Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Everybody saw this coming.

Republicans do not trust women.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Come on, man.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On the Road and In Your Backyard

On the Road and In Your Backyard

by | 24 Comments

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

Today, pictures from valued commenter satby.

Since everyone enjoyed the volunteer vacay photos, I thought I would send a few more about the elephant portion of the trip.

More homestay elephants

The volunteer here is Jane, who really developed a bond with Nun Loc (trunk raised). The other elephant was a sibling, the families bring the elephants to visit each other!

Silk weavers in San Kamphaeng

San Kamphaeng is the silk village outside of Chiang Mai, you can watch them dye the silk thread and weave silk fabric. And then shop for all sorts of silk goods!

Making elephant poop paper.

Another way for the families to earn money is to collect elephant poop (which is pure cellulose) which is brought to the elephant temple complex and processed into paper by hand. It’s been cleaned and boiled, and no, it doesn’t smell ? My roommate Rosemary wasn’t too sure about this ?

New baby!

He’s actually a few months old, and we weren’t allowed to let or feed him because it made the mother elephant nervous. Both mother and baby were in the first elephant proof enclosure, and the hope is that this one lives out his life more naturally, with minimal training for safety.

Monks sculpting new statue

At the elephant graveyard they’re building a new temple. This statue is in front, the monks were working on it while we were there. Everything is done by hand.

Elephant Wat under construction

This is the new temple under construction. There is an existing temple also on the grounds, a regular classic Thai Buddhist Wat. I think that when this is done the elephant funerals will be held here, the funeral we attended was held in front of it. It faces the elephant graveyard.

 

Thank you so much satby, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email

Reader Interactions

24Comments

  5. 5.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Speaking of elephant poop paper. yesterday, we took some of the art we bought in Laos (made from elephant poop paper) to the frame shop..

  6. 6.

    satby

    Thanks all (and Alain, too).

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: after we made paper we were assigned the job of making padded picture frames with it. For almost every activity in the elephant project we had a task to do. Really helps you understand all the manual labor involved in everything around you there that otherwise would be invisible.

  11. 11.

    Denali

    Great photos, Satby. The Fair Trade store where I volunteer sells elephant poo notecards, and it is great to see how they are made.

  15. 15.

    satby

    @Lapassionara: @Baud: unlike the first set of pictures which were taken by others if I was in them, this bunch is mostly my own photos. Which I hope BillInGlendale doesn’t critique, because I will never be 1/2way as good as him.

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    @arrieve:

    The baby elephant will make it possible to begin my Monday.

    Agreed.

    Satby, how many elephants does this community have? Very cool, and I like the elephant graveyard and temple.

  19. 19.

    Denali

    They do offer items online, but not the Elephant Poo products. The link is owgoods.org.

  21. 21.

    satby

    @Elizabelle: within the Bamboo Family portion of the project were around 20 elephants I think, but not all of the elephants in the area were part of the project. And some mahoot families worked with other NGO projects, though the entire area is supervised by the Queens Elephant Project. The NGOs augment the basic subsidy that the Queens project provides, and the added income and help attract more mahoot families into the projects, taking elephants out of the street begging and more abusive tourist practices. They love their elephants, but they need to survive, and elephant riding and begging can be very lucrative.

  22. 22.

    Waratah

    Satby I love the photos and the stories they tell. I would have enjoyed the silk making. We had a project with silkworms because we had mulberry leaves that they ate. My mother allowed them but they had to stay in the laundry room off the back veranda. I tried to unwind the delicate silk strands but it was slow and the strands kept breaking. Did all that silk come from silkworms?

  24. 24.

    satby

    @Waratah: yes, I guess there’s a part of the village where you can see someone but we didn’t see that so I don’t know how they did it. It doesn’t show in the pucture, but those looks are two stories, there’s another weaver in the basement. 4 people working per loom.I

    @Steve in the ATL: thanks Steve! By now you probably have enough miles to go, I used my road warrior miles to get to Thailand the first time I went to volunteer teach.

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