My morning started off with a rushed breakfast at my hotel. I had scheduled to visit an elephant sanctuary and my confirmation had said I’d be picked up between 7:30-8. Of course at 7:28 someone was looking for me already, so I was glad I’d brought all my things down from the room and was ready to go. 

We drove around the city picking up two more groups from hotels. One lone Spanish guy, and an American family of five (didn’t catch where they were from). We drove off into the mountains to the elephant camp. 

Elephant sanctuaries are tricky. While elephants that have been raised in captivity can’t necessarily be released back into the wild, they still sometimes end up being exploited at so called “sanctuaries”. In particular riding them is supposed to be something that is very bad for them, so any place that is offering rides really lacks an ethical approach. Likewise some of the places don’t have enough space to truly allow the elephants to roam and live their lives. It was important to me that if I was visiting a sanctuary it actually was helping elephants rather than just using them to make money.

This was the reason I chose Chang Chill. They were supposed to be one of the more ethical elephant rescues. In particular they didn’t allow any human interaction with their elephants (no bathing, touching, or riding) and allowed the elephants to roam on a large swath of land with a keeper nearby to keep an eye on them. 

We headed up into the mountains for the day and started out by hiking around the camp looking for the elephants. There are four of them in the camp, all female adults (one mom and daughter and two others who weren’t related). We quickly found one eating and hiked down into the brush to get a better view. We watched her eat for a bit, and then headed back up to the road. The other three were all along the main road. Mom and daughter apparently like to stay very close together since they were separated for 10 years. Sounded like some of them had been giving rides to tourists prior, and a couple worked in the logging industry hauling stuff. Either way it was good to see them be happy and free enjoying life as much as they could outside of the wild. 

After maybe an hour and a half of admiring them in their natural habitat we headed back down to the camp. We helped prepare their lunch for them (sugar cane and bananas). Got to use a machete to hack up the sugar cane as one of them is getting older and her teeth don’t work as well, so it needs it a little easier to chew. 

Then we had our own lunch. A vegetarian Thai food buffet (rice, curried potatoes, noodles and tofu, vegetables, and watermelon). 

The Spanish guy and I sat and chatted for a bit exchanging travel advice and talking about what we were doing in Thailand. There were also a few other groups there, but they seemed like they were all together, maybe some kind of college trip or something. 

After our lunch we headed down to load up the feeding stations for the elephants. We waited for about twenty minutes and finally the four elephants appeared. They were very excited to eat (I guess they have some pretty big sweet tooths so sugarcane and bananas are some of their favorites). 

We got to watch them eating for a bit before loading up the van and heading back to Chiang Mai. 

The weather was supposed to be stormy, but thankfully held off so I just had a relaxing afternoon by the pool before cleaning up for dinner. 

I found a cute place to eat called Dash. I had Gaeng Phet Phed Yang (duck in red curry sauce), a watermelon smoothie, and a mango cheesecake to finish. It was all very tasty. 

Then I walked over to the Night Bazaar to at least check it out. It was basically a big market that takes place after 7 PM most nights with food, music, artists. It was huge and very fun, though I didn’t see anything I really wanted to buy. 

By that point I was exhausted. Opted to get a Grab car back to my place. As it was after dark I felt a little anxious getting into a stranger’s car, but thankfully Grab offers an option of women drivers for women, so I opted for that. She dropped me off at my hotel and I packed up my stuff for the next day and set about getting a good night’s sleep.