionara
Love this! Many thanks.
Denali
Great photos, Satby. The Fair Trade store where I volunteer sells elephant poo notecards, and it is great to see how they are made.
Baud
Amazing.
satby
@Denali: you should drop a link if they sell online!
satby
@Sab: it’s actually bristle-y ☺, like boar bristles.
@p.a.: & @rikyrah: thanks
@arrieve: glad to be of service
satby
@Lapassionara: @Baud: unlike the first set of pictures which were taken by others if I was in them, this bunch is mostly my own photos. Which I hope BillInGlendale doesn’t critique, because I will never be 1/2way as good as him.
Elizabelle
@arrieve:
Agreed.
Satby, how many elephants does this community have? Very cool, and I like the elephant graveyard and temple.
MomSense
Much needed joy this morning.
WaterGirl
Loved the pictures, satby. Especially the baby elephant, which warmed my heart.
Denali
They do offer items online, but not the Elephant Poo products. The link is owgoods.org.
Betty Cracker
Awesome photos!
satby
@Elizabelle: within the Bamboo Family portion of the project were around 20 elephants I think, but not all of the elephants in the area were part of the project. And some mahoot families worked with other NGO projects, though the entire area is supervised by the Queens Elephant Project. The NGOs augment the basic subsidy that the Queens project provides, and the added income and help attract more mahoot families into the projects, taking elephants out of the street begging and more abusive tourist practices. They love their elephants, but they need to survive, and elephant riding and begging can be very lucrative.
Waratah
Satby I love the photos and the stories they tell. I would have enjoyed the silk making. We had a project with silkworms because we had mulberry leaves that they ate. My mother allowed them but they had to stay in the laundry room off the back veranda. I tried to unwind the delicate silk strands but it was slow and the strands kept breaking. Did all that silk come from silkworms?
Steve in the ATL
This is so awesome!
satby
@Waratah: yes, I guess there’s a part of the village where you can see someone but we didn’t see that so I don’t know how they did it. It doesn’t show in the pucture, but those looks are two stories, there’s another weaver in the basement. 4 people working per loom.I
@Steve in the ATL: thanks Steve! By now you probably have enough miles to go, I used my road warrior miles to get to Thailand the first time I went to volunteer teach.