Our next stop was Chiang Mai. Kevin and I landed in Chiang Mai at 8:00am, and we took a taxi straight to Elephant Nature Park. The ride was long and winding (and slightly traumatizing, but that's a story for later) through beautiful Chiang Mai province. We stayed there for hours to help feed and clean the elephants, as well as to learn about them and how they ended up in this rescue center. Their stories are tragic, but these are some of the luckier ones to have ended up at ENP. One elephant had some very visible physical deformation due to an accident that occurred while she worked for a dangerous logging operation, followed by a terrible forced-breeding incident which turned into an attack by an extremely aggressive male elephant. If you're interested, you can read her full story here. :)
We were allowed to get close to the older elephants who will spend the rest of their days/years/decades at ENP, but the babies were off-limits (and adorable!) I don't even know what words to use to describe this experience. Elephants are so much like humans; they each look slightly different and have their own unique personalities and favorite foods. There are individuals and families that don't get along perfectly with each other and a few pairs of best friends who take care of each other. They have ways of communicating what they do and don't like, especially with their mahouts. And they eat SO much! Every few hours there are laundry-baskets full of fruits and vegetables prepared for each individual, since some have dietary issues or are too old to chew certain foods. We learned so much about them during the day we visited, I wish I could go hang out with them again. They had us laughing and 'awwww'-ing the whole day!
At the end of the day, we finally got to check in to the hotel with the ridiculously tiny pool. Really, it's one of my biggest regrets that we didn't utilize that pool even once, at least for the hilarious photos we could have taken. I'm not sure all 4 of us would even have fit shoulder-to-shoulder. Oh well, next time.
Chiang Mai (city) was a blast! We spent a day inside the old walls of Chiang Mai temple-hopping, followed by massages and fresh fruit juice!
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| they're coming |
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| GET OUT OF MY WAY! just kidding, cool stairs. |
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| perfect weather for a panoramic view. poo. |
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| moat and remains of the old city wall |
Other highlights from our time in Chiang Mai were the adorable Bear Hug Cafe, with teddy bear decorations on every little detail - even the bathroom faucet handle was a metal bear-head; the night bazaar surrounded by plenty of open-air bars/restaurants and live music; the spontaneous decision to watch the cabaret show which was an extremely entertaining and well-spent hour of my life (although I wasn't that poor older man who kept getting harassed by the performers...ha!); hanging out with Liesa while learning a new ice-cream
