I didn’t expect to have such an emotional response to seeing the elephants at Maetang Elephant Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I couldn’t stop my eyes from filling with tears as they gently took the bananas and sugar cane from my hand. Or my heart from swelling as I carefully washed their skin in the river. They were tender, playful, soulful beings and I will never forget that experience.
There is a lot of controversy around elephant parks and sanctuaries. To be completely honest, I can’t tell you if the one we went to was considered ethical or not, but from what I observed, it looked like it was. The park we visited was created in 1996 in response to the logging ban in Thailand that left domesticated elephants vulnerable to the now-illegal logging trade. What I saw were animals that didn’t seem threatened or afraid–just curious and sometimes a little mischievous.
Chiang Mai was a much bigger, busier, more touristy city than I expected. I was surprised at all of the Western tourists we interacted with. We took a cooking class with a mother and son from Canada and a half-day guided bike tour with a two European families.
The cooking class was a lot of fun: we were picked up from our hotel and taken to the market to buy fresh ingredients for the dishes we were going to prepare. We learned to make chicken in coconut milk soup, pad thai, stir-fried morning glory, stir-fried chicken with cashews, red curry, green curry, and mango sticky rice.
The bike tour was a mostly flat 19 mile ride in more rural areas around Chiang Mai that included lots and lots of rice paddies and the ruins of Wat Nanchang in the city of Wiang Kum Kam which had flooded hundreds of years ago, and excavated only since 2002.
Chiang Mai has a bustling night market with all kinds of street food, vendors, and live music. We enjoyed cheap beer (Leo, of course) and pad thai while we watched the Thai dancers perform, and then braved the crazy tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel.
On our last day in Chiang Mai, we visited the highest point in Thailand, Doi Inthanon mountain in Doi Inthanon National Park. We had to wear our jackets because it was a freezing 8 degrees Celsius (46.4 degrees Farenheit)! If it were a less cloudy and rainy day, I’m sure the views would have been spectacular, but we still enjoyed a bit of time out in nature.
Would we live here? The answer may be the same for all of our Southeast Asia stops…..probably not ~ not because it isn’t interesting and vibrant and alive, but because I just don’t think we could stand the heat! Would we visit again? Maybe….for an event like the annual flower festival or to light lanterns at the festival of lights.
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