We had an early wake up call this AM as we had to report for our elephant tour at 8:15. We packed up our bags, said goodbye to Rob and Hang and headed to the airport to store our bags. Once we arrived, we found out the bag storage was under renovation. :( SO, after some hectic moments and knowing the other bag places were either closed or too far away, we decided to chance it and took our bags to the check-in office. They were more than happy to keep our bags, so that was a relief! We found a bakery nearby and had a quick breakfast and then it was off on our 1-hour ride to the elephant park.
We choose to visit the Elephant Nature Park on our trip to Thailand. This was after much research on ethical elephant encounters. I will admit...when I was in Indonesia in 2012, I rode an elephant. I now know that those elephants are not treated well. So, this time we went to a place that rescues elephants from the circus, elephant trekking, logging, and other situations. They give them medical treatment and a forever home on beautiful grounds. As visitors, we feed the elephants (from a safe distance), go on a walk around the grounds with a guide, got to pet one elephant (but only on the shoulder), and watched the elephants bathe. Our group only had about 8 people (including a couple from Kentucky Lake area) so it also wasn’t a large group overwhelming the elephants at any one time. This park doesn’t let you bathe elephants as they want the elephants to enjoy that experience with each other as part of their natural social structure. This place also rescues dogs, cats, and water buffalo. While we were there we also had a vegetarian lunch buffet and had time to watch the elephants from afar. It was really a lovely day and were so happy to support them in their efforts to rescue abused elephants.
After we returned to the city, we needed to check our bags. The baggage storage place at the mall next to the airport was now open, so we found a songthaew driver and showed him the location on Google maps both in English and in Thai. He gestured for Mike to sit up front, but we wanted to sit together in the back and enjoy the ride. But, once we passed the mall and kept going for about 5 minutes, we knew he didn’t know where we wanted to go. So, we got his attention and he pulled over. Mike got up front and helped navigate him using his phone and all sorts of hand gestures. Once we saw the mall, we just had him drop us off on the street across from the mall and made our way inside. I was grateful for Mike’s patience and so happy to be in the mall!
After we stored our bags, we found this place called Memorize Brownie that had plugs and tea and brownies for a snack. We needed to charge our phones and make a plan for the afternoon.
We decided to do a dinner with more Northern Thai cuisine and headed to Tong Tem Toh. We ordered a smaller platter of all sorts of local appetizers including some sausages and some chili dips one of which that reminded Michael of hatch. We also had some tasty grilled pork and some veggie dish. Good stuff in a beautiful outdoor setting.
Then, we headed down the street to Beerlab and enjoyed some nice beets before heading to the mall to retrieve our bags. We did a bit of shopping at the mall and then headed to the airport for our 9:40PM flight to Phuket.
No comments:
Post a Comment