Elephant Escapade - Chiang Mai, Thailand

Our elephant - she had a long name that we could never understand

whenever our guide said it. We call her Nelly! :)

After spending a couple days in Bangkok, we flew north to Chiang Mai. Our hotel, the Chiang Thai House was fantastic! The staff was very friendly, the hotel extremely clean and the room very nice and cockroach free! ;)

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first thing in the morning, ready for an adventure!

Our first day was spent going to an Elephant Camp to learn how to be a mahout - traditional elephant keeper. Funny side story......we were SUPPOSED to be going to an elephant eco-reserve and had given the pamphlet to the hotel guy who books these things and assumed that it was booked correctly. We paid and the receipt said "elephant camp" so we figured we were good to go. LOL When we got there, we were surprised by how ghetto the camp looked and how not-so-kind some of the mahouts were to the elephants. It didn't seem like a legitimate reserve. After taking a picture of the sign and comparing it with the pamphlet when we returned, we realized the hotel guy had booked the wrong elephant reserve and instead of going to the eco-reserve, we went to some ghetto one! Ahhhhh, gotta love language barriers in foreign countries........LOL. We just laughed! We still had a blast and I fell in love with these beasts! :)

Driving out to the Elephant Camp first thing in the morning....

The camp!

Once we were there, they made us change into these really old, baggy and "crunchy" traditional Thai shirts and short pants. (We discovered later that they just rinse these things out in the dirty river water and hang them to dry after we get them wet and muddy) We laughed at how unattractive they were.....:)

Yup, definitely felt pretty stylish in these.........

The first thing we did was to introduce ourselves to the elephants and then bribe them by feeding them lots of fresh fruit. LOL After that, we learned how to climb up and comfortably sit atop our beast. :) Their hair is REALLY course and bristly. I got a few scratches from it! I had no idea they had hair like that!

Feeding our beast some watermellon.......:) These creatures are surprisingly very gentle. :)

Such a sweetie who even lifted her leg to help me climb up....

Yumm! Bananas!!! :)

So cute! :)

Up close and personal......:)

Off on our trek......

It was rather difficult staying balanced while riding an elephant and taking a picture! Nice job, Kimberley! :)

This pic makes me laugh......we look like dorks.....:)

We rode our elephants to the river and then they laid down in the water so we could scrub and bathe them! We ended up having a water fight and the elephants just looked at us like WE were the animals........

Bath time!

We even scrubbed behind her ears......

All clean! :) Well, maybe the elephant, but not us seeing as the water was muddy and had elephant poop floating in it......

Our elephant guide, grabbed our camera and thought he was taking a picture......we discovered this short video clip that he accidentally recorded before he figured out how to switch it back to the photo setting! :)

After we scrubbed and bathed our elephant, she and the rest of them got to go in the mud pit! We didn't.......we went and got dried off and changed back into our clean clothes.

She had pretty good aim when it came to throwing mud!

After their fun in the mud, we went and hung out with our new friends for a little bit more while we waited for our ride. :)

Awwwww..........new friendships.......LOL!

Hahahahah.........these two thought Kimberley had more food in her pockets......LOL!

Our elephant had WAY too much fun in the mud pit.....

This is a big pile of poop!

Muddy and content with life! :)

More pics from Chiang Mai and our zipline adventure "Flight of the Gibbon" coming soon! :)