Our flight left Krabi just passed 9am, so we were in Chiang Mai by 11.30am, winner! We were staying at the Royal Guest House just on the outer perimeter of the main city, about half way between the centre and the night bazaar. The hotel is costing all of £9 a night so it’s basic but it suits our needs – so much cheaper on the mainland than on the islands it seems. After a quick nap, it was a day of sightseeing and trying to understand what the hype is about Chiang Mai – why do people like it so much? It’s easy to see why. Situated in the north of Thailand it’s not as hot as down south (bonus) and the city is small so you can walk everywhere. No need to “splash out” on taxis and tuk tuks like in Bangkok. It’s calmer, far more chilled and relaxed than the capital and it’s right in jungle territory. We wandered around the various temples of the city centre, the main one being Wat Chedi Luang, an ancient temple right in the centre. We watched some monks chanting in one of the temples too which was pretty special.
Chiang Mai is great for shopping, market stalls are even inside temple grounds! Amazing. The architecture is beautiful, and it’s a joy to meander the streets and take in an ancient culture.
If I thought the market in Krabi was big, the night bazaar in Chiang Mai is something else! The streets are packed with stalls selling everything a tourist could want, more massage places than you can shake a stick at, food stalls, restaurants, bars, (girly bars and go go bars included) and it’s rammed with tourists. I purchased the Buddha wall decoration I’ve had my eye on since I arrived and did some pretty good bartering to boot (still got ripped off though of course). Love Chiang Mai so far, only a shame that we could only afford 3 nights here…
Patara Elephant Camp. Amazing. End of. We opted for the half day rather than the full day, so we arrived about 2pm. It’s not nearly as hot up in the north in Chiang Mai as it is in Bangkok or down in Krabi so we were quite happy to spend a fair few hours in the sunshine with elephants. Lots of elephants. We rocked up about 45 mins outside the city to a little farm in the countryside where a mother and her 6 week old baby were playing with leaves and sugar cane. The most gorgeous baby elephant, born too small to reach it’s mother teat so it needed a little stepladder in the form of a wooden cuff around it’s ex-circus elephant mumma’s foot to reach. Adorable. He was a cheeky little thing too, running around the group causing all sorts of mischief. One of the group was in a wheelchair and the baby absolutely loved nibbling on the wheels, mistaking them for play things. The little bubba elephant even got on my other half’s back in a little piggy back come massage thing, covering him in dirt. Bless.
We moved over to another little family of elephants, the mum and her two kids, one 3.5 year old (teenager) and a 3.5 month baby. Cutes. I love the feel of elephant skin, it’s feels old and leathery but it’s covered in course black hairs that are quite therapeutic to run your hands through and quite exfoliating at the same time. After our little meet and greet we were driven to a separate part of the farm to meet the elephants we’d be hanging out with for the next few hours, pretending we’re elephant keepers for the day. I was introduced to this tall 28 year old lady elephant with a strange little green marking on her trunk (which came in really handy when distinguishing my elephant from all the others). After an introductory talk we went and made friends with our elephants and their handlers, by feeding them loads of food, (the elephants not the mahouts) loads of bananas and sugar cane. I mean if someone came over to me with a bowl full of food I’d be their friend too. Feeding an elephant is weird, they have big pink mouths and tongue that you put the food in/on, they then throw the food back further into their mouths to crunch it with their teeth. Sometimes they would take the food out of their mouth with their trunk to save it for later, often two or three pieces of food at a time! That is some skill. Trunks are amazingly flexible and strong and before I knew it I had a little baby elephant sneakily poking its trunk into my food bowl trying to steal bananas. Naughty!
After we had established friendships, it was time to speak to the elephants in Thai (I can’t remember any of the words apart from Dee Dee meaning “good elephant”) in preparation for a good clean. The first stage of cleaning was to beat the elephant (now lying on the floor) with leafy branches to brush off all the dirt and grime, bit like a homemade broom. You had to really give it some welly, my mahout kept telling me to hit the elephant harder but with my puny arms it turned into a bit of a workout. After dusting them down, next was bath time. This involved stripping down into your swimming costume then leading your elephant down to a pool at the bottom of a dusty hill and giving them a good scrub. Well it’s not easy leading an elephant anywhere, especially when you can’t remember any of the Thai commands, on top of the fact that there were elephants everywhere so it was kind of like a little elephant motorway and you really didn’t want one of those stepping on your foot.. Eventually we made it to the water and my mahout (which had taken a bit of a shine to me) led the elephant alongside a rocky cliff where he asked me to climb up the rock and then jump onto the elephants back. Jump onto an elephant? Sure no problem. Not. For a start there was a massive gap between my rock and the elephant and it was also a lot higher up than me, but after a few attempts I made it. Once on it’s back I then had to pivot round to sit facing it’s bum where the elephant then lowered itself onto its knees and the mahout chucked water onto its back so I could give it a good scrub with a brush usually reserved for washing horses. It’s a balancing act, I tell you, who knew all those years of horse riding would come in handy for bathing an elephant? I then turned round and scrubbed it’s head and neck, getting right down as low as I could without falling off, good workout for the old thighs. The mahout then climbed on behind me and the elephant stood up and we paraded around in the water for a photographer (which was definitely for the mahouts benefit and not mine). I slid off the elephant down the trunk and then put the elephant into an elephant “car wash” where all the elephants were lined up next to each other and we gave them a good soaking by chucking water all over them. Our final activity was a group photo with an elephant squirting water all over us. Hilarious, like being sprayed with a massive hose pipe!
We went back up the hill to quickly dry off and don our ponchos ready to ride the elephants home. Getting up on an elephant when you don’t have the luxury of standing on a little cliff is hard hard work. You first step on the elephants foot which they then raise to get you higher up. You then have to grip onto its back (so basically nothing) and pull yourself up. I had 2 mahouts trying to lift me up by pushing my bum and the backs of my thighs to give me a boost. Proper Miranda moment. Once on the elephant, I sat on its neck at the back of its head and tucked my knees in behind its ears to hold on and away we went, in a line up the hill and out onto the road. That’s right, the road. Cars were driving round us, everyone had their cameras out, people were pulling over, you name it. So odd riding an elephant on tarmack, but it was a lot of fun, very calm and peaceful unless your elephant decides to try and eat everything in its path like some of them did! Our elephant ride was about half an hour or so all in all and I loved every second of it. I could quite easily have ridden off into the sunset on “Nelly” and said goodbye to my conventional life back home, I loved it that much.
Patara Elephant Farm is ace and I thoroughly recommend reserving your spot early as places are very sort after. Armed with a dvd of photos and videos of our every move of the day, we were dropped back to the hotel. An amazing experience, and one not to be missed if you’re in Chiang Mai.
The final day was spent meandering around the city and the infamous Sunday market which really should not be missed, the food is amaze.
Can’t believe our adventure is nearly over…
SJ xx
SJ Adventures 