Elephant Sanctuary, Chiang Mai | Thailand

I’m a huge animal lover, and Chiang Mai is definitely well-known for it’s many rescued elephants. Riding an elephant might seem like a pretty awesome bucket list, but supporting such act is cruel to these amazing animals. We opt for a day giving the elephants a much deserving spa, and get to know them up-close.

We were picked up by the driver, who whisk us and 6 others from different hotels and race on our way to the sanctuary. It was about an hour drive up north, and definitely was a pleasant ride. Nothing more.

The moment we arrived, we were greeted by some decent hot pad thai, fruits, a bottle of water, and some ‘uniforms’ for us to change into. If you don’t want to do that to look nice on picture, remember – your clothes(and shoes!) are possibly garbage after. I opt to look ugly 🙂

We were thought the way to sense the mood of the elephants, the way to feed and engage with them properly. We were all given a big bag of bananas, and are on our way to get to know them. Honestly, it was such a joy just feeding them, and I was told that you should talk to them as they do recognize your voice and that would be useful when we bring them for their walk into the jungle.

What happened after this, I could not capture – but it was such fun throwing mud onto the elephants, giving them the well deserving spa scrub in a heavy downpour. Did I say, this is not the best season to go to Chiang Mai? It rains almost the entire day!

After that, we lead them back to the pool, and jumped in with joy. Brush, brush, and brush here we go. The elephants are so much fun in water and the baby elephant, ‘Jackie Chan’ just goes in for a dive and around.

#Traveltips : Take less photo yourself and just enjoy the moment. High risk of drowning your phones and cameras unless it is waterproof, but I highly doubt it is elephant-proof. They literally weigh a ton(s)!

Love,
Alyphantslove