Eric Visits Asia: Elephants, Tigers, and Chairs

Rafting down the Ping River

Monday, September 21, 2016

Aside from flights, today featured the first scheduled activity we had for our trip – a jungle trek through Northern Thailand. The tour company would be picking us up at the hotel at 8 am, so we were up by 7 for the breakfast buffet. An air conditioned van picked us up, and our tour guide was a very nice woman who spoke English very well. The van made one more stop to pick up the only other two guests, a mother and daughter from San Francisco on the other side of town.

We rode north of Chiang Mai and made our first stop around 30 minutes later at a butterfly and orchid farm in Mae Sa. There was a butterfly room where you could walk through and there were tons of them flying around, which was very nice.

Unfortunately out tour did not include a stop to the nearby Elephant Poopoopaper Park. Luckily our tour guide did know enough about it to inform us that elephant poo is a major ingredient in paper. And apparently there is a park dedicated to this single fact.

After a 20 minute stop to look at butterflies, we were back on the road heading to our main destination. It was a very nice drive, through a very green mountain landscape. We arrived at the Chiang Dao Elephant Camp around 40 minutes later.

First we were given the opportunity to feed elephants bananas. Those hungry little fellas would eat the entire bunch at once as if it was nothing. We then saw them get bathed and play in the river. Next up was a performance to showcase their skills. They used teamwork to move logs. One rose a flag up a flagpole. But the most impressive was definitely the painter. Yes, apparently elephants have now dug into the fine arts. Channeling his inner Bob Ross, the hand-less creature painted a happy little tree. There.

Jungle ride on an elephant

The main attraction for the day was a ride on the elephant’s back through the jungle. Steph and I shared an elephant, and went on a half hour trip through a stream in a lush jungle until we reached a tiny hillside tribe village. We spent a few minutes stretching out legs there before the elephants whisked up back to the home base.

Our next mode of transportation was a bamboo raft ride down the Ping River. This lasted almost an hour, and was quite lovely. Since we were moving downstream we ended the ride in a different spot, but luckily the van was able to find us. Once in the van, we headed south again toward Chiang Mai, but stopped at the butterfly place again for a Thai lunch buffet. We had the option to add a stop at the nearby Tiger Kingdom for an additional fee, but politely declined. It sounded like a true money grab for a picture near a tiger. We finally returned to our hotel around 3pm, for a pretty full day tour.

We spent the rest of the day around the hotel - relaxing by the pool, followed by happy hour, and then a foot massage for Steph. We returned to nearby night market (the area with live music and food stands) for dinner and found a couple new favorite dishes.