Saturday Market Food ~ Chiang Mai

On Saturdays and Sundays (or even every other day), one of our main activities here in Chiang Mai is to find new food to taste!
Although less than the Sunday Market, the Saturday Market is also home to many varieties of food from traditional Thai food like Pad Thai, the delicious Khao Soi to dim-sums and French fries.
Food is often served in smaller portions than in western countries, but usually Thai people eat more often during the day.
I saw this street food lady selling dim-sums with a nice light I just had to take the shot.

Chillin' Mahout ~ Mae Tang

The Elephant Parks in Thailand are filled with activities from elephant riding, elephant bathing to bamboo rafting.
While some mahouts entertain the public with elephants playing football, others get ready to take the tourists through a jungle on the back of the melancholic pachyderms. And eventually have a deserved break!
Most of these mahouts work long hours and even have to skip lunch to occupy the demanding tourists.

I saw this Thai mahout smoking a cigarette while watching the tourists clapping enthusiastically at the elephants painting flowers. I loved his style and pose!

Strokkur ~ Iceland

I know this is just a bubble shot but it's not any kind of bubble!
It is captured a few milliseconds before it erupted into a tower of water and steam about 30 meters (~ 100 feet) up in the air.
This is one of the most famous geysers located in a geothermic area east of Reykjavik, Iceland. This geyser named Strokkur (meaning churn in Icelandic) erupts every 4-8 minutes, as opposing to the famous Geysir (the word geyser comes from it) which is now dormant due to clogged conduit.

Strokkur started first erupting in 1789 when an earthquake opened the conduit of the geyser. Another quake later blocked it again in 1896 and in 1963, locals cleaned up the plumbing system and the geyser has been regularly erupting since.

Useful information: Do you know why geysers erupt?
The deeper we go inside the conduit, the hotter it gets and the water is above boiling temperature. But it doesn't actually boil because of the pressure from above. Due to underground movements, this extremely hot water is forced up in the conduit which produces a chain reaction. The pressure decreases (less water pushing from above), water starts to gradually boil and reaches the top with high velocity which makes it burst into a tower of water and steam that smells like sulfur. This shot is right before the bubble pops.

Dumbo ~ Chiang Mai

Another elephant shot from the Mae Tang Park I took a few weeks back.
This was part of the elephant show for tourists, where each mahout and his elephant are introduced to the public (each have a name) and then proceed in entertaining the public with football, painting or dancing.

This shot reminded me of Dumbo following his mom. It was cute!

Tour Eiffel Panorama

Another shot of the iconic Eiffel Tower in Paris on a beautiful Autumn morning.
This view is from the Champs de Mars where the Peace monument is. The place was still empty with few tourists wandering around.

I don't know about you but I've met many people who dislike the Eiffel Tower, finding it ugly and breaking the charm of Ol' Paris.
I personally find it beautiful and a marvelous piece of architecture. I especially enjoy it when the tower sparkles for a minute every hour at night.

Have you ever been to Paris to visit the Tower? Do you like it or do you find it ugly and intrusive?

The Mahout

What is a Mahout I hear you say?

A Mahout is that guy on top of the pachyderm. It's the person who trains and drives the elephant.
Mahout comes from the hindi word mahavat. These trainers start very early as a young boy and are each assigned an elephant with whom they will "bond". They usually stay with the same elephant all their life (or until one of them dies obviously).
Originally, mahouts used to train elephants to help with logging in the forests. These big strong animals pulled huge logs across long distances in the jungle. But when Thailand banned logging due to widespread destruction of the forests, more and more elephants started to be used (especially in Thailand) for the tourism business.
Today 95% of Thai elephants are privately owned and domesticated in elephant parks to offer shows and rides for the demanding tourists.

On the photo, you can also notice the ankus, a sharp metal hook mounted on a stick that the mahout uses to handle (or punish) the elephant. Luckily I've only seen them use the stick part to tap on the head.

Lost Duckie!

Just a fun little shot today that I captured in the deserts of the UAE a while ago. It's my little rubber duck lost in the desert, away from any oasis.. Will it survive?

Today's post is early and different because I have to catch a bus to Bangkok for another visa run. I'm not really looking forward for a 10hours bus drive and a plane back & forth to Malaysia.

Will keep on posting from Bangkok in the next few days! Cheers!