Riding the Elephants

One thing we really wanted to do while in Chiang Mai was ride the elephants. The first time we were in Thailand we came across an elephant just walking down the street and got to feed him some sugarcane. It was so amazing and the kids loved it (Sydney was only 1 at the time) and being that close to such a huge animal was so cool, defiantly peaked my interest in going for a ride if we ever made it back to Thailand.
So we did it. We drove up into the mountains to an elephant park (they have numerous) and bought ourselves an hour ride in the jungle. Our elephant was so HUGE. I'm sure he was the tallest, and he was fast. We were going to go with a few other elephants including the one the kids were on with nana and papa but no one could keep up with us. It worked out nicely, kind of like our own personal tour. It was really pretty where we were. Part of the trek was through the river with this amazing green jungle to the sides and then our elephant climbed up this steep hill with his giant feet while we swayed side to side on the top. Madison wasn't shouting for joy but she wasn't crying either, and she seemed to warm up.

After our ride was done we took these Ox carts back to where our driver was waiting for us with the van. It was kind of cool and I think that the kids really like it. Sydney was brave enough to hop into the front and take the reins for a while and Brayden was happy enough to stay where he was. After arriving back at our initial destination we spend a little time checking out a few of the elephants they had in the main arrival area. The kids seemed to really enjoy the little baby elephant who kept sticking it's trunk out to feel them. At one point one of the large elephants came over to give my mom a big wet snotty kiss right on her head and then took a hat from the trainer and placed it properly on my mom's head. It was really neat.

It ended up being a great morning and as we loaded up into the van onto our next pit spot we all just sat back taking in what we just did, the excitement, the beauty and the amazement. It really was a lot of fun.