North East UK Lifestyle Blog

Travel | Chiang Mai, Thailand – Caring for Elephants & Prison Massages?!

January 30, 2019
Elephant Jungle Sanctuary, Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai, the Northern cultural hub of Thailand. With only your remnants of walls to enclose your Old City, I did fall in love with you so…

FALLING IN LOVE WITH CHIANG MAI

I was really looking forward to heading to Chiang Mai. Not to only leave crazy ol’ Bangkok and it’s humidity behind, but because I’d heard that it was the highlight of so many trips to this country.

Although I was oozing for a beach day (from the girl who hates sand), after a short hour long flight we found ourselves skimming round the edge of Chiang Mai’s Old City, in between its old mostly knocked down walls and its still flowing moat.

Lemme tell you that I made a spreadsheet itinerary before this trip and I thought I was stickin’ to it but NOPE. We’d already decided to extend our Chaing Mai stay (before getting there!) and only do one side of the Thai Islands.

My anxious little brain was in overdrive. Trying to nail these changes so we could still get the best out of everywhere, and well, we are.

In Chiang Mai, we stayed at Lai-Thai Guest House. Still really cheap, but with air con, our OWN bathroom and a swimming pool. It was a little place of peace outside the bustling centre. Game changer I tell ya.

The most mind blowing thing we did whilst here was definitely our morning with the Elephants. After looking at ethical sanctuaries which don’t ride the elephants, we decided on Elephant Jungle Sanctuary, and I think we made the right choice.

Before even meeting the elephants, we were given a lengthy briefing about how to communicate with the creatures and how they came to be here. Most elephants have been rescued from the likes of logging, circus work, or tourist attractions. The sanctuary work with the local tribes to provide work for them and assist their community.

There are no words to share with you how the day went. We fed the elephants, walked amongst them whilst they free roamed, mud-bathed them and washed them down. It was amazing to see that none of the elephants were forced into any human interaction.

I was literally sobbing inside at how incredible the experience was.

We also spent a day White Water Rafting down the Mae Taeng river. I’ve been WWR twice and this wasn’t the most fun/thrilling trip but it was incredible to see all the jungle scenes.

& to float with the current down the BALTIC river.

Oh yeah, the prison massages.

You probably wanna know about that too…

One of the highly rated things to do in Chiang Mai is to get a classic Thai massage from a Woman at the Correctional Facility. It was closed when we went, so we went to one of there other branches and got a massage from an ex-prisoner.

Ya see. When these women are in prison, they get taught how to massage to help them gain work when they are released, which I personally think is amazing and gives them a chance.

We opted for an hour-long massage and changed into our massage two piece. GOOD LORD. These gals know how to pull a limb. We were twisted, turned, pulled, punched in all different sorts of ways. Everything clicking and a little bit (ok, a lot) painful but SO worth it.

We both slept like babies that night.

Another little bliss morning that we had was visit Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. By going to Wat Singh and waiting 15 minutes or so for 6 other passengers, we took a Songthaew up the VERY BENDY hill. & Songthaews don’t exactly have seatbelts.

The temple there is breathtaking. It’s a golden glimmer that you can see from all over the town and it quite literally took our breath away.

Or I mean that could have been the 300 steps to get to it.

But it was stunning! The grounds were pretty big so there was plenty to explore and the views from the top of Chiang Mai were incredible.

I’ve never quite seen views like I have in Thailand.

Megan. xo

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