We woke up extremely early to drive out and go bird watching. This is something super cliche, so I’ve never felt the need to do it, but I loved it! The scenery was gorgeous and it was fun to spot a bird through a set of binoculars and skim through a book to try and find the native species.
We have breakfast and leave the camping grounds to visit the local villages and farmers. We learned about the farmer’s perspectives on the impacts of crop raiding elephants. Farmers can lose thousands of dollars just from elephants eating their crops. We had lunch at one of the crop fields, which was made by the local villagers and farmers. We then drove back to the Royal River Kwai Resort and Spa hotel, which took a long time but we had a gorgeous dinner.
After, we left again to go to Mahidol University to see pangolins! Pangolins are nocturnal and super cute.
They are described as scaly anteaters and are sadly going extinct.
The hotel was beautiful and had an amazing campus!
We had to check out so we could go to the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary to camp and trek for wild elephants. We saw one along the way before we got to the camp ground. We didn’t see more that day, but we saw the area my professor put up camera traps (motion and thermal activated cameras) for his research lab. We camped on the grounds for one night and learned about the rangers that worked their and what they do on patrols to keep the elephants safe.
Our next location was Kanchanburi to go to Royal River Kwai Resort and Spa hotel. We were in the van for 10+ hours. There’s not much to say, but I took a lot of pics of the scenery.
Today we visited Patara Elephant Farm and was able to meet and pet baby elephants.
We were then able to follow the elephants to their water hole for a bathing session. It was beautiful to watch the elephants interact with the water and each other.
I was able to get a pic of me being hugged by an elephant:
We got lunch at (what looked liked) a couples’ resort with a wonderful view.
After lunch, we went to the Doia Sukthep temple, which we had to walk up about 360 steps to get to. The ascension wasn’t as bad as I thought and the heat wasn’t unbearable at the top. This was the biggest temple we had seen so far. It had multiple praying rooms and a courtyard of statues. We even saw a few monks. A man was there with a cat and its kitten (which my friend asked for a picture of. Can’t blame her though, they were in the cutest cat book bag).
We went back to the hotel to get ready for another night of nightlife. We went to Warm-Up, a Thai club (which looked similar to bars in the states) that had multiple dance floors with different types of live music at each floor. It was SUPER crowded, but they played a lot of familiar music. I left early with a few other girls to get enough sleep for the next day.
Next up is the elephant conservation center. We learned about many diseases and conditions elephants can get and how these conditions are treated at their facility. We were then taken up a hill to meet a few of their geriatric elephants and go on a walk with them. The ages of these elephants ranged from 72-75 years old!
After, we watched an elephant show that was run by the organization. I would recommend this show because the elephants were not exploited or treated badly, they were all calm and had relaxed expressions throughout the entire show (from an elephant researcher’s point of view). This show also helps raise money for the conservation center. It was amazing to watch. None of the elephants were forced to do tricks, so if the elephant didn’t want to do a trick, they were allowed to walk away without being punished.
After the show, I was able to get authentic Thai iced tea (or just milk tea, when you’re in Thailand).
and we got lunch
Next, we went to the FAE Elephant Hospital, which is an elephant prosthetic hospital (though, they take care of other cases, as well). We learned about these different cases and even met the famous elephant, Mosha, who was saved after stepping on a live landmine. I bought a hat from their gift shop, which went towards the elephant care.
Our hotel for the next couple of nights was Kokotel, a modern-Japanese styled hotel/cafe. We check into the hotel just to leave again, because that night we experienced some night life.
We found the night market, which has rows rows of food vendors. This was dinner
Then we walked toward the red light district, which seemed popular and was reminiscent of New York City bar life. They also played a lot of American music. We walked the rest of the way to the Night Bazaar, a large shopping area that is similar to Canal street (but much bigger). We did a lot of shopping for souvenirs and headed home.
Fun Story: We used a service called Grab, which is a version of Uber. We got a tuktuk:
and was on our way to the hotel when our driver turned on the music. My friend and I sang along, mentioning how funny karaoke would be. The driver turned around and told us that he has a karaoke mic, which was attached to the Bluetooth system the music was playing on. He even pulled over to help get us situated.
