Such an amazing day!! (Even though we had a bit of a rough start… Keep reading, haha) Be prepared for picture overload!
We booked this excursion on GetYourGuide.com (highly recommend!) A van came and picked us up and drove us an hour-ish up into the hill country. Littlest one was in the back of the van and the bumpy twisty roads got to her… she lost her breakfast and the driver quickly pulled over. So fun… Thankfully the other passengers in the van and the driver were very chill about it. The driver got us bottled water and tissues and I used hand sanitizer to clean up everything. Littlest and I sat in the front seat for the rest of the drive and she felt much better.
We finally arrived at the Living Green Elephant Sanctuary camp 2 and changed into elephant clothes to make friends with the elephants. Our guide, Soo, was very funny explaining how to interact with the elephants and feed them.
We were given bags of “Chocolate” for the elephants — bananas and sugar cane. Soo taught us (with me playing the elephant) how to feed them and where to stand. And once we mastered giving food to their trunks without being scared and crying, we could feed them “professional way” by saying “Bon bon” and waiting for the elephants to open their mouths (if they had been rescued from a show they would raise their trunks- the rest would keep their trunks down but open their mouth and you could put the food directly in.)
The first elephant we met was newly pregnant, about 3 months along, and not interested in any treats from us. Soo asked us if we were afraid of heights and gestured for us to go across the sketchiest bamboo suspension bridge over the river I ever could have imagined…. So of course we went across! Actually quite terrifying but we did it multiple times anyway.
Here’s where the real fun started! I can’t even describe how amazing and surreal it was to feed and touch the elephants!! They love their treats and would sneak their trunks into our bags to grab more if we weren’t handing them over fast enough.
There was a one year old baby elephant who just wandered wherever he wanted to go. So hairy and cute! We had to peel the bananas and sugar cane for him- the other ones would eat it all.
Miss A thought it was scary when the elephants started walking toward her (definitely intimidating and we learned quickly to step sideways not backwards). Littlest girl was not afraid at all and we told her she probably should be a little scared because they are huge!
After we made friends with the elephants and fed them all their treats we were taken by van 15 minutes upriver and put on bamboo rafts with a guide weilding a bamboo pole for navigation.
We thought it was going to be a gentle float down the river, but we encountered rapids and even a 3 foot waterfall. We saw elephants grazing in several places along the river and also Hill Tribe villages.
The guide on Superman’s raft was silent and wouldn’t even smile the whole time. The guide on my raft was hilarious! He raced the other rafts, yelled “fasser fasser” at himself, rocked the raft side to side whenever we were in smooth water, yelled “crocodile!” and smacked a log with his pole, and hit an overhead branch with the pole then rubbed his head like he’d bumped it. He kept us laughing the whole way.
He also handed his pole to Littlest girl and had her navigate us for awhile and he sat down in her spot. She loved that!
I thought the guide was teasing again when he yelled “waterfall!” and pointed ahead… But he wasn’t kidding! Poor Spud held on to the bamboo and got a finger smashed. Thought it might be broken for awhile, but thankfully it ended up just bruised and swollen. When we got off the rafts I was preoccupied with helping Spud and missed saying thank you to our guide. I felt bad about that because he was awesome!
We went back to the elephant camp and were fed vegetarian (tofu) Pad Thai, watermelon & pineapple. Delicious!
After lunch we went back to the elephants with armloads of bamboo grass and got to play with them while they ate. (Did I mention that the suspension bridge is shaky? I thought I was going to fall off!)
When they had eaten their fill they made their way down to the river. As our guide said, “the river is their toilet… We are bath-ing them so they can go poopoo peepee.” Disgusting, yes, but we only have one chance to bathe elephants, so we got right in. Well…. The older girls were hesitant.
At the end of the bath the girls got sprayed by an elephant – we laughed so hard!! That’s what they get for not wanting to get in the water.
We got to play with the elephants a bit more and watch them throw dirt on as sunscreen. We also watched the baby nurse (first picture).
The baby elephant pulled a weed and was about to eat it when another elephant (not the mom) came and snatched it out of his trunk. We watched as the big elephant held the weed out for the baby, put it in the baby’s mouth, and then yanked it back and snarfed it down herself. Sad but hilarious!
Too soon it was time to say goodbye. Such an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience!
Littlest girl and Spud fell asleep almost immediately in the van on the way back down the mountain. We were all eager to shower when we got back to the hotel. Then we got a Grab car to take us to the airport to pick up a rental car.
Superman was (understandably) nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road and especially with traffic and motorbikes all over the place and not being able to read road signs. We said a prayer before starting and set the GPS (pro travel tip: bring a phone holder for navigation and a car charger – the USB port on the car didn’t really work so we got an adapter to plug in).
Guess what? Driving in the city is not as white-knuckle nerve-wracking as it is being a passenger in a taxi (although there is a lot of traffic and random one way roads and even a road where we were suddenly driving on the right side of the road for a block before switching back… Weird!). Amazingly, if you’re a patient defensive safe driver who isn’t in a rush it feels pretty safe.
We went to the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar and got dinner (pineapple fried rice – ended up being yellow curry, chicken cashew stir fry, and some bbq meats) and walked through a crazy amount of vendor stalls. Most of them were high priced compared to what we’ve seen elsewhere for the same items but we did find a couple of deals and had fun people watching.
We also got to talk to our Elder in Argentina as we were walking around and show him some interesting Thai culture and a nearby Buddhist Temple.
We made it back to the hotel late and crashed after a long, fun-filled, adventurous day!
