Chiang Mai Day 2

Nicole's Day at the Elephant Jungle Sactuary: 

Today, ten of the volunteers spent the day at an elephant sanctuary. It was really important to our group that the elephants weren't mistreated and had contact with other elephants and plenty of room to explore. After driving an hour on regular roads, we traveled an additional 30 minutes on a crazy steep path cut into the side of the mountain. We then hiked to the elephants, which was quite challenging because everyone was wearing flip flops and a lot of the walkways were mud paths. Once we arrived at the sanctuary, we all changed into cloth shirts that were great for playing with the elephants.

Playing with the elephants was so incredible.  They would literally scoop corn or bananas out of your hand with their trunks. 

There was one pregnant elephant and two babies. Elephants are pregnant for two full years and the babies continue to drink milk until they are about three years old. Adult elephants only sleep about four hours each night.

After lunch, we were able to clean the elephants in the river and have a mud bath with them. Even after shampooing my hair three times after getting back to the hostel, I still feel like I have mud all over, but it was definitely worth it! 

I still can't believe I had the opportunity to spend the day with elephants in such a beautiful place.

Milly's Day in the Old City:

I wanted to call my family, so decided to stay back. Instead of going with the main group to the elephant sanctuary, a couple of us separated to go visit the Old City.

We visited many temples and were approached multiple times by some nice strangers, who offered us suggestions for places to eat and activities to do. 

We also came across a sign that "Tamarind Village". We thought it would be interesting to see, so we walked underneath this beautiful bamboo archway to get there, however, we soon realized that it was not what we were expecting. The "Tamarind Village" was not an attraction, but actually a hotel. 555!

After turning back around, we continued onwards in a different direction and stumbled upon a coin museum. 

For lunch, we initially tried finding a highly recommended sushi place suggested by one of the individuals we met that day, but couldn't find it. We eat at a Thai restaurant instead, which was still really yummy. 

After lunch, we went to the bookstore to chill and maybe pick up some new reads. 

Books in hand, we returned to the hostel to relax a little bit before the rest of the group returned. Most of us took naps.

Night Bazaar:

After meeting back at the hostel around 5, the whole group headed to the night bazaar, which is essentially a huge weekend market with tons of vendors along a road. 

Milly and I shared Pad Thai before we began our shopping adventure. 

We were able to find so many souvenirs and Milly was great at bargaining, especially in Mandarin. We both finally got elephant pants and plan to wear them tomorrow (and get more pairs)!

To stay motivated to keep shopping, we also got a mango smoothie and Thai tea.

We can't believe our time in Chiang Mai is almost over and we have to fly back to our homestays tomorrow!