The $50 Jungle Gym

When I decided I wanted to live in a tribal village in the mountains of Northern Thailand for 6 months, I knew I would need to build a gym. It had to be one that would not limit me to bodyweight exercises and allow me to use real weight and make good progress. Since I was only going to be in the village for a short time, it didn’t make sense to spend a lot of money (which I didn’t have anyway) on proper equipment, which is imported from the USA and quite expensive in Thailand. I’m not yet at the point where I’m throwing around 540lbs on a bench press machine or squatting 270kgs so I didn’t need equipment built for that sort of use. Besides, since it would be installed outside, the elements would take their toll on even the finest Hammer Strength machine, not to mention the near-certainty that some young local show-off would hoist a $100 dumbbell above his head only to find it was too heavy and drop it, and cracking it.

I therefore set about making the Jungle Gym, a durable, strong (and easily replaceable) fitness phenomenon. Bamboo, wood and sand were the chief ingredients and the project shows it’s possible to work out properly with only very basic facilities.

Just as a warning, I’m not the most photogenic model to begin with, but the crowd of hecklers shouting and throwing out demands such as “Do that for an hour!” while I was being photographed didn’t help me achieve the “Blue Steel” look.

Firstly I made these parallel bars, primarily for dipping, but as you can see they’re long enough to do things such as inverted rows, or even dangerously elevated handstand push-ups. It’s simply four pieces of bamboo in the ground holding up two horizontal bars. The bars can each quite comfortably hold 80kg (me) in the centre, though of course I haven’t tested them to see just how much they can take before they snap. This means that weighted dips up to at least 80kg are possible, and also that even the most enthusiastically careless youth is unlikely to be able to break it. The cost of this essential bit of kit was $0.00.

Similar to the parallel bars is the pull-up bar, which doesn’t require much explanation. It can comfortably handle 130kg so weighted pull-ups are mandatory and no one has managed to break it yet. The Jungle Gym’s pull-up bar is that it’s much thicker than any normal bar, which is great for building up grip strength. This and the parallel bars have become popular climbing frames for the local children, so even though none of their big brothers have really taken to using the bar for more than occasional show-off attempts, at least they are providing some value for the village. Again, $0.00

The bench press is probably the most popular, overused and badly-performed exercise around and naturally I couldn’t be without one, even though the weighted dips would probably be adequate for chest development. The very unimpressive apparatus above is the bench. Safety was the biggest concern given the lack of spotters and the simplest solution was to dig holes to keep the weights in. The result is that, like a machine, the exercise starts from the bottom of the lift and the lowest the bar can go is level with my chest, eliminating the risk of being me squashed by the weight. The sacks you can see are full of dirt (weighed to make sure they were equal). Because they hang from the bar rather than sitting securely on it means the bar is a lot less stable than on a normal bench press. This isn’t a concern though, because the weight can’t drop on the user.

This slightly awkward photo shows the bench in action. The weight, plus the bar, in the photo is 90kg, (just a pinch under 200lbs), which the bar handled well. It’s been tested up to 110kg and that wasn’t a problem, but more than that might require a thicker and stronger bar. The bench has been mostly ignored by the locals because it’s now too heavy for most of them to pick up and they don’t want to lie on the group to bench properly. Since I took this photo I decided to dig two smaller holes to put my feet in so my legs aren’t so raised. As for the cost, I didn’t pay for the sacks I used (though I don’t imagine they’re expensive) and the dirt and bamboo were free, so the cost again was $0.00.

How to squat was a puzzle because one does have to use quite heavy weight. I decided on the above setup, which I feel works quite well. The bottom of the 200L barrel is actually filled with bamboo, and the sacks of dirt sit on top. This is because when the weight in the barrel sits in front of the pivot (the right hand side of the wheel) it actually tips the barrel forwards, making the exercise easier at the top than the bottom, which isn’t what I want. To prevent this, most of the weight sits at the top, behind the pivot. It’s easy to go nice and deep using this setup as the photo shows. I’ll be the first to admit that this is not the most perfect bit of kit given that it’s somewhat harder at the bottom than the top, but I ruled out making a standard squat rack because as the bench press showed, hanging weight from a bar makes it very unstable increases the risk of a back injury. The total cost was $50.

