IT Travel Diary - Chiang Mai
Follow us on the first step during our sabbatical break - Chiang Mai in Thailand. See what we did, and what can you do as well!
Recommended events for your trip to Northern Thailand: Loi Krathong and Yee Peng festivals in Chiang Mai (you need to check dates for each year as festival schedule depends on lunar calendar).
Places which we visited:
- In Chiang Mai:
- Monks trail & Wat Pha Lat & Wat Phra That Doi Suthep
- Art In Paradise
- Cat cafe
- Temples:
- Wat Loi Khro
- Wat Buppharam
- Wat Phra Singh Woramahawihan
- Wat Chedi Luang
- Wat Chiang Man
- Wat Lok Moli
- Around Chiang Mai:
- Doi Inthanon National Park (Queen and King's Pagoda, Mae Pan waterfall)
- Elephants: We booked visit at: https://www.elephantnaturepark.org/ According to our research this organisation is really helping elephants. They buy elephants from circus and cruel owners and place them in a place where they can live peaceful life, without chains and pain.They run many projects from: elephant sanctuary, which you can visit or help as volunteer, through small projects in cooperation with local villagers. Please note that: - Elephant's back is not designed to carry heavy things, so animals how carry tourists suffers badly because of spine issues. - Elephants don't do tricks out of their free will, in Northern Thailand they usually go through ritual which is called Phajaan - Breaking An Elephant’s Spirit. Young elephants are taken from their mother and placed in a small cage where they can not move. They are tortured for weeks until they give up and start to obey human orders. Even then, they spend their life often in chains and the special hook is used by people to punish elephant when he is not obedient. Animals who spent most of their life in captivity are not able to live on their own in the jungle anymore. Place which we visited takes the part in a project where villagers were convinced to free their animals from elephant riding business and provide them better life conditions. We were watching carefully during whole our visit but we seen no aggression or abuse towards animals. The wooden fence which you see in the video is made for people's safety (elephants know that they will get food in this place), but from the jungle side there is no fence, at the end of tour visit they just went back to the jungle. We were told that they come to the village every day in the morning because they know that they will get food. It's a complicated topic: from one hand such places improve life of elephants which are already in tourism industry, but we also hope that new elephant's will not be pushed into such business. Think twice and make your choice wisely.