Chiang Mai has so far been my favorite city ever. That means the motivation to write blog posts is a lot harder.
Elephant Jungle Sanctuary
We spent a day at the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary about two days after we got to Chiang Mai. We had heard a lot about the elephants in Thailand, but had also heard that there is a lot of exploitation that go into the animal tourism in Thailand (and a lot of countries). After some research we decided that riding elephants was out of the picture completely, but we couldn’t decide if we should see them at all. That was until we found this place.
They rescue elephants from situations of abuse and bring them in to be cared for by local tribes. Basically this organization is caring for the community and the elephants, which was a win win in our opinion. They won’t force the elephants to interact with guests and they are very careful about the amount of time each elephant is around the guests. All in all, you could tell that they cared about these elephants.
Our day started off by feeding the elephants sugar cane and watermelon. They absolutely loved us when we walked up with some sugar cane. One of them couldn’t get enough of Jon.
After we fed them, we got to go wander around the premises and see all the elephants roaming and the new babies that they had there! They were so cute, but really clumsy. We were careful to watch our feet!
We then ate lunch and took a little break. Some people laid down on the beds they had for us to nap. It was such a beautiful day. After our post lunch nap, we helped the guide make vitamin balls for the elephants. They were made of bananas, rice, sticky rice, and tree bark. They give each elephant a few a day to make sure they are getting all the nutrients they need. Then we went and helped them clean one of the elephants up so they could examine her to make sure she did not have any cuts or scrapes or anything.
Then we walked with the elephants down to the mud and got mud baths with the elephants. We rubbed mud all over them and some on ourselves on accident as well. Then we followed the elephants as they walked to the river. We made sure that we got all cleaned off and then got to watch as they rolled around in the water and played together. It was so cute and fun.
After all the elephant fun, we drank tea and waited for a rain storm to pass. We had so much fun talking with all the other people on the tour who were from mostly European countries! So much fun talking about all of our trips and what we had all experienced already or were planning on seeing!
Jon clarified that the elephants was his favorite part of the trip.
Cat Cafe
One of the things we really wanted to do while we were here was go to a cat cafe. It is exactly what it sounds like. We paid about $3 each and got a drink for free and hung out in a room full of cats. We also paid to buy food to feed the cats.
Here are some of our favorite cats from the day.
So yes, our drink and the cats were worth the $3.
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