Our Great Adventure: Day 81 8/12/2014

We didn't need to have any concerns over our booking - the minivan picked us up just before 8am to head off to the Elephant Home. We were joined by two young American girls also staying at the Rainforest. They're on holiday here after completing a 6 weeks exchange programme at a hospital in the Philippines as part of their university degree. We picked up two other Amercians before leaving Chiang Mai and the six of us headed off north. We arrived at the home after around one hour. The surrounding area is clearly a mecca for outdoor activities with bamboo rafting, white water rides, zip lining and other elephant parks. We were given an introduction to the home, the elephants, commands and our activities for the day before changing into clothes provided. We later realised why! Then we went to meet some of the elephants and with the help of huge bunches of bananas got to say hello. Next up was practicing how to get up onto the elephants. The home doesn't use baskets and we were going to be riding bare back on our trek through the jungle. It's a long way up and a long way to get your leg over an elephants neck. Their heads are surprisingly hairy with the hairs being very spiky. After a bit more practice we got to meet our elephants that we'd be with for the day and their mahouts. Simon's elephant was Mo Ke (good mother) and Diane's Meatong (mother gold). There were huge! We left the park and headed downhill before dismounting to cross a road. We then got back on this time with our mahouts to cross the river. The elephants are so graceful in their movements even when wading across deep water. From here it was uphill through the jungle for about 45 minutes heading to a black mud spa. Simon was really getting in tune with Mo Ke - chatting away to her although debatable whether she understood any of the conversation! Meatong was more interested in eating anything she could reach with her trunk. The views where lovely as we meandered along. At the spa we dismounted and some of the elephants went into the mud pool. We had lunch (pad thai, sticky rice and coconut) then scrubbed one of the elephants in the spa. In an attempt to all join in we then plastered ourselves in the black mud. Apparently it's one of only two places in Thailand where you get the black mud and it's very desirable in the beauty saloons in Bangkok. Back on our elephants we headed further along the jungle track before heading down to the river. This time we all stopped in the river to give the elephants a good scrub. Back on we set off back to the home. Luckily the home had showers and we were able to change back into our clean, dry clothes before the journey back to Chiang Mai. It was a great day and whilst the elephants are clearly in captivity it did appear that they were very well treated and certainly look in good health and participated in things that you see them do in the wild (mud baths and river washing). There is no work in logging any more for the elephants in the region and those that have survived would end up in Bangkok or the circus if it wasn't for tourists money to support the home. That said some of the elephant centres we saw didn't look as conservation focused nor did the elephants look as well looked after. Back in Chiang Mai we had a quick dip in the pool before heading in to town for dinner at a small local restaurant reminiscing of our fantastic day out and what amazing creatures the elephants are. Most of the photos from the day are on a memory stick which hopefully we'll be able to upload at a later date - the few below are the ones we managed to take.