February 25, 2015 (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

It was our first full day in Chang Mai, and it was also an elephant based day!

We had to wakeup, eat breakfast, and get out the door by 8:30. We drove towards the Patara elephant farm and as we arrived  there were Asian elephants just roaming around. We were even able to play with them even before it all started!:) My elephants name was Ning and my trainers name was Jame During our elephant experience we experienced bare back riding, playing with baby elephants, feeding the elephants straight in the mouth, bathing them, and more. One of my favorite parts was seeing my big teenage elephant lie down on his side. Another favorite part was playing with the baby elephant that was 1 or 3 months old! I was not expecting to hand feed my elephant but it turned out to be good. Towards the end of our trip we stopped by a river and washed our elephants! 

On our bare back riding section we learned that there are three ways to get up on an elephant, the leg, the trunk, and lying down. It seemed like I was literally on my elephants neck, Ning.  Ning is 14 and a girl.The trainers also gave us instruction on commands for the elephant.

There are four ways to identify if an elephant is healthy; 1. Is to look if they are flapping there ears and wagging there tale atlas a couple times a minute. 2. Is to look if they have tears under there eyes and not dry because if there dry there eyes might have an infection or something. 3. Is to observe if they have dirt on the side of them which means they are laying down at night and not standing. 4. The last one is to look if there dung is wet, not to grainy and to see if they have more than five droppings.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped by a Buddhist temple where our tour guide Wanna prays.The temple wasn't one big building it was kind of like a garden with little buildings around. The public bathrooms are ranked #1 in Chang Mai! We only saw one monk but we still saw one. Inside one of the places where people pray there is a pretty big golden Buddha right in the center. Buddhism is a faith that believes in reincarnation, and to get to Nirvana (heaven) you have to be reincarnated until you become a boy Monk. There are no gods in Buddhism there is only people that they look up to like Buddha. 

Back at the hotel we stayed in the room showered up and got ready for our Thai dinner and show.Our dinner was on the floor with cushions, and no table besides the food platter. The Thai seating was surrounding the stage where the dancers would perform. We watched two kinds dancing, the first one was Thai styled, and the second one was the tribal dancing. One of my favorite dances was the golden dear, because the dear was made up of two people and would hop and shake around.

On the way back to the Rimping village we hopped out of the van early and again walked around the Night Market. This time we were mainly looking for art. We walked back over to the art square and asked the man who did the Macaw last night if he could do a special bird. He talked to us and told us no because he only could only paint a few birds. But the man did tell us that there was another art place. The art place turned out to be an underground bazaar which I was not expecting. We looked around seeing some shops that might be a painting an African Grey Parrot.