Yup. Just rode through Thailand belching Adele lyrics.
Breakfast started at 7am and was GORGEOUS!
We were able to speak with the head of the Golden Triangle organization and learned about elephant conservation in Thailand.
We went to the Hall of Opium which is a museum about the history of the opium trade in Thailand. It was so informational and interesting. We went for an hour, which was not enough time and many of us were late to the meet up point and still didn’t get a chance to see all of it.
Then a family style lunch at a wonderful restaurant and coffee shop.
Afterwards, we visited a new temple called the Blue Temple, which was beautiful. It was a bit touristy (which is great if you want to take pictures) and had lines of merchants and vendors at the marketplace nearby.
After driving around for a bit, we got to Lampang in time for dinner at The Riverside. It’s a bar/restaurant that overlooks a river, with amazing food and live music.
We checked in at a hotel called Home Lampang, which was cozy and motel like, and crashed for the night.
Hi all!
Thank you for tuning into my blog about Thailand. Many of you are family and friends, so I appreciate you all wanting to hear about my journey! As we all know, 2020 was a crazy year. Between my college courses and the pandemic, it was difficult to post the blog. And the more time that passed, the harder it was to pick it back up. One of my goals for 2021 is to finish the Thailand blog so that I can continue on to other blogging topics! For the rest of the month of January (and possibly into February), I plan on completing the Thailand blog and I’m very excited about it! Thank you, again, for all of your support!
Wishing you all healthy and safe,
Chyteatalks 💕
We get back to the airport for our Chiang Rai flight and are able to go through check-ins and security quickly. The first thing I notice: this plane is way smaller than any of the other ones we took, maybe even half the size.
Thankfully, there were no delays. The ride was only one hour, and was somehow shorter which put us ahead of schedule.
Our professor was kind enough to have a driver pick us up, take us to get a quick breakfast (from 7-11, which is amazing out here), and drop us off directly at our elephant activity.
We met up with the group at the Golden Triangle Elephant Camp and Spa, which is a sanctuary for elephants. This was an amazing, hands-on experience. We learned how they train elephants to show different parts of their bodies and what types of things veterinarians look for during the vet checks.
We were also able to bathe the elephants and hug their trunks
Then an amazing lunch
After lunch, we joined the elephants on their walk to the river.
We left the golden triangle to go to a temple nearby, which was beautiful and had an amazing marketplace right outside
We left to drop our stuff off at the hotel before dinner. We stayed at the Serene in Chiang Rai hotel, which had amazing scenery and a wonderful guest experience (with complementary robes and slippers!)
Then we had a family style dinner at a place nearby (I don’t remember the name) which overlooked the river.
Getting our flights straightened out was over, but now came the execution. We had to go through the check in process again with the new airline, along with going through TSA again and finding out new gate. Being that the old flight was at midnight, not many people were around so getting to our gate and going through TSA was a breeze. The new flight was at 9am, which EVERYONE goes for, so it was much more difficult. Of course, this flight also wound up being delayed because the plane had not yet made it back from its previous trip. It went by quicker than expected. I don’t really like planes, so this initial ride was the scariest. This flight also had 2 meals, snacks, and drinks which were all pretty good. Overall, I did well.
11 hours later…
We get to our layover destination, but because the first flight was delayed they had to delay our connecting flight (this was for about an hour). By the time we got our new boarding passes, went through another set of metal detectors, got to our gate, and checked in, we only had to wait about 20 minutes to board.
5 hours later…
We finally arrive at Bangkok, but not in time for our third flight to Chiang Rai. We booked a flight for the next morning and booked a hotel by the airport. We also had to go through immigration, exchange money, and get a Thai sim card. Our new third flight time was 6am, so we had to be up by 4am and out by 5am. As soon as we hit the hotel beds, we knocked out. At least we’ll still be on time for the elephants.
Our original Day 1 plans:
P.S. sorry these posts are so late! I only had an hour of wifi on each flight and have had spotty wifi at hotels.
ChyteaTalks