For other exercises, such as military presses, bicep curls, rows and deadlifts etc, I just use another bamboo barbell with attached sand bags, which I’ve measured out in 5kg, 10kg, 15kg and 20kg and 30kg bags. For things like lateral raises, just grab a sack and use it like a dumbbell. I scavenged a few 20 litre water containers, now filled with a mix of water and stones, and they are good for bent over rows and farmer’s walks, the latter attracting plenty of attention as I wander back and forth about the village grimacing and producing sloshing sounds.

As of March 2010, that’s the Jungle Gym. It's not quite a Gold's Gym but it does the job!

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Beaten up by an Elephant

This is another post from my old (deleted - thanks Google) blog, but it's a public service lesson - Don't fight elephants. 


Elephants like people, albeit giant grey people. They have different personalities. It was made fairly clear to me that there are some elephants I should not approach because they can be temperamental. Such elephants will tolerate someone getting close to them if they are bringing food or if the mahout tells them to pose, but even then there must be some rules and you can't go prodding eyes or pinching ears. You should not tease the elephants with food because they get angry and can lash out. The signs around the camp say to follow the mahout's instructions, and while it may be difficult to accept that a little dark-skinned man who has been riding elephants for his whole life has learned more about their behaviour than you have in the five minutes since you got out of the minibus, it's true.

One Russian tourist, who I'll call Your Drunken Uncle, decided that the ideal elephant to try ignoring the mahout's instructions on was Erawan. Named after the nearby waterfall, Erawan is 73 years old. Though he isn't quite the biggest elephant, as you can see, he has the biggest tusks and he's hard as nails - When he was about 50, before Taweechai Elephant Camp opened, a poacher shot him right in the face. Given that Erawan still has his tusks, I like to think that he gave the poacher a thorough gouging.

Erawan had been cooling off for a few weeks after getting aggressive with someone who was teasing him with bananas and he was being eased back into work. The staff were quite clear that while guests could pose with him, they should not touch him. "No touch."  Your Drunken Uncle could actually speak a little Thai, as he was telling the elephants to "eat snacks!" in Thai, so he can't claim ignorance. He decided to grab Erawan's leg. All Erawan really did in response to that was give him a knock with his tusk to warn him, but since Erawan weighs over 6,000kg and Your Drunken Uncle about 60kg, he went flying and thwacked into a tree, hard. It took a long time for him to get up, but he may have used that time to reflect on the importance of following instructions, particularly around fabulously enormous animals.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

A Ghostly Sex Offender

This is rephrasing of a post from the old 21Thailand blog before it got deleted, but I didn't want to lose it because it's daft and hilarious, so if you read it before, read it again, if you missed it, dig in.

Just before I arrived in the village, a man died. As a result, everyone in the village was forbidden from doing certain things, such as digging, cutting down wood and washing their clothes. I find myself incapable of remaining clean for more than four hours and at the time I was starting to build my Jungle Gym so these things greatly inconvenienced me. Nonetheless, good times ensued when I was told that a ghost would be visiting the village that day, and not just any ghost. This ghost has an enormous penis and his goal is to touch people with it.


Do you like where this is going?

Apparently, if he touches a girl, she will become pregnant or infertile, and if he touches a boy he'll become infertile or unlucky. I'm interested to know where this story originates from.

Now if this was a usual ghost, we'd just be sitting around in the house all afternoon while absolutely nothing happened, so one of the villagers was either punished with, or volunteered for, the task of dressing up as a ghost and chasing people around the village whilst weilding a massive artificial penis. He wasn't alone though, he had a "handler" who carried a small stick, which made him immune to the penis, and this guy directed the ghost. I don't know why a villager would aid this beastly interloper, but mine is not to reason why...

Sinister...

 What followed was an interesting mix hilarity and genuine terror on the part of the villagers, who would bait the ghost into running towards their house and then bolt inside, screaming. Those unlucky enough to get caught by the ghost weren't necessarily violated by his cumbersome appendage, as a few Baht was a sufficient bribe. I joined in for a while and was chased by the ghost and it was fun, but it soon became a bit repetitive. Clearly I don't have what it takes because the village kept this up for over 3 hours. Even once it reached the point where ghost had to take periodic breaks because he was exhausted, it didn't stop. Things only came to an end because the light started to go.

