Chiang Mai, North Thailand October 29-November 2, 2008 Part 2

Our second day in Chiang Mai was booked with the Patara Elephant Farm where we signed up for the "elephant trainer for one day". Check out their website at: www.Pataraelephantfarm.com. We were picked up at our hotel early in the morning and with four others (a young couple from Australia and two university professors from the US), headed about 45 km., south-west to the farm, which was really just some open rice paddy fields alongside a rocky bed stream. We wore "mahout" (elephant trainer) woven vests over our tops so the elephants would feel comfortable with us (I needed something more than a vest to make ME feel comfortable with my elephant, Neem, who was just a baby at age seven!) First we hiked through the fields (watching for snakes...) to meet the elephants and feed them a basket of bananas. Did you know that elephants have THREE sets of teeth?!? We were taught basic commands in Thai, most of which I have now forgotten! "Bon" means open mouth (when feeding). We were shown how to mount and descend the elephant and how to sit properly high up on his head (no saddle, mind you!), hanging on with our knees just behind his ears. Then we had to bathe them in the stream before we set out on our 90 minute bare-back ride through the jungle, up some very steep hills and along the road to our lunch spot. We were all glad of the break and a chance to stretch our legs for an hour or so. Lunch consisted of various glutinous rice and fruit dishes with a little spicy meat, set out on banana leaves on the rocks by a pretty waterfall, leftovers went to our elephants! On the way back to the fields, it poured rain, which didn't really matter as it was warm rain and we were already pretty wet and dirty anyway! The return trip was short, mostly along the road, and back in the fields, we fed our elephants more bananas and I won the award from the group for the best sport! Below are some highlights of our day, starting with Pat talking to our guide and one of the Americans. We're glad we had the chance to do this and to see how revered the elephant is in Thailand, however we were pretty sore and stiff for the next couple of days (Jen warned us about this), not to mention the funny red and VERY itchy spots we had in many places on our knees and legs! This continued for several weeks and we finally decided they had to be either fleas or mites from behind the elephants' ears (and we were wearing pants!). An interesting experience, to be sure!

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