Elephant Nature Park

This weekend we visited the Elephant Nature Park in Mae Taeng District. It was an incredible experience! The Elephant Nature Park is a conservation park that rehabilitates elephants who have been abused or disabled. The elephants roam freely inside the park and can choose to do whatever activities they would like. All the elephants do have a mahout near them at all times, though, to make sure everyone is safe.

Our amazing day started with a walk through the park and meeting several of the elephant "families". Most of these families aren't biologically related, but they have chosen to live together as a herd. Then we fed an elephant a snack of watermelon, corn, squash, and cucumber. The kids loved it!

 

After lunch, we gave an elephant a bath! Since many of the elephants are disabled, they aren't able to go into the river on their own for a bath. It was a much muddier experience than we were anticipating, but still unbelievable!

It was such a great day observing the elephants and getting to interact with them. If you're ever in northern Thailand, this is a must-see!

This is the park's oldest elephant---she's 90!

Chiang Rai

Last Friday was a national holiday in Thailand, so I had the day off. We decided to use the opportunity to visit the neighboring province, Chiang Rai. It was beautiful and we had a great time! Here’s an overview of our trip:

Friday

We headed up Friday morning and ate a delicious lunch at Charin Garden Restaurant. It was suggested to us by one of my co-workers because they have homemade pie! Desserts like cake and pie are not very common here, so we were thrilled to eat some authentic pie. We even contemplated coming back on our way home. :)

After lunch we went to the White Temple (Wat Rong Khun). E has been looking forward to visiting here because it looks like something out of Frozen! It’s a relatively new temple with some contemporary paintings on the interior (e.g. Spiderman, a minion, George W. Bush, etc.).

Later that afternoon we went to Chiang Rai (the city). We stayed at a lovely guesthouse within walking distance of downtown. We ate a delicious dinner at Destiny Cafe (supports Destiny Rescue) and watched the clock tower show. In the evenings, at the top of every hour, the clock tower has a light show which ends with a lotus flower opening to reveal a golden treasure. The kids loved it!

Saturday

Saturday morning we drove up to the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet. The Mekong River separates the three countries. We took a river boat cruise along the Mekong to get a closer view of Myanmar, then stopped in Laos to do check out the local market. That made Laos the official second foreign country that our kids have visited!

Sunday

We spent Sunday at Singha Park, in the southern part of Chiang Rai Province. This park has over 3,400 acres, including fields, orchards, a tea plantation, zip lining, rock walls, restaurants, and animals. Unfortunately, it rained all day, so we didn’t get to see as much as we had hoped. Despite the rain, it was still a beautiful visit. We look forward to going back on a sunny day!