Northern Thailand: Elephants, jungles, and waterfalls

Chiang Mai is the perfect location for exploring the mountains and jungles of northern Thailand and spending quality time with elephants.  Our first day trip outside the city was to Doi Inthanon National Park.  With Thailand’s highest mountain peak, beautiful waterfalls, and twin pagodas honoring the king and queen, this is one of the most popular national parks in Thailand.  Our guide first took us to see the King Inthanon Memorial Shrine, which is located at the peak of the mountain.

The ashes of Chiang Mai’s last monarch are contained within the secluded stupa.  This spot draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims annually.  A wooden walkway takes you to the shrine and on a short walk through the cloud forest, which happens to be a fantastic bird-watching location. The green-tailed sunbird is a species only found at the summit of Doi Inthanon.

We discovered that we picked a Thai holiday weekend to visit, so the road to the summit was bumper to bumper cars. Think beach traffic on Memorial Day. We also had some difficulty finding parking at the other popular stop for locals at Doi Inthanon – the twin stupas built to commemorate the 60^th birthdays of the king and queen – but totally worth the hassle to see.

The area is beautifully landscaped and a lovely place to relax, so we could see why this is  such a popular place for a family to visit on a holiday weekend.

Although we had seen a lot of temples and stupas up to this point already, we thought these were really unique and offered a different perspective popping out of the mountainside jungle instead of in the middle of a packed, bustling city.  The views over the national park were breathtaking too.

Our favorite part of the day in Doi Inthanon was the hike through the jungle.  We were a little worried that the ambiance would be ruined by so many visitors that day due to the holiday.  But, luckily, our tour guide told us that locals prefer to just hang out at the mountain peak shrine and the twin pagodas.  None of them actually hike, so during our entire trek, we only saw two other people!  The scenery was absolutely stunning, and we were so excited to see a side of Thailand away from the city streets.  Rice fields, thick rainforest, hill tribes, rickety bamboo bridges, and waterfalls….doesn’t get more Thailand than that.

Just when I thought Thailand couldn’t get any better and that we had the best jungle experience, we took our second day trip from Chiang Mai called Pamper a Pachyderm.  Just like the title implies, we had a full day of taking care of elephants – feeding them and taking them for walks through the jungle.  We selected Elephant Nature Park because they are rescuing elephants and educating their trainers (called mahouts).  Thailand has a long and complicated history with elephants that has unfortunately led to cruel treatment and terrible living conditions for many of these amazing creatures.  Thorough research is required before booking an elephant tour to make sure that you are not enabling an elephant camp and trainers that treat their elephants poorly. Pamper a Pachyderm at Elephant Nature Park is all about showing the elephants love.  No riding.  No circus acts.  The elephants get to eat and roam and swim and do whatever they like to do.  And for us, it was an amazing experience.  We didn’t need to ride them or watch them do stunts to be able to enjoy time with them and appreciate their beauty.

The elephants are free to roam and are extremely comfortable around people, so upon arrival to the camp and walking over to the orientation shelter, one of the elephants headed straight for us.  Seeing one of these giant beasts heading in your direction when you are not prepared is quite intimidating!  Luckily, they started off our trip with a sort of meet-and-greet with our four elephants and got them all behind a wooden fence.  From this position, we were able to introduce ourselves to the elephants and feed them.  Once you feed an elephant, you become a friend. You also get a feel for each animal’s personality.  The younger elephants can be more energetic, while the older ones are more laid back.  Each elephant ate an entire basket full of watermelons and cucumbers. This is the first step in bonding with them.  You can see from the pics that we were a bit nervous and kept our distance in the beginning.

After our initial meet-and-greet, the trainers let the elephants wander into the jungle.  After getting our belongings prepared for a hike, we met them in an open field in the valley with our “candy” bags.  The trainers gave each of us a bag of bananas to continue to make friends with our elephants.  At this point, we started to get a bit braver and closer to them in the natural jungle setting.

The elephants quickly catch on to what’s in the bag. Once you start feeding them, they will follow you around “asking” for more.

You also have to be careful and aware of your surroundings at all times. Although elephants weigh tons, they are surprisingly quiet when they walk and can sneak up on you.  I was feeding one of the elephants some bananas and didn’t realize another one snuck up behind me to try to get to my candy bag.

One of the other tourists on the trip snapped a couple pics as his friend motioned to me to be careful and helped me “squeeze” my way out from between an elephant sandwich.  Whew!

The next step in the journey was crossing the river.  Our extended abroad travel often means that we don’t have proper attire for everything we do.  Wading across a river in the cheap $5 flip-flops that I purchased the day before was not the easiest.  And Jimmy’s old flip flops actually broke!  But, at least our athletic shoes stayed dry for our jungle hike.

On the other side of the river was the jungle path where we got to take our elephants for a walk.  With just a few bananas, we were able to lead our elephants on a walk through the jungle.  (Maybe the mahouts helped a little) And it wasn’t like the elephants didn’t still have a mind of their own and try to wander off to get some tasty leaves from trees off the path.

When you stop to pose for pictures, you better watch your candy bag or your elephant friend will try to help himself!

We hiked up a big hill to get to our lunch spot.  They had prepared quite an elaborate spread for us considering we were hanging out with elephants in the jungle.  The views from our lunch gazebo into the valley below and the wonderful conversations with our tour companions made for a lovely afternoon break.

After lunch, we walked our elephants back along the jungle path to the river.  Normally, guests would be able to bathe the elephants and play in the water with them, but the day was actually a bit chilly.  Elephants don’t regulate temperature very well, so our guide told us that it was better for them not to bathe that day. We were a bit bummed not to play in the water with them, but we obviously wanted what was best for the elephants.  We did get to feed them another whole bucket of watermelons before we had to say goodbye.

At this point, we were off to do some river rafting to get to a different section of the elephant park. Unfortunately, we didn’t bring our camera with us because we had to worry about paddling and not falling in the river, so we didn’t get any pictures from this part of the adventure.  But, if you have been to Disney World, imagine the real life version of the Jungle Ride at the Magic Kingdom.  We saw elephants eating along the banks of the river and little wooden villages with locals fishing off the decks.  No shrunken heads in the villages though…and we didn’t get squirted with any water by the elephants, but we did get quite wet from the rapids.

At the end of our rafting adventure, we arrived at the larger section of the elephant park where there were many other elephants to visit.  We mostly stopped in here for a few minutes to see one of the new babies.

Because of the cool weather, our guide said that they were all happy and playful.  They even seemed to be performing some stunts, so we wondered if some of them used to be circus performers prior to being rescued.

We were sad to say goodbye to all the elephants, but we all agreed that this was definitely one of those experiences of a lifetime.  Our trip to Thailand was officially complete with the elephants, jungles, and waterfalls being the icing on the cake.