Elephant camp in Chiang Mai

I had one aim for Chiang Mai, and that was to see the elephants. So after a few hours researching elephant camps in Siem Reap i found Ran-Tong elephant rescue centre. I knew i didn't want to ride an elephant with a basket or go to a place where the mahouts use sharp spears so i was happy to spend £80 on elephants at Ran-tong so we could ride bare back. I will also admit that i didn't really discuss my elephant plan with Cj so he did end up With 2 very un-manly days on the itinerary. 

The journey to get to Chiang Mai was long and involved an 8hour bus from Cambodia, a dodgy walk across the border from Poi pot to Thailand (Cambodian beggars were literally grabbing my ankle to get money as we walked to the Thai immigration office) and a 15 hour night train from bangkok to our final destination. We arrived at our £3 a night hostel Teeraya boutique, which had a pool, the next morning. As nice as the pool looked, as soon as we got in it we realised it wasn't very clean, the hostel was nice though and we managed to bag a free upgrade from a dorm room to a private room with a balcony and a free nights stay, all due to Cj writing the wrong room number on his elephant form and confusing the receptionist by taking up beds in the dorm room. Pretty good tactic in the end.

Our first day at elephant camp was a half day ride on Ku moon, which was the elephant given to us for the trek. She was 18 years old and the staff were trying to match- make her with a male in the hope that she will get pregnant at any time. Therefor she was uber confident and always wanted to be at the front of the trek, leading the other elephants the way. the mahouts taught us some elephant commands, how to climb onto the elephants and how to look after them. 

The commands (sound like):

Pi- Go

Sur- left

Qua- right

Hull- Stop

Milong- lie down

The chinese pair who were on the trek too  loved the 'go' command and all we could hear the whole way on the trek was  'Pi, pi, pi, pi' which sounded just like the seagulls from Nemo. 

After feeding all the elephants several bananas we trekked on Ku moon around the camp then went into the pool to bathe her. Ku moon seemed to prefer to sit and roll throwing Cj straight off her back into the mud bath. So, whilst everyone else was just wet up to their waist, Cj was drenched head under.

Our second day at camp involved the baby elephant Tun di who is 1 and a half. I signed us up to the full day baby program. We learnt how to make Tun di's baby food and feed her. She was so cute. In the afternoon we got to join the elephant trek and ride Ku moon again. 

After our adventurous 2 days with the elephants we had another day left in Chiang mai. We did a bit of exploring taking a look at night bazaar and visiting a very cool market with many things for me to buy. 

We departed Chiang Mai after 4 days by bus to the border to then head into Loas. I wanted more time in Chiang Mai as i would have liked to see the hill tribes and maybe visit Pai, so i definitely want to come back here.