Hello lovely people, how are you? I’m great, that’s probably because today I’m going to share with you a few days, which we spend in Chiang Mai. Stupidly, we decided to stay in Chiang Mai only 5 days Now we know that this town deserves way more attention, but back then, when we were planning our trip we thought that it’s no point to stay there too long because there is no sea there Anyway, we knew we wanted to make the most of this short time and we booked two activities, which we mainly came there for. It is: visit the elephant sanctuary and and trip to Chiang Rai, where we wanted to see the White Temple.
Let me start with the info that you can find a lot of elephant parks/sanctuaries in Chiang Mai. That sound obvious, because there’s no better place to see elephants than Thailand? I don’t think so.
I’ve checked a few different phone apps, websites and tourist brochures before we made a decision. The main condition was to not be able to ride the elephant. I know, it sound amazing but I feel that’s wrong to push such a huge animal to bend and carry me in a big and heavy chair. Plus training methods are often cruel and I just couldn’t pay for it. We choose Rescue Elephant Sanctuary (link under the text), which has only a few elephants, which for me means that they can take care for those animals properly. It was a great adventure. We met the owner, he loves elephants and he tries to save as many of them as possible. He has rescued 5 elephants by the time we arrived . He told us how expensive it is to buy an elephant and how much work it cost to help them to trust people again. The elephants, we met, worked in the circus or with people, moving trees. They worked very hard, way harder than they should without time to eat or sleep. We also found out that some places are renting elephants for their parks and after time animals have to be returned to their real owners. This way in some parks you can see more elephants than in others, because hiring is cheaper than buying. I’m not the expert, but yeah, make sure you do the research before visiting any of those “elephant sanctuarie”
After the meeting with the owner we finally went to see the elephants. It was a crazy good feeling, but I won’t lie to you I was quite scared. They’re huge! One, elephant’s leg is bigger than I am, so why shouldn’t I be afraid?
Feeding wasn’t my favourite part, but Mat loved it. He made a great connection with the elephants and he wasn’t scared to put bananas straight into their mouths. After the breakfast, we went for a walk. It was so funny and terrific at once, walking next to free elephant, which could change the direction or just move at any time...you know what I mean. They are walking wherever they want. It took us quite a while before we got to the pond, where we had an opportunity to bath the elephants. That was amazing! We went to the water with them ( fully clothed) and we washed them. I had a short one-one situation and it felt like she could understand me and I saw her love and pain in her eyes. Magical moment.
I can highly recommend this place to you guys.
The second entertainment we organised, whilst we were in Chiang Mai, was a trip to Chiang Rai, where we had an opportunity to see the most beautiful temple I’ve ever seen, The White Temple. It was very long journey (4 or 6 hours, on the bus, one way). We felt like we paid mainly for a fuel because the whole trip wasn’t too cheap but entrance to the places we visited was either free or very cheap ( ex: ticket to the White Temple cost only 50 Baths per person). Good thing was that we also visited the Blue Temple. Both those places were very crowded and had their “photo rules”. For example: in The White Temple you are not allowed to turn back on the bridge, so if you didn’t get this one, perfect shot you have to walk around and queue again. We had good luck that the weather broke down on us and all tourists tried to hide away from the rain, we decided that this is our moment and we run straight to the bridge and this way I have got a few shots without people in.
Chiang Mai has got brilliant vibe and we really regret that we didn’t stay there longer so remember to not make the same mistake. There is so much to do there that I would really love to go back there.
Klaudia
Elephant Rescue Park link —>
here
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