What I love most about how we are travelling this time (as we use to travel) is that we actually have no idea where we are going, we are kind of making it up as we go along.  We do have a fairly good idea of what we want to see but no rules about how we do it.  That’s how we ended up in Chiang Mai.

Vietnam was full!  Think Easter weekend in New Zealand.  Everyone traveling and staying in hotels and most things closed for the holiday break.  So we decided to hop off to Thailand and swim with elephants.

Chiang Mai when I first heard of it back in the 90’s was the place to go to and ride elephants for days in the jungle.  Chiang Mai has resurfaced as the chilled out hippy eco friendly capital of Thailand.  It’s all Eco tours and sanctuaries and funnily enough jungle zip lining (with the longest zip line in Asia).   I’ll be honest I was too scared to do the zip lining.  Poor Nigel had to miss out but I just knew that if anyone was going to pay hundreds of dollars to go zip lining and then chicken out when push came to shove it would be me.

We stayed at a small guesthouse of about 6 rooms slightly outside of Chiang Mai central.  Run by a childrens foundation.  They rescue kids from appalling conditions in Myanmar and the hill tribes of Thailand (who legally have no status in Thailand) and bring them to a children’s foundation village where they support them in going to school, learning English and they help out in the Guesthouse.  It’s one of those quaint little places where there is Grandma, Mums, Dads, Aunties, Uncles, kids singing Jingle Bells, babies, dogs, cats, frogs and the odd millipede.  Everyone helps out with everything and it’s very chilled out and relaxed.

We spent a day at Lanna Kingdom Elephant Sanctuary (which is one of those magical days that stays with you forever).  This sanctuary (apart from being the number 1 rated attraction in Chiang Mai on Trip Advisor) was absolutely brilliant (I can’t vouch for every elephant sanctuary in Thailand as being the same but this one was top notch).  They have a maximum of 15 people per day to spend time with the elephants. There were only 10 people on the day we went (we were lucky enough to strike low season while we were there).  Any other time of year you need to book weeks in advance as they are very strict about how much tourist time the elephants can have.

Each elephant had its own story.  Many coming from the logging camps where they had been branded, had scars from the chains around their necks and had spent 35 of their 40 years of life in absolute hell.  The baby elephant (2 ½ years old) had been rescued from a circus.  It had been beaten into learning tricks which it now couldn’t unlearn.  One of them was to give people a kiss by sucking the end of it’s trunk on your check and then not letting go.  Another was to bow when the mahout (elephant guardian) said a certain word.  The elephants can’t forget how to do these tricks that they were taught under horrible circumstances, which makes you assume they can still remember the horrible life they use to have.

But now they are living in pretty much heaven.  They eat 17 hours a day.  They wander freely in the sanctuary when the tourists aren’t there. They each have a 24 hour 7 day a week mahout who is there to care for them.  Feed them, keep them clean and happy.  The baby of the group as evolved to become the leader.  She is the first one in the line of elephants to head off to graze or to the mud bath where you get to hop in with them.

Nigel and I were in literally up to our waist in mud.  The other tourists were a bit squeamish about getting in but not us!  First elephant in and so were we.  I think we picked the wrong part of the pond though as it was literally up to my waist.  I couldn’t move.  Both of us were stuck in the mud right next to this massive elephant who was rumbling with happiness when we smothered her in mud all over her back.  She started flapping her ears at me when I went too close behind the ears so we ended up shovelling it high up on her back.  When they were finished (and believe me when the elephant wants to move on the elephant moves on), the larger female helped to push the baby out of the pond.  This female had adopted the baby after she lost her own baby a year ago.  She was honorary aunty to the little one and looked after her the whole way.

From the mud bath we walked with them to the fresh water where they gave us scoops and brushes and told us to get in and scrub the mud away.  Again up to our waist in water next to the tonnes of animal.  It was a truly magical experience that we won’t forget.

We also managed to squeeze in a Thai cooking class. One where they take you on the motorbike sidecar to the market and choose the ingredients and then back to our guesthouse where they set up an outdoor kitchen for us to make pad tai, red chicken curry and Thai pork salad.  We loved it (although had no idea how much sugar goes into Thai cooking… we will leave that behind when we make this again in NZ – when I say ‘we’ I mean Nigel).  Made enough food to feed an army and then sat in the open air restaurant while the thunder and lightning and torrential rain hit us full force.

We had such a relaxing time in Chiang Mai, so serene and chilled out.  Off to Laos next and our third new country this trip.