Playing with Elephants & Relaxing at the Spa: My Favorite Day of the Trip

Today was the day that I was most excited about during this entire trip!  When I first tried to sell Will on our Thailand trip, I explained that the appeal of Thailand was that it had three distinct experiences.  Bangkok: urban city fun, Phuket: island hopping and beach relaxation, and Chiang Mai: nature love and elephant fun!  Now I've been to all three cities before and I have done my share of animal/nature excursions so I was excited to share those with Will but upon initial research, I realized that I was in a different place then when I went to Thailand 13 years ago.  When I came to Chiang Mai last time, I came with my dad and was on a pre-arranged tour where activities included elephant trekking (riding) in the jungle, cuddling baby tigers (yes, this is a legit thing), and playing with monkeys dressed in basketball jerseys.  However, now that times are changed and I'm older and able to take charge of my own itinerary, it is important to me to be a responsible and ethical tourists.  Therefore, I did a lot of research on the ethics of all of this ecotourism.  If you do this research, you'll be horrified.  You'll realize that the conditions of these elephants is awful, they train them through a heartbreaking procedure called Phajaan (where they take baby elephants away from their mothers and torture them to break their spirit), and that they have to drug the tigers to sedate them just so you can bottlefeed (or overfeed) baby tigers who poorly taken care of.  Now to be fair, it is easy to have a "don't be mean to animals" mindset when you only look at things from a Western lens.  America doesn't have this issue since we don't have many wild dangerous animals roaming around since we've already destructed their natural habitats long ago.  The Thai government used to allow elephants for logging but has since outlawed it (which is a good thing) but has not provided resources for them and so they have become repurposed for tourism.  I don't think using tourism to provide for these animals is necessarily a bad thing but it definitely needs to be done in an ethical way.  Now, that I'm off my soapbox, I can tell you that we passed on the "tiger temple" but did get to enjoy the beautiful elephants at an awesome rescue where we just got to hang with them and feed them and bathe them.  There are definitely elephant parks that rehabilitate rescued elephants and have ethical experiences.  No rides and no performing tricks. If you ever go to Asia, please make sure to support these organizations. It was an awesome day.


 It was a full day that began with getting up early and getting picked up in the lobby by the Elephant Park.  In the van were the other 10 people who we'd be spending the day with.  We started our way to the elephant park which was about an hour away from Chiang Mai but first made a stop at the Elephant Poo Poo Paper Park.  Hahaha!  That was not a stop I knew we were making but it was actually pretty fun.  It was a super nice facility started by a Thai woman and a Canadian man who wanted to find a way to reuse the massive amounts of elephant poop that was being created every day at all of the local elephant parks.  Anyways, they figured out they could turn it into paper (since elephants are vegetarians, it's actually really clean, non-smelling fibers that are great for paper).  The facility showed all of the steps to making poop paper and even let us get our hands dirty and help in the entire process to making some!  It was pretty fun!  At the end, they sell all kinds of journals, notebooks, and souvenirs made out of the poop paper.

 

 

 

 

 

From there, we went to the Baan Chang Elephant Park.  They have opportunities where you can volunteer long term but we went for the "elephant friend for the day" program.  On the way there it was pouring but luckily, it stopped right as we were arriving!  It made for a bit of a muddy day but at least it was lush and green and not raining! 

Upon getting there, they gave us a uniform to wear.  We were told it was because we were going to get dirty and they were right!  We spent the next couple of hours meeting our elephants, feeding them (because they eat A LOT... like a ridiculous amount since all they do is eat and the only sleep for 4 hours a day), going on a walk through the jungle with them (but not riding them), and then giving them a bath.  We even had a picnic lunch out in the jungle about half way through the day.  It was so fun!  The elephants were so freaking cute and it was so nice just seeing them hang out in nature.  I LOVED it.

lots of elephant snacks: bananas and sugar cane

 

 

rolling in the mud to keep cool

someone has an itch

 

 

After bathing the elephants (in natural, but filthy water), we were pretty disgusting.  Will didn't get in the bathing water but either way, we were both muddy from slipping in the mud and it was time for a shower.  They had shower facilities at the elephant park so we showered there but we were in for a much more thorough cleaning.

After getting dropped off at our hotel, we had another ride waiting for us!  We had a much needed appointment at Kiyora Spa and their driver had come to pick us up and whisk us away to their beautiful spa.  While the cheap, casual foot massages all over the street are awesome, we wanted to splurge on a more fancy experience.  It was still so affordable compared to the United States!

Upon getting there, we were greeted with some pandan tea and went over our 2 1/2 hour package and choose specific scents and oils we wanted for our treatments.  We started with a kaffir lime foot bath.  Then we undressed (except for disposable underwear which was the same for both me and Will- which was quite comical), and got a full body scrub with a citrus-coconut exfoliant.  After that, we were basically covered in a mud mask before being wrapped up in a cocoon that allowed the mud to settle.  I might have dozed off because when I woke up that cold mud was suddenly pretty hot in my burrito wrapped cocoon.  Luckily, the second I started to think "gee, it's getting hot in here," it was time to get unwrapped.  We showered and then were given an hour long hot oil lavender aromatherapy massage.  It was seriously awesome.  I felt so clean and relaxed and tired. :)  And when we were done, they had mango sticky rice waiting for us.  This was perfect because now I was starving!

After the spa treatment, we asked the driver to drop us off at a restaurant we had passed the other day instead of our hotel.  It was a really beautiful restaurant that mirrored the traditional Thai architecture of the teak open floor plans.  It was appropriately named The River Market as it was right on the river.  Being right on the river, it was a hot bed for mosquitos but luckily the restaurant had bug spray.  After that, we were all ready for a delicious dinner.  Dinner was delicious and was the perfect way to end a really long day!

After dinner, we made a quick stop at the Night Bazaar since it was right near our hotel.  We bought a few souvenirs and then went back to the hotel and went right to sleep!