Elephant Camp in Thailand

While visiting Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, Shelagh Wynne and I spent a day at an Elephant Camp. We took a song tao, basically a red pick up truck with an enclosure on the back with two lengthwise benches ("song" means two and evidently "tao" means seats) up into the hills, which was an experience in itself.

The first event we attended was the elephant show, where the big beasts did lots of tricks, stacked wood, played soccer and basketball, danced and did lots of great tricks. The grand finale was the most amazing. They brought out their paint boxes, which they carried in with their trunks walked up their assigned easels and began to paint with brushes in their trunks. At first it looked like a lot of lines on the paper, but as the work progressed, it was obvious that these were becoming real pictures. Most of them painted flowers, but one elephant painted a picture of an elephant, which I think is quite extraordinary. Who ever would have thought that elephants could be arty?

Then we stocked up on bananas and sugar cane to feed the elephant we would ride, climbed the stairs to a raised platform and climbed into the wooden box on the elephant's back, the mahout came up to his place at the back of the elephant's neck as the elephant lifted him with his trunk and we were off. We started off downhill, forded a river and went uphill on the other side. This is not a ride for anyone who gets seasick, because with each step of the elephant you sway back and forth. It was fun, but if I were to do this on a long trip (Shelagh has elderly friends there, who went into Burma by elephant many years ago and it took them two months!) I would want much more padded seating.

After riding the elephant for about an hour we dismounted on another raised platform, and walked through the stalls of handicrafts made by the hill people, who greet dismounting passenger. Since they are all in traditional native dress, I felt as though I were in the middle of an article in National Geographic.

Next we got into a cart drawn by two white oxen, with a large sun umbrella over it, and rode through neatly cultivated fields to lunch. The oxcart is much less uncomfortable than the elephant's back.

After lunch we went down to the river and got onto a bamboo raft to float down the river. It was more of a "Crusing Down the River" kind of adventure than a Huck Finn kind of enterprise. In fact, it is one of the most relaxing things that anyone can do. Imagine floating down a smoothly flowing shallow river with tropical foliage and an occasional elephant on both river banks. We couldn't see the birds whose songs we heard but we did see a profusion of brilliantly colored butterflies flitting through the reeds along the banks. In case anyone was thirsty, a man in a boat paddled out to sell drinks. Shelagh and I had a coconut apiece, which he opened with a machete and inserted a straw. After finishing the drink, we scooped out the coconut flesh and ate it.

Shelagh mentioned that it would take a couple of months to go from there to Bangkok by elephant but only a couple of weeks to go by raft. Even without the time factor, for sheer comfort and pleasure I'd choose to go by bamboo raft!