Chooti the Lucky Elephant

At last!! the long awaited day for Elephants!! We arranged a hotel pickup, so as we waited we indulged in the traditional breakfast of egg, meat and toast. (I prefer a sweet breakfast but Thailand definitely has me thinking twice about breakfast.)  We were soon picked up and taken out to the mountains surrounding Chiang Mai to the panda tour elephant camp run by Mr. 'Coconut'



 We began with introductions to all the Elephants. (He owns a lot of female elephants, and they have one baby named chooti, (which means lucky))

   

We had a whole bag of bananas to feed the sweet guys, and boy did they love them and weren't afraid to ask for them. An elephant does not know the meaning of a "personal bubble" obviously. 

Thankfully they had given us clothes to change into so we wouldn't get out own dirtied by elephant love.

I love elephants, but learning how to climb on is always a heart racer for me. In India we climbed on by walking up their trunks. In Thailand we climbed on to their foot and then once they raised it high enough we literally jumped onto their back. Sometimes that is a big jump, once on the elephant they surprised me by saying we were now going for a ride and I was driving!!! Ahhh

Our Mahout walked along side so we wouldn't totally get lost or go for a run, or end up wandering around Thailand ( and thus becoming a myth of Thailand). Once on our way our elephant knew pretty well where to go, we walked and walked and finally came back to the river where she proceeded to walk thru and then stop. She was done.

We got her to lie down and proceeded to give her a good scrubbing bath. They gave us coconut husks(? Im not positive on that) but it acts as a loofa and gets 'sudsy' as well, and when we are done the elephants enjoy the treat.  Some of the local kids jumped in and joined us as we were giving her a good washing. In fact they decided I needed a good washing as well and started throwing buckets of water at me and then laughing hysterically. Be warned though, this is elephant territory soooo the water wasn't exactly 'clean'. Somethings float and you just have to watch out for them..



It was such a relaxing moment playing in the river while watching the elephant. It was just us, our elephant, the 2 kids, our Mahout and one other guy to take photos. The river was the perfect temperature and our elephant... well everyone was in a playful happy mood.  We finally climbed out and went to retrieve our clothes to 'shower' and change. Sometimes it is an adventure learning how to work around the 3rd world way of things. Such as the showers, they were in the bathroom stall with just a spicket coming out of the wall up high. But it got the job done, and we were rewarded with some delicious homemade thai food for lunch.

After lunch we were waiting for the truck to come pick us up to take us over to river rafting. Mr. Coconut brought over the extra bananas and we went over to baby Chooti and his mom, and passed time feeding the two gentle giants.  We even got surprise elephant kisses courtesy of Chooti, sounds sweet, and it is, but it is also wet and dirty. I wish we had those pictures but just as we were enjoying the moment the truck pulled up to take us river rafting on a bamboo raft.

We blew kisses to Chotti and climbed aboard the Rafting Express. shortly later we stopped along the road and climbed down to the bamboo rafts and took a leisurely ride down the river, past many elephants. (Is that not the life??)

Once we were back at home, we were once again ready for food, so we started wandering the street, but nothing was standing out, so we turned and walked down the street and picked up our first ever Roti.  Roti is like a fried stuffed crepe filled with whatever deliciousness your heart desires, (unless its out of season, like strawberries) We found a delicious thai restaurant to complete our meal at... so much food! After we kept walking and stumbled upon the Sunday Market. Surprisingly the market was much bigger then it appeared and full of treasures. The perfect way to end the day! 

PS This is how you get off an elephant…. Slide down the trunk.  Nothing like a little adventure to start of the morning.