Well, back to our story.... that guy was indeed at the hotel at 8:30am sharp. Sounds like a good start :) He took us out of the city, and after about an hour or so we
arrived at the Mae Tang Elephant Park. We just got to buy a ticket for the complete package, including feeding elephants, an elephant show, elephant ride, an ox-cart ride, lunch, and bamboo rafting.First we could buy some sugar cane and bananas to feed the elephants. It was actually quite funny to watch Neil, because he wasn't too sure about these large animals. He found their trunks a bit snotty and smelly. And they are much more hairy and the skin is much thicker and ro
ugher than it looks like...;-) But he did well, and after a short while I took turn. Second, the whole herd was led to the riv
er for their daily morning bath. It seemed as if the animals enjoyed this routine, playing around in the water. Then they had an elephant show, which was the part I was a bit uneasy about. But for most of the time it didn't seem too bad, and the tasks the elephants were performing
didn't seem to stressful. What amazed us were two elephants who were painting pictures. Using paint brushes with their trunks they drew paintings of a tree and some flowers. One even signed its painting with its name. Had you shown me the painting before, I would have said "right, they asked some kids in the village to draw the pictures and then sell them as done by elephants...". But we SAW how the elephants did it (see photos)!After the show we were led to the "docking station" to climb onto the elephants and have a ride. We expected a short stroll around the area there, but
the ride took quite a while, crossing the river a couple of times,
climbing quite a steep hill etc. Every few hundred meters they stopped at a place where we were supposed to buy additional bananas and sugar cane for "our" elephant - call it a fuel stop - money making everywhere!Overall, the elephants seemed to be taken good care of. In fact, the guidebook I had explained that these elephants are quite lucky: They used to be working elephants in the logging industry, but after the governement banned all logging these animals became litera
lly unemployed and thus redundant. A few elephant camps were established around Chiang Mai with a focus on tourism. Mae Tang is one of them...After the ride we were transferred onto an ox-cart for a ride down the hill to the restaurant. You should try and steer two stubborn oxes - they tend to always favour the right hand ditch.... We were fed a surprisingly nice lunch, before we departed on the last part of this packag
e: On bamboo rafts we were floating down the river for a bit more than an hour. It was actually a beautiful and tranquil ride in very shallow water. A few small rapids brought about some excitement, but most of the time it was 
very calm. Half way down the river, suddenly a few women disappeared in the middle of the stream, in the water to their hips, and pushing some sort of floating mini-mart in front of them. You could buy ice cold beer and soft drinks. Again, money is being made everywhere.Overall, this whole package was actually quite nice and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Without having proof for it, I would say that the whole thing was run by a small community. It seemed that nobody got a salary, but everybody in the village was just working for this venture. A bit upstream they were in the progress of building what appeared to be a new resort with bunglows to provide accommodation on site, and not being depende
nt on the daily trips from Chiang Mai...Our guide picked us up at the en
d of the rafting experience and then drove us to a snake farm. We went in, and immediately thought that it is a grotty, dirty, sad place. Animals (snakes and others) were living there in very poor conditions. Worst was the so-called show, where two "very brave" guys handled a few snakes, including some cobras and pythons. Their idea of entertainment was throwing the snakes around, teasing them, frightening them, putting them in to their mouth, etc. In sh
ort: Disgusting! We didn't want to stay any longer and left very quickly to get onto the last part of this day trip: A monkey place! This place was actually quite funny, and it was amazing what the monkeys did. They were almost human. As soon as they got close to you, they came and cuddled, played, and jok
ed around - just like kids. Hopping onto Neil's and my head, this particular individual started searching for fleas immediately - in vain I must stress! The poor guy on the picture was called "Dech" - I'll leave it to your imagination how the Thais pronounced his name...Overall, quite a good day, with my usual bad conscience whenever I look at animals in captivity. Apart from the snake farm, however, it looked as if it was at least acceptable, and not overly cruel.
This was our last day in Chiang Mai. Next day we took an early fligh
t to Phuket, probably the most
known tourist mecca in Thailand. But that is another story, and will be told in my next blog...