 The Ghost Unleashed...

 I was assured by several people that the last time this ghost came to the village, he could jump from roof to roof and it was much more serious. I was thinking about getting two long bamboo rods and hanging shoes from them, then going out at 2am and running them along people’s roofs like the real ghost, but I suspected there’s another way of getting rid of the ghost which involves rushing out with a gun and shooting him in the face, or worse, hacking off his penis with a machete, so I gave that a miss.

Stalking...

Luckily, three weeks later, no one seems to have become pregnant. I don't know if this is a ghost specific to the Akha hill tribe or one the general Thai population know of. If anyone is clued-up on their Thai ghosts, please let me know!

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

A Month on an Elephant Camp

My original (though vague) plan for my year as a lone wolf was to work in Bangkok for six months and then go “travelling.” I didn’t really know where I’d go, but that was the idea. There were a few problems with that, the biggest being cash flow issues. Plane tickets are expensive and having to pay for a hotel every night is expensive. There are plenty of other reasons, but you don’t want to hear them. Because I’ve stayed in Thailand for a long time and met lots of people, I’ve had opportunities to do some great things, perhaps the most spectacular of which was the chance to live and work at Taweechai Elephant Camp.

When I first went to Chiang Mai, instead of the usual Elephant ride, trek and bamboo raft, a friend and I did a full day Mahout Course, where we learned how to control elephants and ride them. This was amazing and when I found I might have a chance to go and live at an elephant camp I worked hard to make sure it happened.

I stayed with an experienced mahout who has worked in Japan and Malaysia as well as Thailand. My routine basically consisted of waking up at 06:10 and going to collect an elephant, taking it to the river and giving it a wash. I’d have a coffee and practice Thai, before helping out with heavy lifting, ice and coconuts etc. Once the elephants all arrived in the main area and guests arrived I would help talk to guests who spoke English or Thai. At 16:30 the elephants go for another bath and are led back to the forest (the camp owns hundreds of acres of land) where they are given a long chain and are free to wander and eat until the next day. When it rained at night they would be extremely muddy the next day. I would then go do some exercise in the river, before having dinner and hanging out until around 21:00, when I would go to bed.

That’s the basic outline of things. I had intended to go to the camp to make them a new website, but their lack of internet made this basically impossible to do. Fine, I decided I could help out with the guests. The problem is most of their visitors are Russian or Taiwanese and don’t speak English. Therefore I only confused them when I “assisted” them, even though I wore a camp t-shirt. In the end, I spent almost all my time playing with elephants, lifting baskets of bananas and eating. Occasionally we’d get someone who spoke English so they’d get VIP treatment from me, but that was very rare.

This worked out fine for me, because I like elephants. The problem is that after they get to a certain age and size, all elephants are interested in doing is eating. They’re too big to play with and you can’t play with the males anyway because they’re too dangerous. I would sometimes have a big of fun with the elephants in the river, where I would scuttle across their backs while they held their breath (for about a minute) and played about, but mostly that was it. The rest of the time, I played with just two elephants, Mali and Gan Gloey. The former is a 7 year old girl who is naughty and likes to mess around, displaying a restlessness and proclivity towards boredom the other elephants didn’t show.

She would amuse herself by engaging in gymnastics and yoga, with all the grace an elephant can manage. She took to picking me up and putting me on her back, at which point she would try to shake me off. She actively enjoyed doing this and would either pick me up with her face, or turn around and insistently raise her back leg for me to climb up manually. By the end of my time at the camp she was becoming lazy around would only pick me up half-way with her trunk, preferring the rear route. Perhaps because I had put on weight, but that’s hardly justification for the laziness - a few kilograms to a 1.2 tonne grey blob is nothing.

I worked to make sure Mali liked me by not upsetting her and giving her tasty treats every day. On several occasions I would approach her and she’d open her mouth over my head and I would (carefully) let her lick my nose, which she seemed to enjoy a lot. Her very large teeth were too far away to cause damage, but I found if I tickled the sides of her mouth she would smile and I could have a look inside at her very long tongue.

