Topics: Animals

September 2010
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True to our family form, my cousin is a dog lover. However he has gone a different direction than sweet, cuddly golden retrievers. Several years ago Ray Johns, the USAF General, gave Mike a Malinois. The breed had been taking over guard duties around the world from German Shephards and Rottweilers. Mike fell in love with the dog, and decided that he wanted to breed them in Thailand. So Mike built a kennel, Siam Crown, on his river property, hired one of the best trainers in the world, Bert Kikkert, and started breeding. 6 litters later his kennel is home to world champions and prize winning Malinois. More recently he added a second breed, Dutch Shephard (Dutchy). There are only about 900 in the world, and there were none in Asia.

The other day when I showed up at Mike’s apartment, there were two dogs there: Lucky, a 4 year old Dutchy, and Elvis, a Malinois puppy. The pup was cute, and Lucky was like a huge lapdog. Of course after Mike told me exactly what the breed does, I wondered whether he was licking me or tasting me. But in reality I not only had no fear of this dog, I immediately fell in love with him.

Then this afternoon Bert led Lucky and 3 Malinois through training exercises on the grounds. Holy crap! These dogs are incredibly well trained, and more impressively they are good at what they’re trained to do — guard. They guard people and packages. They escort bad guys. They retrieve tossed-away drugs, bullets, whatever. They perform swimming rescues. The training is the type of protection training that I always imagined it would be — a guy wearing a huge protective suit and a scary dog with its teeth wrapped around the guy’s arm or leg. Below are a few photos. Mike said he’d love to send a puppy home for me. I’m not so sure.

Additional note: I just spent Saturday again with the dogs. 4 pups were sold today (it’s a full-fledged breeding kennel). I’m not sure that the people who bought the dogs are completely aware of what they are getting. I have a great deal of respect for these dogs and the training and I am comfortable around the dogs that have been identified as “house friendly.”

Lucky the loveable lap dog.

Lucky at work

Malinois tearing an arm off

Airborne

I beat my alarm and woke up at 4:15, already packed for my early morning flight to Chang Mai, almost as far north as you can get in Thailand (near the Burmese and Laotion borders). A short flight later I found myself looking for my ride to the hotel. I’ve made a bad habit this trip of having too little information when I need it, and in this case I had no idea what hotel I was staying at, or who was picking me up.

Over the last few days, I’ve heard Lek on the phone speaking Thai, and every once in a while I heard my name. I’d ask her what it was about and all she’d say was the she was calling some people she knew in Chang Mai.

After about 20 minutes and several phone calls I finally met up with my ride, and saw the the van was property of the Dusit D2 hotel. So while we drove, I looked it up in my travel guide. It was going to be a very nice hotel stay. It seems that Lek’s old friend owns the hotel. Lek arranged for me to have a room. It’s spectacular.

Unfortunately I only had 45 minutes to enjoy it before meeting my guide, Marut, in the lobby (another piece of Lek’s planning — Marut was an old family friend of Lek’s). The plan was for Marut to spend a couple days with me and show me around Chang Mai. But he told me he couldn’t spend today with me due to work responsibilities, and said instead that he was leaving me with the driver, Mr. T. Normally I would instantly think that such a name was a takeoff on the real star, but in this case it seemed in the realm of possibility that the real Mr. T. was a van driver in Chang Mai. To my momentary dismay I discovered that I was spending my day with Mr. Tee, a gentleman who spoke zero English. 5 minutes with him and we were on the same page. I did have to come up with some interesting hand gestures for items such as “I need to go to the bathroom” but ultimately we got past the language barrier.

Marut had planned out my day, so off I went with Mr. Tee to the Maetaman Elephant Camp, about one hour outside Chang Mai. The plan was to take an elephant ride, then an oxen ride, have lunch, watch a show (elephant tricks) and end with a bamboo raft tour down the river. With the exception of the oxen ride, the day was an absolute blast. Elephants are somehow the ugliest and the cutest of animals both at the same time! These are huge animals, but they have no problem negotiating narrow turns with rocks and ruts peppering steep inclines and declines. At one point my elephant driver pulled over, put me on the neck of the beast, and took photos of me. I’m not quite sure how I felt about the elephant show — an elephant kicking a soccer ball just doesn’t seem natural.

Now I’m not an expert on elephants, but I do know that my elephant was the best elephant that ever was. His name was Be Po, but if you went by the comments of everyone we passed along the route, you’d call him Ferrari. He was incredibly fast. At points we were overtaking a dozen other elephants in incredibly narrow paths within minutes.

The raft ride, with two Thai drivers fore and aft, had a hint of Heart of Darkness. The river cuts right through the jungle. There is animal life everywhere creating “expected” sounds.

After the elephant camp we headed back, but stopped at an umbrella factory. The talent of the ladies and men creating umbrellas, scarves, etc. was impressive. I handed one woman my wallet and she painted a dragon on it within 2 minutes. I gave her 3 dollars for the effort and she was really very happy. I hope the design lasts until I get home.

When we returned to the hotel there was time for a quick workout and shower, then I was off to the Chang Mai Cultural Center for dinner and a display of traditional Thai/Chang Mai dance. To my pleasant surprise Marut showed up, and I enjoyed his company for several hours. He’s a very interesting guy. He looks 33, but in fact is half a year older than me. He is married with 3 girls. When I asked if he would still try for a boy, he replied “every night.” He is the Administrator for a technical school for over 500 people. I didn’t take my camera to the dancing, I just wanted to relax and enjoy it.

This very long day has left me exhausted and ready for bed. I have an early morning — Mr. Tee is taking me to the tallest mountain in Thailand for a climb, and afterwards I will meet up with Marut.