Trip with Jen Smile we are in Thailand!

Elephant ride- Billy and Suk

USA | Saturday, 27 August 2011 | Views [386]

Our second day in Chiang Mai began when we met our private tour guide and private driver to begin our elephant training camp plus tour that the hotel arranged for us. Our guide's name was Tom, and he was fantastic sharing lots of facts and information about Chiang Mai on our drive to the Maesa elephant camp. On the way to the camp we stopped at a orchid farm. I have never seen so many kinds of orchids in one spot. The climate in Thailand us perfect for them and you see them in the wild. Our next stop was the elephant camp. When we arrived the first thing we saw was the elephants in the river bathing. They looked like they were having a good time, and one was having a great time squirting the visitors with water. Our guide took a of Jen and I standing in front of two elephants with their mahouts. The elephants wrapped their trunks around me for s big hug and one mahout had his elephant take his hat, place it on Jen's head and tap it down a few times. She had no idea this was going on and was quite surprised. Our guide captured this in a series of photos that are priceless. We the proceeded to the elephant to the elephant show where the elephants played soccer, painted pictures, danced,... It is amazing what their mahouts have trained the to do. The paintings were amazing. Apparently for those elephants that can be trained to paint they are taught how to do one to three different paintings. The paintings were quite impressive. After the show we proceeded to the highlight of the day which was an elephant ride, Our elephant's name was Billy and his mahout's name was Suk. Suk and Billy spend every day together. Billy is 37 years old. The ride was magical. We went up into the mountain into the tropical forest and trekked across a river. The elephants truly seem well taken care of, and Suk and Billy have a very good relationship. At one point during then ride, Suk got down and took our camera to take pictures he was off Billy for about 5 minutes and gave Billy verbal instructions to keep on the trail and get him to pose for the pictures. After the elephant ride we headed back to town but stopped first at a store that carried handcrafted items.
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Tags: elephant ride