23 and 24 November. A day with elephants

On Friday morning we set off early to an Elephant Sanctuary. This is an elephant rescue center that takes care of abused or abandoned elephants and gives them a new and good life. Beforehand, we made sure that the offer we wanted to use was a good place for elephants. It is first important that the elephants are not ridden, as this is simply against their natural anatomy and painful. In addition, the animals should not be forced to do anything, for example, perform tricks.
When we arrived, an elephant was already waiting for us and we started feeding it. It didn't take long and four more elephants came trotting, as they apparently smelled the good food and also wanted some. Elephants also need to spend a lot of time eating during the day, as they need about ten percent of their body weight to be healthy. Since elephants can weigh upwards of two tons, that's at least 200 kilograms of food per day from a light diet like grass, which is why the amount of food is very large. It was great to see how intelligent these animals are while eating. For example, they stood on the ends of long stable grasses and folded them in half with their trunks, as it could be eaten better that way.

We put bags of bananas around our waists and instantly became the best friends of the elephants. That's why the animals followed us as we walked into the forest and often received a little treat from us along the way. Some took the opportunity to scratch themselves extensively on trees - no part of their body was left out.

When we reached the top of a small hill, we were greeted by another smaller three-year-old male elephant who had been "adopted" by a female elephant in the herd because his real mother had been lost in some way. On the hill, we were also shown herbs that we could collect and that would be good for the stomachs of the elephants.

At the moment when we wanted to continue, all the elephants suddenly left us uniformly. It was not yet clear to us why, but we continued the rest of the walk alone and ended up back at our starting point. The reason for their disappearance became apparent: a two-month-old baby elephant had been brought with its mother from a restricted area to the other elephants in the herd. In order to make the meeting safer, the mother and son were in a loosely fenced area. This ensured the safety of the little one, as he would have been in danger if the rest of the herd did not accept him. Our great local guide, who accompanied us throughout the day, quickly made it clear that we could simply enter the enclosure, and that's how we got very close to the little elephant, under the watchful eyes of its mother. We were allowed to caress it behind the ears or simply watch as it clumsily walked around. It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen in my life...

After that, we had a very delicious lunch and then had our second mud bath of the trip - but this time with elephants! At the beginning of the day, we had a lot of respect for these big and heavy animals, but that disappeared completely when we rubbed the animals covered in mud with more mud and got very close to them. We enjoyed the peace and calmness of these gentle giants. It was obvious that they also enjoyed having their thick, rough skin rubbed off by the thick and pebbly mud. Sometimes they even sprayed us cheekily with mud using their trunks, so we also had a taste of it and later emerged from the pond as muddy creatures.

Since the animals were now naturally very dirty, the herd, with us in tow, moved to a nearby river with clear water. The fun bathing continued there and it took a while for us to wash off all the mud with small bucketfuls of river water. It gave me so much joy to be so close to the animals, full of trust, and never feeling afraid, while it was good to see how comfortable the animals felt. Of course, this couldn't go on indefinitely, so at some point the elephants trotted back to their pasture to continue consuming ten percent of their body weight.

(Please check back in a moment for the remaining photos of the mud bath and river, as the guide took them but hasn't sent them yet...)

In the meantime, we changed clothes and then had an hour of free time that we could spend on the premises. Of course, we also visited the smallest elephant, who by now seemed exhausted from the excitement of its first day with the "big ones". Sometimes when you sat down on the ground, this little creature would trot over to you and lie down next to you. Its little trunk was unbelievably delicate and still so soft that it reminded me a little of the hands of a newborn baby.

The time passed too quickly, and it was time to head back. Back in the city, we then visited one of the last events of the Lantern Festival: a parade that strongly resembled a carnival procession. Every university, school, and many companies had prepared a float with Buddhist symbols, accompanied by many dancers and musicians.

Thai carnival procession

Later in the evening, we set our floating lanterns, which we had made the day before, on the water and watched as they joined the flow of the river and the other lanterns, illuminating the dark river a little bit.

After that, we went home tired. It was late again and we met many people on the trip whom we had already seen before and talked to for a long time. This was the end of the great Lantern Festival that we will remember and cherish for a long time.

The following Saturday was dedicated to traveling further to Pai and relaxing a bit. That's why, after a good night's sleep, we walked around Chiang Mai a bit, visited one last temple, and strolled around a large market.

After that, Andra went off to check out a few stores while I settled in a café. This was not a normal café, but a cat café! It was small, but very cozy, and there were four cats wandering around. In the back, there was even a basket with three two-week-old kitten, sometimes sleeping, sometimes playing, and sometimes being fed by me with a bottle. What a nice way to end our time in Chiang Mai.

At 5 o'clock, we took a van with 762 curves - I didn't bother to count, someone else did - to Pai, where it was surprisingly cold, especially considering that we came from the 30-degree heat of Chiang Mai. We stay here in an open bungalow, similar to the one on Koh Rong Samloem Island, with a great view of the mountain landscape of Pai.