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Published: February 10th 2011
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Chiang Mai Part II
With so much to do here, I’m still in Chiang Mai enjoying myself! On the weekend, we spent some time going to some street markets where some of the locals and hill tribe people were selling anything they could THINK of to make. During the day on Sunday, we went to a wat called Doi Suthep. It overlooked the entire city of Chiang Mai! I got to see all different kinds of Buddha statues and statues, and I even got my picture taken with some really nice girls that lived with the hill tribe people. They wanted to take me home with them, but I’m having too much fun with Nate and Jessie. Plus, they take really good care of me and feed me fresh fruit every day. I tried to show my appreciation by combing through Jessie’s long hair to get the bugs out, but I guess humans don’t have bugs like monkeys do. I’ll just have to figure something else out. I could hardly sleep on Sunday night because I knew we were getting up early to go see elephants! I was really excited!
When we got to Patara Elephant Farm, we met the
owner right away. His name was Pat, and he rescued all of his elephants from bad situations and brought them to his farm. Jessie and Nate had to put on some funny clothes before going to meet their elephants. I’m WAY too tiny to try helping on this day, so stayed in Nate’s backpack most of the day. In the beginning, Nate and Jessie had to help the trainers make sure their elephants were healthy. I learned that elephants actually sweat from their toenails, and it’s a good sign that they are healthy, just like if their ears are flapping (which means they’re happy), and if they have dirt on their side from laying down on the ground to sleep instead of standing up. You even have to inspect their poop with your bare hands to make sure it doesn’t smell bad. I’m sure glad I didn’t have to do THAT part. Yuk! Nate and Jessie both grabbed a basket of bananas and sugar cane to feed their elephants. I kind of wanted one of those bananas, but they weren’t for me THIS time. Jessie’s elephant’s name was Prayou, which means diamond. Nate’s elephant was named Boone, and he was
a BIG BOY! They walked up to them and got to feed them breakfast by hand. All of the commands are in Thai, so they learned some new words. “Bone”, means open your mouth. “Ma”, means come. “How”, means stop. “Deedee” means good boy or good girl. They even got to feel a pregnant female’s stomach, and you could feel the baby moving around inside of her tummy. After breakfast, they walked their elephants down to the river by holding onto their ears gently for a bath, but first they had to brush all the little stones off of their backs so nobody sat on them and hurt their skin. So into the river they went to give them a bath. They also got to ride their elephants for over an hour to get to a waterfall and a pool! It was really cool, but their butts were sore after the ride. I got to have lunch with them, which was served to us on some banana leaves, and took my picture with a couple of the elephants before Nate and Jessie got into the water and had fun swimming with them. They’re so lucky! We all thought that the
elephants were going to stink for sure, but they really didn’t. The funniest part of the day was listening to all the elephants farting on the way to the waterfall. Haha! Nate was laughing almost every time he heard one! You could even hear me cracking up inside of the backpack. I couldn’t help it!
We have to leave Thailand next week, so we’re going to a town called Mae Hong Son to relax for a couple of days. Then, we’ll be going to a place called Cave Lodge where we’re going to do some exploring in caves. Please don’t let there be bats in there! I’m scared of bats! At least I can hide in the backpack if I need to. I hope you kids like the elephant pictures. I especially like the one where everyone gets soaked from the elephants spraying them with water. Hehe. You’ll hear from me soon!
Your friend,
Wylie
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littlewing
Cindy
Beautiful blog - elephants really are special arent they? Thanks for taking care of them :)