Thailand or Bust (Day 7)

May 28th (Thursday)
Temperature High: 93 degrees

Today is a very exciting day. We have booked a tour with Blue Elephant Tours. It was one of two trips that we planned ahead of time before leaving on the trip. When we booked the trip all we knew was that we would ride,bath and care for elephants, see a waterfall and go to Doi Suthep Temple. 

At 6am, our tour guide, Achara, picked us up and loaded us into the car we would spend the day in. We learned pretty quickly that it was just the 4 of us on a personal tour for the day! We were all ready excited and couldn't wait to get the day started. 

Our first stop was a market way out of the city. Many of the vendors had not even opened yet but this is where was would spend some time walking around while Achara taught us what direct things were and how the market worked. She gave us some time to walk around and showed us a coffee shop to hang out while she took care of getting us breakfast.

As we got in the car to continue to drive we learned a new phrase that we can't stop laughing at. When asked about going to the restroom, Achara asked, "Do you have to go heavy or light?" we all stopped, thought for a half a second and all just laughed.

Achara's car could only take us so far before we had to switch over to a more all terrain vehicle. We stopped at a house/gas station to make the switch.

A Thailand Gas Station

Vehicle #2

 The ride to the elephants was pretty amazing. We were in the middle of no where in a beautiful rainforest area. The Makha Elephant Village was pretty surreal. They keep 4 female elephants that they care for and one of them had recently had a baby elephant that we were able to see. It was fascinating to learn about the elephants and just watch them while we sat and ate breakfast that Achara got for us at the market.

Inside our ride to the elephant village

The final walk over the bridge to the elephant village

THE ELEPHANT VILLAGE!

Breakfast

I was a little nervous about breakfast, not sure what we were getting and offending Achara but it was SO GOOD!! We all loved it. As we ate breakfast, we just watched the elephant and watched in amazement at there size.

After breakfast, we had to change into our mahout outfits to spend the rest of the morning with the elephants.

The next 45 minutes or so, we hopped on the elephants and went out for a hike through the rainforest. It was beautiful and frightening as we rode bareback on the necks of these massive animals. It was crazy to rub the top of the elephants head with all her little hairs and hang on to nothing as they bend over to grab tree limbs, leaves and dirt.

After our hike through the rain forest, we hopped off our elephants and spent sometime feeding them. Their tongue and trunks were kind of slimy but it was so wild to feel the trunk wrapped around you arm. It was a very surreal feeling.

When snack time was over, we took them over to a little valley of water and helped bath them. The water definitely cools them off after hiking in the heat so we just helped pour water on them. We could not stop laughing when one of the elephants rolled over onto her side and started pooing in the water. There were these big turds just floating in the water around us. Our mahout just picked it up and throw it on to the bank to get it out of our way.

See the floaters?

Jed laughing his head off & the manhout throwing poop.

Before we changed and moved on to our next destination for the day, we took some great photos with the elephants back on dry land.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip

After our time with the elephants, it was time to go for a hike and check out Mork Fa Waterfall. It was a very easy hike and we enjoy all the nature during our walk.

The waterfall was beautiful and we had a great time hanging out in and around the falls. It was so crazy to be the only ones everywhere we went!

After our time at the waterfall, it was time to go to lunch at the Tiger Kingdom. Lunch today was at the buffet here and we had time if we wanted to go hang out with the tigers. Leading up to this part of our trip, we had decided not to pay the extra to hang out with the tigers but once you got in there and realized what hanging out with the tigers really was, we had to do it!

So we got our tickets, at lunch and waited and waited for our turn with the tigers.

Once our numbers were called we were allowed to go hang out with the 5 month old tigers first. They were super cute. There was one tiger for the four of us to hang out with, pet and take picture with for about 20 minutes. 

After our time with the 5 month old tiger, we walked over to the 3 month old tigers. They were such relaxed animals and we had a great time spending time with the little ones.

Our last stop were the large tigers. These tigers were up and about a little more and playful. They really were like really large house cats in many ways.

I love the spots on the back of their ears.

It was really surreal to have had that opportunity to do that and we were only cloud nine for days after the experience.

The two main questions we got asked were:
1. Were they sedated/drugged?
2. Were you scared?

They continued to reiterate that these tigers were not sedated or drugged. Due to many circumstances, the animals are being raised in captivity and are used to being around people. And much like house cats, they are just lazy and sleep a lot. But they are clearly wild animals as we watched one of the large tigers hunt prey in the form of one of the smaller workers while we were there! And secondly, no, we were never scared. It actually never crossed our minds to be scared. There was so much excitement that we forgot to be scared.

Clearly on a high, we headed out to our next to last stop for the day, Bai Orchid & Butterfly farm. It was a little on the touristy side but it was very interesting to see different kinds of orchids we had never seen and hang out with some butterflies.

Our last stop was Doi Suthep Temple. It is a beautiful temple on the top of a mountain. According to legend, the temple was built in that location when the king ordered a relic was placed on the back of a white elephant and released into the jungle. The elephant is said to have climbed up the mountain, Doi Suthep, stop, trumpet three times, and then dropped dead. This was interpreted as an omen so the king ordered the temple to be built on the site.

Replica of the white elephant that chose the location

The best part of the temple was getting to the top. You have to climb 309 steps to get to the top. I was very excited to have the "pilgrimage experience" of walked all the steps to the top. Achara tried every way possible to convince us to take the tram to the top.

We left the temple as the monk's were headed in for there evening worship/chanting. I was a little sorry to miss it but it was time for us to end our time with Achara. She was the best guide for the day and we had a great time with her.

After parting ways, we got cleaned up and headed out for a late dinner at The Whole Earth Restaurant. It was Indian/Thai food. The atmosphere was incredible and we sat for hours reliving all the things we had done that day. It was a great way to end the night.

 

Pineapple fried rice! So good!