When our days in Laos had come to an end, my friend and I were on our way to Chiang Mai. I’d previously visited Thailand during winter vacation nearly two years prior, and I was excited to be traveling to the northern part of the country this time.
Our main excursion for Chiang Mai would be visiting an elephant sanctuary. After making a horrible and uninformed decision to ride an elephant during my last trip to Thailand, I was happy to try to even out my elephant karma a little bit.
Waking up early, we were excited for what the day would hold. Our tour guide from Elephant Nature Park picked us up from our hotel, and on the drive up to the sanctuary we got to watch a video about the history of the park and its owner.
Once we arrived at the park we quickly got settled and went out into the field to meet some of the elephants. They all had names, but what was interesting was that all of the tour guides and caretakers had their own nicknames for the elephants. We were led through the sanctuary meeting elephants and herds along the way. While many of the elephants are rescued as singles, we were told that when they arrive at the sanctuary they sort of adopt one another and make their own families. Too sweet for words.
After we’d met most of the elephants it was time for their lunch and ours. We were treated to an incredible Thai buffet and had time to explore part of the sanctuary on our own while the elephants finished eating. When everyone was ready we continued our tour by watching the elephants take a mud bath and meeting the rest of the animals that we hadn’t seen yet. Soon it was time to head to the river and bathe them, which was essentially just tossing buckets of water on them as they stood still, preoccupied eating bananas.
As we were walking back to the pavilion to start packing up for the day, one of the baby elephants decided she wanted to follow us and see what the humans were up to. She managed to sneak her way into the pavilion putting on quite a show for us onlookers. Eventually her caretakers were able to coax her out with a little bribery of fresh fruit.
This was definitely not part of the scheduled tour, however the fact that she felt so comfortable to roam around and the patience with which the sanctuary workers treated her, made me feel like we had made a good decision in supporting an organization that truly cared for the animals that they were responsible for.
It was such a spectacular day getting to be up close and personal with the majestic creatures. I would highly recommend this sanctuary for anyone looking for an amazing experience while in Chiang Mai.
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We closed out the evening with one last cocktail on a beachside bar, a crape from a charming little street lady, and a scooter taxi back to the hotel.
bbm travels 