5/16 Elephant Nature Park Round 2

5/16/2013: Since I had so much fun the first time and wanted to spend more time with Devon and Jordan, I tagged along on their trip to the elephant nature park. It was exactly the same as my first trip with Ariel, except that our guide wasn't as good so I had to step in and tell the stories about the different elephants that Aum had told us during our first visit. We did the usual schedule of feeding the elephants, wandering around and seeing the baby elephants, and bathing the elephants. The 5 month old baby elephant was significantly less cute this time because it was attempting to eat its mother's excrement.




The even younger baby was just sleeping on the ground when we visited her, and the mom was trying to cover her with food, I assume as a gesture to say "nothing to see here..."




During the part where everyone watches the documentary, I stayed at the platform and just enjoyed the peacefulness. Two mahouts were hanging out with their elephants, and one guy had me feed his elephant an entire basket of food, which was fun.

Also, the park had recently rescued some kittens whose mom had been hit by a car. They were less than a week old, so I got some pics:





We returned to Chiang Mai and Devon and I got food at the Chiang Mai Gate Market and then I took her to a spot where guys are typically playing takraw, the game that's like hackey sack with a volleyball net. These guys were very impressive, doing backflips to spike the ball over the net. We chatted with a guy named "Lucky," who teaches English at CM University. We watched for about an hour, then did some brief shopping at the night bazaar which is pretty touristy and lame.