After months of anticipation, the day of elephant riding had finally come. I was abuzz with anticipation that I had to pace around the hotel until the bus came to pick us up. After significant deliberation, I had decided on a half day with the elephants with Ran-Tong save and rescue. It was about 1.5hr ride to the elephant farm. When we got there, we immediately saw many elephants. And to my great happiness, there was a mom elephant with her 1 month old baby boy!! He was adorable. Mom was chained up so she wouldn't hurt the people who came to see the baby. The baby tried but inevitably failed to climb out of his enclosure.
We had a quick lesson about elephants and Thai commands before we boarded our elephants. I had insisted on getting the more expensive 1 person/elephant ride to better enjoy the experience. It was so scary when I first got on. I was soooo far up!! And I didn't even have a particularly large elephant. Her name was Mortaler. My elephant trainer (mahout) was super nice and took a bunch of pictures of me on the elephant. Unfortunately my elephant was stubborn and often needed redirecting and although I had learned the Thai commands, my elephant definitely did not listen to be. We walked up a hill and then down. We tried to go into the water for a bath but the water was too cold so the elephant refused. I fed my elephant corn which she was very happy with and we have her some water which we poured from a hose into her trunk. When my elephant was smelling for food in my hand, her trunk made my mahout outfit all wet (giggle).
I was disappointed we didn't get to bathe our elephants but it was nice that our elephant rescue didn't force the elephants into it. They were very kind and only used words to guide the elephants and never used hooks or punishment.
After elephants and lunch, we headed to the tiger kingdom. This place is an icon of capitalism - 500-700baht per person for 10 minutes in the tiger enclosures. We got the 1500 baht combo of big + small + smallest tigers. The big tigers were full grown males, at least 2 years old. They didn't have any new babies but the smallest were 6 months old. It was super cool to pet them and hold their tails which were surprisingly heavy. Supposedly the place doesn't drug the animals and they are only docile because they are nocturnal and hence sleepy but I doubt it's all natural. We also saw a white tiger and a Siberian tiger. The rest were Indochinese.
It was a cool experience, despite being pricey for Thailand.
We had been warned that the elephant place could not drive us back to the city but didn't realize there wouldn't be transportation to hire. Well, there was a guy who wanted to charge us 400 for a ride back to town. In the end, I found some Swedish guys who has their own ride and we hitchhiked with them. Their driver didn't like it but didn't give me a price when I asked so we just rode for free - score!
The Swedes lived near Chinatown so that's where we got dropped off which was a great starting point for exploring the lunar new year festival in Chinatown. Again there were performances and many stalls including many focusing on Chinese food options.
After eating our fill at the market we headed home.
I've been talking about massage by the blind in Chiang Mai since arriving in Thailand and today I got to experience it. Traditional Thai massage is almost the exact opposite of Khmer massage. It was slow paced, subtle changes in constant pressure applied over different muscles. I liked it so much I asked for an extra half hour foot massage which made my feet feel like jelly, pain free jelly. 90min = 300 baht.
35 baht = $1
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