We have had the best day ever!
We were picked up by our minibus at 8 30 this morning with two american girls from our guesthouse. We made our way to maetong. we started our day at the elephant camp where we watched the elephants do tricks with their mohouts. It was amazing the elephants can paint! Yes they each painted a picture of themselves. I will upload the photos when i can find my lead. After the show i was able to ride on the elephants neck on my own. It was amazing they are so gentle.
We both then mounted these beautiful animals for a trek through the jungle. This was such an amazing experience. The Elephants here are so well looked after and they have such a close relationship with their mohout. our mohout was singing to the elephant along the trek. We fed the elephant bannanas and sugar cane. He really enjoyed these as he kept putting his trunk up for more.
After our trek we rode in an oxtail cart back to camp and had some lunch.
Next stop was to sail down the river for an hour on a bamboo raft. The scenery is beautiful here. Tall mountains covered in greenery. Butterflies and dragon flies whizzing by. We both had ago at steering the boat; which i wasnt very good at!
After the bamboo raft we visited the long neck people. This was very tourist orientated but i can understand why. The woman of this tribe wear steel rings around their neck. they start with 5 rings at the age of 5 and they have 5 rings added each year. This was originally to stop them from being killed by tigers. They look so strange and uncomfortable. The village was 10 shacks with a long neck woman in each selling hand made crafts. Our gude informed us that these people were refugees from burma who have fled the country, the money they recieve from tourists is shared around the village and they live of this income.
After vistiting the tribe we stopped of at an orchid farm which we didnt find very interesting.
We have decided to stay 3 more nights in Chiang Mai as there is so much to see and do. The people here are so great. A man stopped us in the street this evening just to have a chat and tell us why he comes here year after year. He advised us on what temples to visit what shopping places to visit etc. The night Bazzar is very popular here with tourists but we have been warned by many Thai people to stay away as the ggods are exppensive and of poor quality!
Anyway im now going to bed we are going white water rafting tomor. Cant wait. Night