{"id":1183,"date":"2023-10-24T05:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T05:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/?p=1183"},"modified":"2024-12-09T03:50:15","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T03:50:15","slug":"an-elephant-never-forgets-and-neither-will-we","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/24\/an-elephant-never-forgets-and-neither-will-we\/","title":{"rendered":"An Elephant Never Forgets (And Neither Will We)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Activity level: \ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modes of transportation:\ud83d\ude90<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were a little hesitant to book an elephant tour in Phuket because they have a pretty bad reputation for being abusive to the elephants (riding, training with electroshock, etc). We had driven past a few, and they looked pretty sad honestly. We figured we just wouldn\u2019t be able to do one, since we knew all the ethical ones were in the north of the country. Well, now we were in the north, so we decided to book it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah researched to make sure we found one that had great reviews for animal care as well as experience, and we decided on the Maerim Elephant Sanctuary. All of their elephants (they have 5 of them, plus one baby) were rescued from either logging camps, circuses, or riding shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our tour started up when they picked us up from the hotel in a passenger-outfitted pickup truck, and we hopped in with the other tour mates. There ended up being only 4 of us total\u2014one guy from Manitoba, Canada and one from Mexico City. We had a nice ride exchanging travel stories and bonding over North America\u2014even though we couldn\u2019t be from more different places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Luckily, we didn\u2019t lose anything out the back.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When we got to the sanctuary after about an hour ride, we were immediately greeted with hungry elephants. They came right up to the gate to be fed, and we were handed a bucket of bananas to feed them. They loved it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIs this real life?\u201c We walked in and immediately saw elephants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We were shuttled off for a safety video and a talk about the sanctuary, then we loaded up some bags with bananas and pumpkins to feed the elephants. They also gave us some clothes to change into since the grounds can get pretty muddy\u2014and they were extremely flattering (for an elephant).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We all got these comfortable and stylish Thai outfits to wear around the elephants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Somehow, Sarah got stung by a bee while loading up with food. Luckily, someone on the tour had a sort of poultice that made it feel better immediately, so she was all good to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also gave us all the elephants\u2019 personalities and backstories so we would know who likes what (one elephant, champu, would only eat peeled yellow bananas, and would throw green bananas on the ground).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Next, we got to go into the field with the elephants to feed them. They were hilarious\u2014sometimes they would just throw food on the ground and stomp off to another person to get something else. They also tried to rummage around our bags to get more food, but they were mostly well-behaved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Apparently, elephants eat about 300-600 pounds of food daily since they don\u2019t digest it well. They spent about 80% of their day just eating! Since they don\u2019t digest well, they also end up pooping almost as much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After we ran out of pumpkin and bananas, we delivered corn to the elephants to enjoy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The guide made us all smell the poop, which mostly smelled (and looked) like grass. One girl got a little too close, and our guide pushed it onto her nose. Lol. Apparently that\u2019s pretty common on tours, and luckily she didn\u2019t seem to mind too much (glad it wasn\u2019t us though).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After we had fed them for an hour, they all walked over to the mud pit. Two of the elephants weren\u2019t feeling it, so they immediately walked off when they saw us coming (which is also the sign of a good tour\u2014when the elephants aren\u2019t forced to interact). One immediately laid down, and we spent some time helping her cover herself in mud to cool off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The guide slapped mud on Eric\u2019s back, then told him he needed to rub it onto the elephant. The elephant seemed to enjoy the extra pets.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After that, we all went over to the larger watering hole to clean off the mud. They have a few of us brushes so we could clean the elephants off (or at least give them a nice scratching). We hung out with Champu again while she rolled around in the water and mud. When we were done there, the guides kept calling to to move on, but she wouldn\u2019t get up (apparently because she enjoyed being scratched too much). Eventually, she stood up (slowly) and walked back to the elephant field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Champu was having the time of her life, and so were we.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We showered the mud off and went to the \u201chuman swimming pool\u201d to chill while they got lunch ready. We ended up playing Marco Polo with our group mates, which made Sarah feel like a camp counselor organizing games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lunch was a \u201cdo it yourself\u201d noodle soup, where we cooked noodles and added various Thai garnishes and soup ingredients. It was also nice because our guide explained all the ingredients (and their spiciness), so we learned a little about how to eat Thai dishes and what to put on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We also paid for the professional photos since we didn\u2019t take too many ourselves (800 baht for both of us\u2014not bad!) and jumped back into our truck for transport back to our hotel, where we got back to in the early afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric had wanted to do a cooking class, but Sarah thought she might vomit if she was around that many smells. So she booked Eric a night course at a farm outside of Chiang Mai, and he ended up going by himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cooking class was fantastic and the instructor was knowledgeable and entertaining. We started at a market, where our instructor showed us local ingredients and prepared foods. After that, we drove way out of Chiang Mai to a farm owned by the cooking company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Luckily the Dutch people let Eric borrow their mosquito spray for this cooking adventure.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eric made some friends with some Dutch people, and we all talked about cooking for much of the ride. They also leant him their bug spray, which was necessary since the farm was on a small lake and there were mosquitos everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric chose to learn how to make Tom Kha Gai, his favorite Thai soup, pad Thai (for Sarah), red curry with chicken, and pandan mango sticky rice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the tour, we walked through the farm and learned about the important ingredients in Thai cooking, from lemongrass to coconut to Thai eggplant. They grew all of them on the farm, so it was cool to see what the plants all looked like. They also had some lemongrass tea waiting for us with a little palm sugar, and Eric swears it tasted just like fruit loops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is the \u201cmagic\u201d butterfly pea flower (it\u2019s blue, but turns pink in contact with acid). Also check out our farmers hats.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From there, we started with the cooking. They provided us with pre-measured ingredients, and we did a little prep on them (some cutting, cleaning, etc). Then, they led us to our stations to start cooking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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She was actually laughing at Eric taking this photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We did the soup and pad Thai first together, and then we all sat down to eat them. Both of them turned out great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eric doesn\u2019t even like pad Thai, but wanted to learn to make it for Sarah.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After eating that (and some comments from the group of \u201cthere\u2019s more food?\u201d), we started making the curry paste. It was extremely interesting seeing the similarities between the different curries (and the guide kept saying the chili peppers were mostly for color and they weren\u2019t spicy\u2026 but they were). For example, red curry was very similar to panang curry, except panang has peanuts. They also gave us plenty of tips and possible ingredient replacements, so hopefully Eric can make it again when we get back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the main food, we made mango sticky rice. There wasn\u2019t really much to do except decide on pandan or butterfly pea rice (pandan is a leaf that, when boiled, has sort of a vanilla-like flavor, whereas butterfly pea turns it blue without flavor). After decorating the dessert, it was finally time to eat. Both dishes were fantastic, and everyone in the group seemed to enjoy theirs (except the Spanish couple, who seemed to have made theirs too spicy\u2014but still ate it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Picturesque and delicious!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We headed back to the city and Eric got dropped off back at the hotel, where Sarah was waiting. She was very productive while Eric was gone, putting the finishing touches on many blog posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a flight in the morning, but our visas hadn\u2019t come yet. We had a big snafu with them because the visa office was apparently undergoing maintenance, so they couldn\u2019t expedite eVisas (even though we paid for expedited service, but that\u2019s another story). We had hoped that, based on what people had said online, our visas would come through anyway, but they hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we planned to wake up early to reschedule, or hope our visas for Vietnam were ready in the morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah and Eric hang with some elephants and Eric gets some hands-on food experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-1183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thailand","tag-chiang-mai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1183"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3546,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions\/3546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}