Elephants do not really like it when people touch their trunks because it’s such an important tool for them, but by the end of the month, Mali would sometimes let me hold her trunk for her, which was a real sign of our friendship.

Gan Gloey is a baby boy, who was 4 months old in February. He enjoys play fighting but does not have any elephant playmates, so he plays with people instead. The problem is that he weighs over 120kg, which makes play very rough. I found I was robust enough to play with him, though only for around 10 minutes a time, and only every couple of days. When we engaged in combat, he would usually charge at me and I’d shoulder-barge him. This worked well, until he realised he was strong enough to slide me along the floor, which was dangerous because he could push me into the metal bars of the enclosure.

I still had a few tricks up my sleeve, like leap-frogging over him and trunk squeezing. He did learn fairly quickly though; as I mentioned, elephants do not really like people touching their trunks, and by grabbing his nose and squeezing I could stop Gan Gloey mid-charge. Victory! Until he discovered he could just turn around and kick me with his back leg. This was very painful. Interestingly, if I crouched on the floor, instead of charging and injurying me, Gan Gloey would gently approach, then mount me. Most people have not been mounted by a baby elephant, so let me assure you that it is very heavy and very uncomfortable.

So Gan Gloey loves ramming everything. From me, to his mum’s legs, to the barrel of dung next to his enclosure. I think what he loves most is ramming tourists. They often come and crouch very close to him. Gan Gloey moves slowly and calmly, perhaps even taking the peeled banana they offer, showing no signs of aggression. Then suddenly, he will swing his head round and ram, which gives the tourists a great fright. This is especially satisfying when they’re a bit unpleasant, like the Australian lady who threw a banana at Gan Gloey while he was sleeping so he would wake up and entertain her. He entertained her bulbous rear right into the dirt!

We had some trouble when Gan Gloey discovered he was able to climb out of his enclosure to bring the fight to me, but this was fine because he could charge and shove me around without hurting me. Sometimes when he was feeling calm he would splash about in his water bowl, which made the water very dirty.

Overall, playing with the elephants was magical and I learned a lot about them. One thing in particular is that they are very quiet. They do have their little inaudible low-frequency communication trick and occasionally bellow very loudly, but for the most part they don’t make any noise, and can walk very quietly. I look forward to going back to visit the camp in April, once the Red Shirts stop blocking Rachadamnoen Road and I can get the minibus to Kanchanaburi.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Are Chickens Cannibals?

Welcome to the second coming of Towers in Thailand. About a week ago Google sucker-punched me, right in the face, and decided that the previous incarnation of my blog was spam and deleted it (not to mention locking up my Gmail account) and they're determinedly ignoring my attempts to get it back. 6 months of posts have therefore disappeared, not to mention the fact that all the previous readers have probably gone, which I'm disappointed about. I will reincarnate some of the more interesting posts like the videos of me play-fighting with a baby elephant and some of the things from Bangkok, but I guess I've got to forget about the old stuff and just remember to back up in future.

For anyone new, or anyone old who recently lost a fight with a horse and has amnesia, I'm a 22 year old from the UK who just finished university and is taking a year out before I go to what can simplistically be called "Law School". I spent 6 months working in a hotel in Bangkok, where I was perpetually infuriated. I then moved to Taweechai Elephant Camp where I spent my time learning how to control elephants, then mostly messing about with a 7 year old girl, fighting with a 4 month old baby, and showing off my banana... basket lifting abilities. (I estimated we sold about 1000 bananas each day and they needed to be put in a basket and lifted). Now, I've moved to a hill tribe village up a mountain where no one speaks any English beyond "Hey you!" The interesting-looking ladies in the photo at the top of the page are from this tribe, by the way. I'm on 48k mobile internet and 15km from the nearest town. 

I hope to make this new blog even more interesting and I know you're all waiting to see what the title of my post is about and I won't drag it out any longer. Many years ago on a school trip to France, I remember we threw cooked chicken breasts at some chickens to see if they would eat it, which they didn't. Thai chickens seem to be different. Do not adjust your monitor. What you are about to see is real. This morning, I saw a young chicken running along with the leg of a fallen comrade, a baby chick, in it's mouth. It set it down and began furiously trying to eat it. Cannibal!

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!