The humidity felt like a second skin as my new friend and I sat collecting “Chang” and “Leo” cans on a hostel porch. A strange distant sound interrupted our conversation.
“What was that?”
“It sounded like an elephant…”
“Impossible, we’re in a city.”
Twenty minutes later two men passed in front of our porch, leading a baby elephant by with a blinking red bike light attached to it’s tail.
“I suppose it was an elephant.” One of us said, and immediately the mood felt lighter, as though we had just created our first and only inside joke with each other, that we had just experienced one of those anecdotes no backpacker in Thailand leaves without. It reminded us that we were far from home. Reminded me that I was far from my home away from home. When would either of us ever have our conversations interrupted by a baby elephant in America, Switzerland… or even Madagascar? (And for those of you wondering, no, there are no elephants in Madagascar.) Thailand may have been part of a well-worn backpackers route, and I may love to stick my nose up at the throngs of tourists in Paris, Costa Rica, or Thailand from my seriously un-visited small town in Madagascar, but I’ll be honest: I had a damn good time and took photographs to prove it.
Photos: (1) Girly drink at a bar (2) Sukhothai Wat (3) Boardwalk Sunset in Koh Yao Noi (4) Signs in the Mangrove Forest (5) Women collecting crabs at low tide (6) Nighttime food stalls in Krabi
Beat Nomad 
One reply on “Scenes from a Beaten Path: Thailand”
Wow, your images are breathtaking.
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