We were up early today at 6.00am for breakfast and were picked up from the hotel at 6.40am by a lady called Bammi, who was our tour guide for the day.
This was a fantastic day – let’s get that out of the way first, best day of the holiday so far and something they’ve all been looking forward to. Will definitely get on Trip Advisor and compliment the organisers for this!!
So first we drove up towards the mountain at Chiang Mai and Bammi was giving us information all day long – that was a great thing to have as there was so much information she told us about which we’ve never have got normally. Stopping halfway up the mountain we obtained food and provided it to the boy monks (Buddhist) for their breakfast and dinner and they in turn blessed us. This ritual takes place every day both for the tourists and normal residents so the monks are fed and people blessed. The monks are taught everything as expected and it’s not as strict here as you might expect, if they want to drop out they do. Very often the monks are kids that come from poor families that can’t afford to get their kids into school etc. Again, all very interesting.
With that done we continued up the mountain passing cyclists – bit bloody steep – for 12km until we got to the temple at the top. Jumped out the minibus and walked up the 300 steps to the top. Stayed for almost an hour walking round and having all sorts of information explained, the Buddhist philosophy struck a cord for Charlotte and Tash so I think they were inspired by Bammi and her attitude to life so Charlotte might become Buddhist..you heard it here first!!
Following this we drove a short distance to a very small village that is populated by the Long Neck tribe, this was interesting to hear about how (and why) they do what they do in terms of retaining some of the culture and customs, much of it purely for tourism needs. How they could live there I don’t know, it was dry but what it must be like in the mud there in the rains I can only imagine, strange to see people living like that to be honest. The girls there were doing weaving and some of it was amazing and Tash did buy a scarf from one of them – no haggling either, that would have just felt wrong!
Outside of the Village we travelled about 300 metres and we were at the Tiger Kingdom and the first part that Charlotte was really looking forward to. We paid up for the 15 minutes sessions (which actually was plenty) and Tash & Jack went in with the small tigers and the rest of us went in with the full size adults, and they were full size! In our cage we were with three tigers and took turns to stroke them and have photos etc and it was amazing to be honest. There is a lot on Trip Advisor where people are saying the animals are drugged etc and that may be true, I personally don’t think it was. I think they are both sleepy and also very tame because we saw tigers later that were literally a few weeks old. If they’re in captivity and being trained from that age then they will be tame. Anyway, we rotated around the tigers and hopefully got some good photos and it was definitely an experience not to be forgotten.
Tash & Jack enjoyed it as well and we then walked around some of the other cages, on the outside, as if we were at a zoo and saw some of the baby cubs and other tigers having a rest. A couple of white tigers were also there and looked great. Once done we cleaned up and were ready to move on!
Again, didn’t have to travel far for the next stop which was an Orchid farm where we were had a buffet meal amongst the beautiful orchid flowers and also a butterfly farm we walked through afterwards. It still felt a bit early for food but we had some anyway and Jack was pleased because it included KFC type chicken wings and I was pleased as it had spring rolls and chilli sauce!! Break over…time to move on.
Where next? Ah yes…after about another 45 minute drive we were at an elephant sanctuary but we weren’t there to see the elephants and walked straight through to the river where two old men appeared on a bamboo raft. Climbed aboard and they took us down the river. The flow and current was very quick and strong, we were in any danger of falling out or getting wet so it was a very relaxed, quiet and serene drift down the river to our landing station. A couple of times we were so very much alone and in the jungle it felt with the mountain at the side with all the over-grown plants and trees and no other signs of any life (human interference) at all. Loved it, didn’t last long and after about 25 mins that was it. All the kids had a go posing at the front and halfway through we passed a whole caravan of elephants carrying people in baskets – looked amazing to drift past them on a bamboo raft and they be on these elephants both in the water and amongst the greenery of the jungle – like a scene from a film.
That done we jumped into the minibus and went off through the trees again our final destination – the elephants!
On arrival we changed into our elephant travelling clothes and we all looked great(!) – more like convicts actually but it was good we did change as it protected the clothes we were wearing. We were very lucky also because they took us for a walk into the camp to visit a new-born baby elephant, it had been born the previous evening so wasn’t even a day old! It still could walk and weighed about 60lbs! The mother didn’t mind how close anyone got to it and we obviously stroked it and took loads of photos.
Once done we went back to camp and waited for about 30 mins (we were early!) for the previous bunch of people to get back and for a Spanish group of 4 to get sorted. After a talk about the elephants and some instructions on the basic commands – none of which I could remember 5 minutes later – we then went to the staging area where the mahoots (trainers) brought about 13 elephants, all pretty huge, up and we fed them bananas and then allotted and elephant each and had to climb aboard. I found that hard enough in itself, my elephant was massive and I didn’t feel very safe/stable one little bit. I think my balance has left me in my old age!!
Each mahoot remained so it was a case of each elephant following the other as we meandered through the forest on a trail that was tight and felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. It really was a great experience to be travelling through the forest riding on the back of an elephant but the novelty soon wore off…for me anyway, I was struggling! My groins were aching with trying to stay on and almost every footstep I felt as if I was going to tumble off and I was very high up indeed! We travelled for about 30-45 minutes and as I was thinking “I want to get off now!” we got to a road, crossed it and were at the river.
One by one we entered the river and the elephants would either just dip down or even roll over to one side and we all ended up in the water splashing and washing them, they seemed to like it and were spraying people but the river was incredibly strong, I was struggling to stay in one place!! That was quite a highlight, Mum didn’t come into the water and also didn’t get back on her elephant – she’d had enough like me!!
Getting back on was okay and thankfully we didn’t need to travel too much further for the trek to finish and get changed and get in the minibus for our travelling back home again. As much as I type above that I struggled I am so glad to say I’ve done it, they were clearly well looked after and the experience was brilliant – everyone agreed how much they’d enjoyed it. Charlotte was so looking forward to this and she too was pleased to have done it – so that was good!
Whilst waiting to go home, I asked Bammi about the zip wires and whether she had internet and she was able to phone and make a booking for us to go to the zip wire experience in the mountains tomorrow. We had a bit of a family debate regarding the costs and what package to do and we finally opted for the Silver one which meant we were upgraded to Gold – it is an expensive experience but the kids all fancied it, as did Mum but I am not 100% sure how comfortable she will feel about doing it. We’ll see tomorrow, I am sure she’ll be fine.
It took about 90 minutes to get home and as planned, we arrived back at the hotel at 6.30pm. We said our goodbyes to Bammi and collapsed in our bedrooms for an hour or so whilst Tash went off and had a massage in the hotel…alright for some!!
Once she decided to come back…we left the hotel and immediately got a taxi to the Old Town, it didn’t look or feel any different to the New Town to be far and we quickly found an Italian Restaurant to eat in. Everyone was hungry so we wanted to get some food asap and this was 8.30pm by now anyway! Once finished we walked a bit further into the town although there was nothing to see and found a bar to have a drink in. What a great bar that was – I’d love to have spent some more time there but it was late and we had an early start today and another early start tomorrow so we called it a night, got a taxi and came home.
So a thoroughly brilliant day had by all. I intend to get on Trip Advisor to compliment them as it really was perfect. Nothing went wrong and we couldn’t have done it without the help of the people we booked it with. What was definitely interesting is that the elephant camp for 2 hours was definitely enough time, all agreed, I couldn’t imagine how boring it would be to be there for a full day! Anyway, such a good time, this holiday is going down a storm and we’re creating loads of great memories for the kids I hope. And for us!!
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