Elephant park | weltgereist

As already promised, here comes my last blog entry about my vacation in Chiang Mai. A few weeks ago one of my biggest dreams finally came true: meet some elephants in their natural surroundings. In doing so, I found it important that the elephants are well treated in the camps they are living in. That is also how I came across the camp ‘Elephant Nature Park’, which is located a bit outside of Chiang Mai. The owner of the camp buys elephants which are sick or treated badly by their owner and provides them in the park a better home in their natural surroundings. For those who are interested to find out more about the park: http://www.elephantnaturepark.org

The day at the park passed as follows: In the morning a van picked us up from our hostel. During the ride to the camp, which took approximately 1 hour, we got to see a documentary about the park and elephants in general. When we arrived at the park, the localities were showed to us, such as the room they store the feed in, the river in which the elephants take a bath and the compound in general. Afterwards we got the opportunity to feed the elephants. We stood on an elevated terrain and basically fed the elephant from there, by putting water melon, cucumber and co. in their trunk. Furthermore we got to see the recently born baby elephant and got the opportunity to make some pictures with some of the elephants in the park. After that we had lunch ourselves, which consisted of a huge buffet with lots of Thai food. Next the elephants wanted to be washed. For this purpose the elephants were lured to the river and all the visitors followed. That was the moment we could splash water at the elephants and wash them. What you need to know about that park is that it is not possible to sit on the back of the elephants, which didn’t matter too much for me personally, as the well-being of the elephants ranks first in my opinion. Afterwards we got to see another documentary, where they also showed how bad some elephants are treated which don’t live in the wild or in conservatories, but instead have owners that use them for work or tourism purposes.

For the ones who would like to know more about elephants and like to inform oneself about how badly they are treated sometimes, I can entrust the article of a good friend of mine to you. That one I will as well publish seperatly on my site as a guest contribution.

: Elefantenessen – Elephant food

: Elefanten baby – Elephant baby

When you step out of the house and are wet the next second, see people running around like crazy with water pistols and buckets filled with ice water, you know it is that time of the year – Songkran, Thai New Year. It might appear to outsiders that parts of Thailand transform into a huge water fight and chaos, but in reality it is all part of a long kept tradition. The initial idea behind throwing water was paying respect to others, by pouring blessed water over the shoulders of elders and family members for good fortune. The transformation of this holiday to what it is now evolved from youngsters using the water to cool off each other, as the month of April, when the festival takes place, is the hottest of the year. Paired with alcohol this means a huge party for many Thai people and attracts foreigners to visit especially Chiang Mai, which is famous for its extensively celebrated Songkran.

Even though we don’t consider ourselves the typical tourists, we wanted to join in this big celebration of Thais and foreigners in Chiang Mai. As there are not only a lot of foreigners going to Chiang Mai but also Thais who return to their home country, it was quite difficult to find a way of getting there. The busses were predicted to take twice as long because of the traffic and the trains were fully booked. Therefore we decided to take the plane, but only on Sunday, where the festival was almost over already – wherefore the tickets were also cheaper. Looking back, this was a really good decision! Even though it was quite fun to have water fights with random people, it is quite exhausting to be wet round the clock. The water is often insanely cold because of the ice they put in there, and it is just generally not so fun to walk around wet all the time. Furthermore you should consider that many shops are closed during that times and I assume it is also quite difficult book a tour during these days.

After having survived Songkran, we enjoyed a laid-back day at a Thai cooking school – check out my post from last week about that. Furthermore we spent another day visiting temples and seeing the city in general and one day going to an elephant park a bit outside of Chiang Mai. A blog post about every detail about the elephant park will follow soon. On our last day in Chiang Mai we decided to go on a hiking tour. The tour actually included some white water rafting as well, bamboo rafting, and a hike to a waterfall. The tour seemed to be a bit unorganized but overall still fine – it might have just been because it is a one-man company. We went back to Bangkok with the express night train, in a sleeper carriage. As we were late with booking we only got some free seats in the second class which had a fan and was considerably louder than first class. Basically you are sitting on a leather seat until approximately 7 p.m. when the train staff comes and converts your bench into a bed. I had an upper bed and must say it was not as worse as I thought and I slept quite well, but for the next time I might just pay a few Baht more and get a seat in first class. The ticket price for second class sleeper was approximately 500 Baht. You can best book that directly at the train station or via phone, but in either way you need to go to the train station because you need to pick up the ticket. Concerning the food in the train, they have a restaurant on the train, where a meal costs around 160 Baht which is quite a lot for Thai standards. My tip is to look out for the vendors walking around in the train which sell fruits and small dishes like sticky rice and chicken, which is a lot cheaper and delicious.

Chiang Mai overall was a really nice city to see. It has some nice corners if you just keep looking for them. Also there are a lot of activities to do, which you can easily book in a travel agency or with the hostel you are staying with – just keep in mind that often you can still bargain for a better price. For Songkran Chiang Mai is probably worthy to see, but be aware of the fact that Chiang Mai itself doesn’t have to offer too much attractions, most of the activities are located outside of Chiang Mai. We stayed in a really simple hostel (‘Panda House Chiang Mai’), but I also saw some nice places when walking around in the city which also had a pool, so you might want to look out for that. For breakfast I can definitely recommend ‘Breakfast World’ – the food there isn’t cheap but they offer awesome breakfast with real German bakery goods. They also have a hostel adjoined which would be nice to check out I assume (‘Thapae Gate Lodge’). When it comes to taxis in Chiang Mai you will soon notice that you can’t really find ordinary taxis like you know them, as these are only going from the airport. Instead there are read pick-up trucks driving around which usually take you anywhere in the city for around 20 Baht.

Have you had the chance before to experience a real Songkran festival in Thailand? Let me know about your trips in Thailand and stay tuned for my upcoming posts about my elephant camp visit in Chiang Mai.