Elephant Trekking

As you can all see from the picture below Will and I went on an elephant trek here in Chiang Mai. The amazing thing about this city is it's pretty much surrounded by jungle. It is a semi-big city, but if you drive about 30km out of town you'll be in the jungle. I was so excited about coming here because I was really ready for some new scenery. We arrived around 6:30 on Monday night and were welcomed by the sweet staff at our hotel/guest house. We are staying in a 136 year old original style Thai house that has been converted into an 8 bedroom, 1 suite, hotel. It's also right on the River Ping which is really nice. We were shown to our standard room and it was nice, but very small, with an incredible arched ceiling. We headed back down to the restaurant area where we were given our welcome packet and welcome smoothie. As we both looked around and realized it was us and the staff, we assumed that we were probably the only ones staying here. The owner, Esther, then showed up and started talking to us about all of the cool treks to do, and about the hotel, and just about Chiang Mai. She is absolute great. Her English is some of the best we've encountered and she's full of personality, not to forget that every time we thank her she say "KAH", and then keeps repeating it. "KAH, KAH, KAH". Not really sure what it means but she loves to say it. So as we headed back to our room she insisted on taking us there and then she headed to a different door and told us that she had upgraded us to the suite because she really liked us. Again I think she thinks we are on our honeymoon, but hey we keep getting upgraded so what's not to like.

The River Ping Palace, and our suite.

Yesterday (Tuesday) morning we were up bright and early for our day trek in the jungle. We had to take about an hour mini-bus ride to the Elephant Camp where we would embark on our adventure. Before you head off on your Elephant Trek, some of the Elephants perform a show for all of the guests. They show you how they used to work in the fields, followed by demonstrating all of the ways someone can get on, then some other basic stuff, followed by them dancing as a group, playing music, playing soccer and basketball, painting, and some other pretty goofy stuff. They were SO cute and Will and I laughed the whole time at how cute and funny they looked.

An elephant playing soccer.

After the show you had the opportunity to feed them before hopping on and heading into the jungle. Will and I got on what seemed to be a pretty big Elephant that was driven to be in the front of the pack. When we got on the guy we were almost at the end and watching him pass up everyone in the water and on the trails was quite remarkable. It was also so cute to watch this baby elephant follow his mom across the water and on the trek. Will thinks that he's being trained, but I just assumed he didn't want to leave his mom. After riding elephants for about an hour you get off and into an ox cart that takes you to your lunch destination. We had an incredible buffet lunch looking over the beautiful river and amazing mountains. Pretty awesome. From there you get one a bamboo raft, that seems could sink at any moment, and head down the river. Our driver, I guess that's what you'd call him, was nice enough to let Will try the job out. Lets see... the river and its surroundings were incredible. You'd pass small little villages and you could see bamboo huts up high in the mountains. It was a great way to see a different part of Thailand. I'm hoping we'll get to do more stuff like this in Burma.

Riding elephants, riding in ox carts, and rafting down the river.

When we were done rafting we got back into our mini-bus and headed to a butterfly and orchid farm. I have never seen so many beautiful orchids. Chrit, you would have LOVED it. They also
have an area where they grow all of the butterflies and it was pretty cool too.

Will with his favorite kind of butterfly

We got back to our hotel around 4:30 and were completely wiped out. I laid around and watched Grey's while Will blogged and did some stuff on the computer for a few hours. Will actually became OBSESSED with killing every mosquito in the area. The hotel let him use this electric zapper and he sat around for about an hour killing as many as he could find. Not that it was that hard because they are everywhere. We then headed out to night bizarre,which was just another night market. Instead of hoping in a tuk-tuk we decided to take one of these trucks that the bed has been converted into a covered seating area. These trucks are red and they drive around town and you can just hope on and off for 10 batt. The night market was really cool and the food there was incredible. I'm finally able to handle the spicy flavors of Thai food.

Will killing mosquitos and me in the back of the red truck taxi.

We are up this morning and headed out to explore the town and possibly take a cooking class this afternoon. I really am loving it here and this is a must see place if you ever come to Thailand. Alright well more from Chiang Mai later!!!