Myra really wanted to ride an elephant and I really wanted to ride an elephant on its back. Not on those chair things they put on Elephant backs (which I actually did in Thailand 3 years ago). So we found a place and booked an elephant camp tour.
Best day EVER! No other way to describe it! It started with a fab breakfast from out wonderful little hotel.
After breakfast, we got picked up by our guide at our hotel and headed north of Chiang Mai. We first stopped at an orchid farm...
These are pieces of Jewelry made with actual Orchids (so they say)...
Our guide then took us to a local market and walked us through it showing us all the different things they eat....
Like roaches or whatever these things are and grasshoppers (yum).... (No, I did not try it).
Chicken legs and feet....
Bee larva... Doesn't this look appetizing? Who knew people eat this stuff!?!!
And delicious fruit. This I did eat. I ate it the last time I was in Thailand and and definitely wanted more this time! So good!
Lychee Fruit! Also good!
Our guide bought us some fried bananas to try. They were really good! I love trying food... I felt like if i was going to eat street food anywhere on this trip, it should be Thailand. :)
and we bought a couple of coconuts to feed the elephants (but not before drinking the coconut water out of them, of course!:)
We got to the elephant camp and were told to put on traditional mahout style clothing so that we wouldn't get our own clothes dirty. Then we were introduced to these amazing elephants!
There were 6 of them at the camp. And I loved all of them! Our guide taught us different commands (how to tell them to go forward, backwards, sidewards, and to stop) because we would be riding them later.
But first he wanted us to "make friends" with the elephants by feeding them bananas. We could put the bananas in their trunks or directly into their months on their tongue.
Before you knew it, we were fast friends! :) They were wrapping their trunks around us and loving us (or maybe it was the fact that we had bananas in our hands :)
Either way - It was awesome! This is the littlest elephant of the bunch. She is a teenager and she was so much fun to feed. She knew a command to "speak" for bananas. At one point she had wrapped her trunk all around my arm that I was afraid she might squeeze too hard trying to get the banana! But my arm was fine. She is a cutie! We loved her..
This is Rumetip (sp?) - The elephant we would be riding! He's the biggest of the group and we found out later a very hungry elephant who always wants to eat!
Getting on the elephant with no stool or anything to step on was quite the task! ha. The elephant will stick out his leg for you to step on and then you have to pull yourself over the elephant. I needed a little help as you can see.... :)
It was such an amazing feeling to be on this elephants back and giving it directions to go forward, left, right, etc... It didn't even come close to comparing to the last time I was on an elephant in Thailand.
If you ever want to ride an elephant - this is the way to do it. You really get to learn so much about the elephant. If you can see the other people in the background of this picture - they are going on a ride through the jungle but on a chair and the elephants Mahout is controlling where they go.
Myra and I were the only ones riding the elephant on its bareback at the camp. And everyone that came were taking pictures of us because they were fascinated and jealous. What they were doing just didn't compare to sitting on the back of an elephant with his ears flapping against your feet.
After we were trained on how to ride the elephant, we took a break for some lunch.
Then we got back on Rumetip (one in the front and one on her back) and took about a 1 hour ride in the jungle. We took turns being the one in the front and giving directions. We found out quickly that Rumetip likes to eat. She kept going towards the fruit and trees and we kept getting whacked by branches! :)
We rode through the jungle, under banana trees and all sorts of things! It was beautiful! When we were riding in the front there were times that rumetip would do something crazy and we were scared to fall off. At one point she grabbed a large branch from a tree above us and tried to break it off. It basically fell on us and I thought for sure we were going to get wrapped up in it and fall off or something. But we wiggled out way out! She definitely took us on an adventure!
After the jungle walk, we took Rumetip to the water to wash her off. We poured a bunch of water on her and scrubbed her off!
Our guide has been taking pictures of all this stuff and was supposed to put it on a DVD for us to take with us...but he accidentally left his camera at the camp. He said he would email us the pics but I'm a little worried we will never see those. :(
But at least I have these pictures! And some even better memories! This was seriously one of the best days ever! I can't help but love these elephants!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Chiang Mai, Thailand
