This day we drove a couple hours north of Chiang Mai to the Mae Taeng river. There we rode on an Oxcart and on the back of an Elephant. When we first mounted the Elephant, Natty was on one side, Kaler was in the middle and Guy was on the other side. The weight imbalance on Guy’s side caused the saddle/seat to nearly tip over. Once Guy was re-arranged to the middle, and balance was restored, we began enjoying the ride. As the elephant approached the river, we noticed a steep set of giant stairs. Descending the steps, the elephant rocked back and forth throwing us forward. Feeling like we were going to fall to our deaths, our knuckles turned white holding onto the saddle/seat belts. Kaler didn’t seem to mind as I had to keep reminding him to hold on. We crossed the river and climbed up the hillside forest on the other side. Later we again climbed back down into the river and back up onto the shore. After we were safely off the elephant, we thanked him with a bundle of sugar cane and a bunch of 20 bananas which the elephant unceremoniously ate in a single bite.
We ate lunch at a buffet that was prepared for the guests and then we got on bamboo rafts to float down the river. Along with Kaler, Natty and Guy were 5 of the girl orphans. At first we just rode the raft quietly, then we hung our feet off the sides. Finally the girls got too hot and they all ended up in the river, which was about waist deep on average with only a few places where they couldn’t touch the bottom. They enjoyed the second half of the ride jumping in the water and walking along beside the raft. The children described the color/consistency of the water with the thai word for “coffee”, it was very muddy.
After the raft ride we went back upstream to the Elephant place and found the baby elephants, one 6 month old and a 12 month. We fed them and their mothers sugar cane, bananas and ears of corn. It was fun watching the babies use their feet to roll the ears of corn to separate the husks from the ears. Once separated, they would pop the ears into their mouths. The mothers didn’t bother with this step, they would toss the entire ear, husk and all into their mouths and chew away.
We hit the road again to travel part of the way back into Chiang Mai and then took another road heading NE towards Chiang Rai to go to the Children’s shelter farm. The children in the back of the truck were repeatedly doused by happy Songkran revelers along the side of the highways. By the time we got to the farm an hour and a half later, everyone in the back was soaked.
On the farm, we walked through the mixed use fields that had a little of everything. Salad greens, vegetables, fruit, nuts. Several items of interest, Bananas, Mangos, Papaya, Tamarind, lettuce, pineapple. There was some kind of a ant hatch going on. Some of the biggest ants with wings were coming out of mounds. The children were running around to catch them. Guy helped to catch a few as well. The ants were put into water bottles for safe keeping. Deep fried ants is considered a delicacy and is very expensive in Thailand. After the farm and orphanage tour, we sat at tables and had a simple dinner with some of the children and a few other German couples visiting. We had rice, veggie greens called “morning glory”, not like what is called morning glory in USA, and scrambled eggs. Guy had a pretty good sunburn on legs and arms from being out so much and from riding in the front seat of the car all day.
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