Chiangmai Elephant Jungle Sanctuary

After my last post, the most common question I was asked was ‘how do I care for my gear in these situations?’ and so posting these images is a bit like ‘if you thought that was bad…just take a look at all the risks I took here!!’ hahahahahahaha…but, no, really. The tour guides were extremely concerned about my camera—me, not so much. I take precautions when I need to—like I don’t get as close to the action as I would like BUT…I still had two weeks of travel left after this day so I wasn’t fond of the idea of losing my gear at this point. I also wrap the strap around my wrist so that if I lose my balance or get knocked over, my camera is less likely to go flying and take a big impact.

A day at the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary in Chiangmai was a bucket list day for sure. Georgia was particularly excited as you can tell from the photos. We did the full day tour which allowed for so much time with the elephants—we fed them, we had a class learning all about them which included making them a snack(which they said was like medicine, but I’m guessing it was like a digestive medicine of some sorts), played in the mud with them, then went for a bath with them, then did a little work around the camp before we were sent on our way. I say all this because, when the elephants came out for the first time, it was quite the rush…and, I felt like maybe this would be the short bit of time we got to spend with them(because you never REALLY know), but trust me—you get lots of time with them. So, just breathe and enjoy!

So, I knew that we had a mud bath with them and, in theory, this sounded like so much fun. In action, as we stood there listening to the instructions from our guides…well, the elephants(who were already standing in the mud) took multiple giant poops. And, their poops were literally the size of a basketball(or bigger)…and our Thai guides kept picking them up(or catching them) and then tossing them over their shoulders I suppose to ‘remove’ them from the mud pile. As a mama, this had me somewhat concerned so I literally yelled at my kids as they ran into the mudbath ‘DO NOT TOUCH YOUR HANDS TO YOUR FACE OR YOUR EYES!!! KEEP YOUR MOUTH CLOSED!!’ Honestly, it doesn’t take long to just get over the poop/mud and enjoy yourself—even for me. That night we did have long, HOT showers as a precaution(I should mention that no one did get sick).

There was a baby elephant in the group who took a liking to Georgia and literally followed her around like a puppy. By the end, that elephant was getting a little aggressive(really just playful but when the elephant outweighs your child by over 500 pounds, you start to get concerned)…so we decided to avoid it at all costs. Not before getting some of my favourite photos of the trip though with Georgia and her baby elephant friend.

Enjoy!

Georgia isn’t excited about feeding the elephants at all.

A pregnant mama elephant…it was super cool to watch her baby move around in her belly.

cause even though it looks like mud…we know the real truth…

Sometimes you just have to stop and take a nap.

Khao Sok Lake Adventures -- Part Two

After I posted part one, the most commonly asked question that I got was about how I travel with my gear when we take adventurous trips. Honestly, I have insurance and I’m not emotionally attached to my gear the way that some people are…in fact, I am pretty abusive to it at times(hahahahaha—we are in an abusive relationship). It is a tool to me and if something happens to it, I just replace it. I am pretty careful—I travel with a chainmail bag that I can put my gear bag in and I lock it to the toilet in some places. It’s not going to get stolen on my watch ;) I also travel with two bodies on a big trip like this—one that I use primarily for underwater and a backup. The other that is my primary, day to day camera. I try to minimize my lenses by making choices ahead of time based on the type of travel that we are going to do. But, I also bring lots of memory cards, portable harddrives and my laptop(which is old and totally abused as well). This trip we tried to pack as minimally as possible, so my gear went in a regular backpack that we could carry on a plane. In fact, we might have split it up into two backpacks at times. And then, each person had their own backpack for their belongings. We don’t travel with suitcases typically. And, we really plan our wardrobe so that we are bringing as little as possible. Especially to a hot location like this one. In Thailand, we hired laundry services so we didn’t have to spend anytime doing our own laundry. They were a few dollars every time. I’d argue that they were a little rough on our clothing, but we don’t travel with anything too fancy, so no big deal.

I am actually a little disappointed with my work from this trip…I mean, it’s fine, but when you see it as a whole, I feel like stuff is missing and that bums me out. I think I was needing a break and got lazy at times…which is perfectly fine, but two years later, it makes me sad for the things that I didn’t capture. All of that said, the reality of a big trip like this is, I typically take thousands of photographs over the 3 week time frame. And, in the end, when the book is complete, there might be 200 that get put in the book. I have already framed a number of the images and put them up around my house, so the quantity doesn’t really matter as much as getting those shots that sum it up for you—and, that was accomplished. You know?

So, here are the rest of the photographs from Khao Sok…Enjoy!

What should I post next? The elephant adventure? hmmmmm….

Khao Sok Lake Adventures -- Thailand's Bamboo Huts Part One

I know that I am blogging Thailand completely out of order, but I have a deep fear that I will never get the whole trip blogged. Consequently, I’ve decided to blog my absolute favourites from the trip first so that they will FOR SURE make it up. This way, if someone asks me for Thailand travel tips(which happens quite often), I’ll have a place to send them for the highlights.

We had seen the photographs of this place online, but nothing prepared us for the absolute beauty of being there. We signed up through this website (the link has the exact spot we visited):

https://khaosoklake.com/travel-item/krai-son-raft-house-khao-sok-thailand/

And we did the 3 day, two night tour. It was out of this world. We heard monkeys—all sorts of monkeys—all day and night. We saw all sorts of animals and even heard an elephant(although it never came down to the water to see us…we could see the tops of the trees that it was knocking down). The food was amazing and the pace was slow. As a group of travellers, we are not good at slowing down. The idea of sitting on a beach and reading a book all day does not appeal to any of us—okay, it might appeal to Jack, but he loses out since no one else agrees. Here, with only the basics to keep us occupied, we read, we kayaked, whenever we were hot, we just jumped in the lake. It was bliss.

For anyone interested in doing this tour—we were picked up in Krabi(they arranged this with us beforehand). In a really nice, large van and brought straight to the tour office where we met our guide and walked down to the pier. It was one of the more expensive things we did while we were in Thailand, but worth every single penny. If you cannot manage the 3 days, 2 nights—do the shorter tour. I think it would be sufficient for most people. We stayed in one of the more ‘rustic’ options. They do have nicer huts if you need a little more luxury when you travel.

Hopping on our traditional boat that will be our mode of transportation for the next 3 days.

One of our guides…really, I think he was our ‘driver’ as he didn’t speak English and mostly manned the boat.

This is the beginning of our first hike(you do two hikes during your stay). They pulled up and said ‘this is the hike’ and we could not find a trailhead for the life of us. Because there wasn’t one really…you were meant to just walk right into the jungle. Yup. How badass is that?

What I really remember from this hike was how difficult it was—truly more of a scramble. We wore Keens—which are amazing sandals and closed toe as was required for this hike. But, as sandals…they allowed our feet to breathe…which we thought was super smart of us…until right after this photograph was taken and I realized that my foot was bleeding. I took off my sandal and nearly threw up because my feet were literally covered in leeches. Huge leeches. I would have taken a photograph but I was too busy being a total wuss and freaking out while being perched on a rather precarious ledge. After that…whenever we stopped we noted how quickly the teeny tiny leeches crawled towards our feet. So. Many. Leeches.

The view.

This time our hike began at the foot of a waterfall. Which was weird, but we had already experienced one of Thailand’s sticky waterfalls, so we just trusted the guide and began walking UP THE WATERFALL. It is really an incredible experience and worth doing at least once if you visit Thailand. We were lucky to visit two different sticky waterfalls.

There are so many images from this part of our trip that I have decided to split it up and will post the rest in a separate blog post…but, don’t you agree? It looks amazing!!!