Doi Inthanon National Park

One of the things on my bucket list, while in Chiang Mai, was to see an elephant sanctuary. So, I booked a tour about an hour out of town to go into the Doi Inthanon National Park where the sanctuary is located.

We started off by stopping at the Maewang River and hopping on a bamboo raft for a trip down the river. The raft was narrow and felt quite unstable, but the river appeared to be slow moving and pretty shallow, so figured it likely wouldn’t drown if tossed off, even though I don’t know how to swim. (I know, I know….I need to learn how.) The river turned out to have several rapid areas so we did get wet, and the young man steering the boat thought it was quite funny to tip it back and forth. It was actually one of the favorite things that I’ve done so far. I thought to myself, “I am on a river, on a bamboo raft, in the middle of the Thai mountains. How the heck did that happen?”

We went from there to see the elephants! There were 3 adults and one baby. We were given bags full of bananas and sugar cane to feed them with. There was a moment there when I was quite worried about where the elephants trunk was sniffing around. But, it was only after the bananas in my bag. Thank goodness!

Next we stopped at one of the waterfalls. Beautiful and serene.

And, to finish off the day….here are are interesting sites. Good thing I started to squats before coming here. It’s helped me get on and off these crazy toilets without fall in or on my face!