Blog: Elephants

For our second day in Chiang Mai, we went to the Chiang Dao elephant camp. This was definitely on the touristy side, but also a lot of fun. Each elephant has a mahout, or trainer, who works with the same elephant starting when the mahout and the elephant are both very young.

The day begins with an elephant show, where the mahouts demonstrate how elephents can push, pull, roll, and lift huge logs, which was how construction materials were transported and manipulated before trucks and forklifts. They also show off various tricks, such as starting the show with one elephant raising the flag on the flagpole, having the elephants pick up the mahout's hats off the ground and place them on their heads, and doing "elephant paintings" where the mahout holds a paintbrush in the elephant's trunk and the elephant waves it up and down or makes dots. These elephants are certainly being used for our entertainment, though at least according to our guide, this is a relatively good life for elephants since they only work a couple hours a day.

After the show, we rode the elephants along the river valley to the Lisu village of the mahouts. We sat on a bench affixed to the top of the elephant, and as the elephant walks, it moves up and down in rhythm with the elephant's muscles. It's a weird sensation, though eventually you get somewhat used to it. The village was disappointing, as we couldn't see any real houses or real village activities, just a clearing surrounded by shacks full of elephant-related products for sale.

Upon returning to the elephant camp, we had an unremarkable lunch amid loud and somewhat obnoxious Australian middle-aged tourists, we embarked on a very peaceful, serene raft ride down the river. It's almost completely quiet with only the sound of the raft operator's pole occasionally breaking the silence. At one point a group of elephants and mahouts crossed the river in front of us. This being Thailand, though, no place is safe from people trying to sell you things, as near the end of our journey, we passed a group of people in brightly colored costumes who stand in the middle of the river to try to sell knick-knacks to the tourists as they pass.

We ended the day at an orchid and butterfly farm (mostly another tourist trap not unlike the coconut farm, though I ended up with some great butterfly pictures nonetheless).