Elephants and fishies

All the days are starting to blend together. We are definitely filling every day with a lot of Thai adventure. Today was a day that we really looked forward to, elephants. 

Our guide took us into the mountains/jungle of Chiang Mai to go to an elephant camp. We made it very clear to our travel agent that we did not want to see elephants trained to do rediculous things and unfortunately that did not happen. We arrived at the camp and got to feed the elephants bananas and sugar canes. There were some big elephants with tusks and small elephants. We got to pet them and quickly saw how loving they were. There were two elephants that we around ten years old that had to be next to each other, holding their tales and playing the entire time. Soooo cute. Each elephant had their own handler, called a mahoot, and we could also see they had a great bond.  After feeding the elephants we watched the mahoot bathe them in the river. So far the experience was wonderful. The next part we really didn't love. We watched the elephants do tricks, pick up trash, carry the mahoot's hats, and even paint a painting. It was really sad to see the elephants being forced to do these silly things (and sadder to think of them being trained to do them) and kind of soured our elephant experience. I suppose our silver lining is now there is a reason to come back, to see elephants in a natural setting at the conservatory. 

After the elephants we took a slow bamboo raft down the river and then headed to lunch in a very small town.  Our next stop was something we will never forget. We visited a small village of displaced mountain people from the Burmese border. There is some conflict between Burma and Thailand due to drugs. A couple of years ago the Thai army slashed and burned the Forrest and discovered they had destroyed these peoples homes. So the Thai gave them some land and set up a minimal water system to start a new life. We were told that these people were happy to be in Thailand, but it was kind of hard to believe. We have never seen people living like this and there were really no words to describe. We will post pictures soon enough to you can see for yourself. 

We left the mountains of Chiang Mai, stopped at a market, and headed back to our hotel. We experienced our first sudden down pour and decided to relax in our room. After the rain cleared we took the "took took", their motor taxis, to a restaurant on the river for dinner. Then we headed back to our haven, The Night Bazaar, and purchased more fun items. 

On our way back to the hotel we walked by a fish spa and had to try it out. For three whole dollars for thirty minutes we were fortunate enough to stick our feet into fish tanks and have little special fish eat our dead skin cells. We are thinking of opening one of these shops in Boulder. Does anyone want to invest?  What a crazy experience!!!!!!!

The beaches tomorrow......