Lampang
River Lodge has a nice website. We found the
place on an internet search because my wife sometimes
lectures in Lampang. We thought that a dose of provincial
Northern Thai life would brighten our moods after
several months of non-stop Bangkok office drudgery.
I
always considered natural settings to be the best
way to relax and gain some perspective, maybe because
I have spent so much time living and working in
multilevel concrete structures.
The
Lampang River Lodge highlights Lanna style teak
wood cottages and architecture and the staff wear
hill-tribe influenced clothing. The resort sits
in a residential neighborhood (“Moo Bahn”)
but once you are inside, you feel like you are in
another place and age. The bungalows are set among
spacious gardens and ponds and traditional Lanna
instrumental music suffuses the atmosphere with
a sense of peace and beauty. I much prefer this
style to staying in another characterless large
otel. No matter how elegant the furnishings and
surroundings are in a hotel, to me, a concrete building
is still a concrete building. When I step out of
my front door I want my feet to touch Mother Earth.
The
Elephant Conservation Center is one of Lampang’s
famous attractions. Elephants are an integral part
of Lampang’s history. They were previously
used in the teak log industry as the labor that
moved, sorted and loaded teak logs oto boats waiting
at the piers of the Wong River to go downstream
for further processing.
The elephants at the Center perform in a show and
also provide rides. There is even an elephant hospital.
The show is the major attraction and the elephants
stack and sort logs, play musical instruments and
paint pictures. The elephants provide definitive
proof that your beloved house pet, whether it be
a dog or cat is not the genius you think it is.
In
the past, before the teak forest were exhausted,
the freshly harvested teak logs were sent down stream
to Nakhon Sawon for further processing and distribution.
The elephants provided the ideal labor, they were
strong and smart. Also, they could move logs with
their trunks and stack them with their tusks. Ultimately,
what made the elephants obsolete were not machines
- elephants can do things that machines can never
dream of doing, like navigating a narrow mountain
path and maneuvering logs around impossible terrain.
What made the elephants obolete was that all the
logs were used up.
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