A Small Walled City

Riding on a recommendation we headed to the small city of Lampang, described to us as a smaller version of Chiang Mai with no tourists and a fabulous wooden temple. We jumped on a bus from Sukhothai to Lampang and a few hours later found ourselves in a gorgeous guest house on the bank of a river. There were many many travelers, even more coffee shops and too many restaurants selling dishes with no chili catering to western tastes. We drank wine and listened to hits from the eighties played by a live band, it felt like we were on holidays.

Just outside of Lampang there are two elephant attractions, the first is an Elephant Conservation centre which specializes in getting elephants to perform for an audience and the second is the world’s first elephant hospital. We visited both, and both were great fun. The conservation centre didn’t seem like they were too kind to the elephants though, bored with the predictable performance I snuck behind the scenes and realized that the elephants were all chained up by the ankle, not roaming free as I would have preferred to believe. 

The elephant hospital on the other hand is an eye opening place, not designed for tour groups, nor for close encounters with the big fellas. The hospital has made incredible progress in rehabilitating elephants that have fallen victim to undetonated land mines in Cambodia left over from the American War. To date they have fitted two elephants with prosthetic legs. I can’t even begin to imagine the logistics of such a feat, nevertheless they have succeeded and we were able to catch glimpses of the elephants with all four legs in action. Amazing stuff!

Wat Phra That Lampang Luang is a huge open sided wooden temple quite unlike any of the other (seemingly zillions) of temples I have visited in Thailand. It wasn’t just visually spectacular, the atmosphere was calming and for me it was more the way that I think temples should make you feel, grounded, in awe and at peace.