Cheap food , lodging, shopping
Hot (and Humid)
In Northern Thailand
Awesome white-water rafting & jungle trekking
Night Bazzar shopping!
Going everywhere in tuk-tuks
Memories with elephants
Aroma of engine fumes (tuk tuks, songthaews, motorcycles)
Inundated with tour companies
Spent a few days in Chiang Mai, including two days on an elephant camp/jungle trek/white water (sort of brown actually) and bamboo rafting adventure. An elephant trainer is called a mahout. The “Mahout-for-a-Day” program we did at the elephant camp was a memorable experience to be sure.
The pictures tell the story:
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| Beautiful Chaing Mai in Northern Thailand |
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| Baan Chang Elephant Camp |
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| The view from where we spent the night at the camp...gorgeous |
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| This is "lemang" - sticky rice cooked inside bamboo - IT IS DELICIOUS ! |
you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemang
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| And THIS...was SO NEAT...A northern Thai tradition called, "Yi Peng" - an annual tradition during the Festival of Lights when thousands of these paper lanterns are released into the sky! |
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| This adorable little 3 yr old was one of the mahout's children - she lives there at the camp with her family |
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| The only sad part of the experience was seeing them on the chains so much of the time. You can see how they stretch against them to play with each other. So sad. I just wanted to sneak out in the middle of the night and...snip, snip, snip... |
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| Trekking and rafting (if you can call it that!) on Day 2 |
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| little friend we met on the way... |
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| Pouring rain...and yes, this was as good as it got w/ the so-called "raft" ...it was actually pretty hysterical |
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| The famous fish pedicure! |
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| Tuk-tuking in Chiang Mai - We were actually heading to a restaurant called, "When pen for breakfast. We had to smile when we said we "took a tuk-tuk to Win Pin"... |
