elephants in chaing mai?
 

Hi,

My wife and I are looking to hang out with some elephants for a day in the Chaing Mai region. We'd like to go somewhere that treats the elephants with decency. Unfortunately the Lampang conservatory camp is all booked. Does anyone know of other humane options that involve elephants? Thanks for your help.

You may not be able to go through the mahout training but you can still go to the Lampang one and see the elephants bathing, see the show, take a ride and tour the facility and spend as long as you want. You don't need a reservation for that.

Alibi13: we have the same problem as you. The elephant centre in Lampang is fully booked for all of december. However, having read Gloria's useful post and looked into other centres we think we'll do as Gloria suggests.

I haven't been to Chiang Mai before so I have no first hand experience of elephant camps.

I would like to go to one and am worried about ending up at some sort of circus type show which I think I would find quite distressing.

From what I have heard Lampang is not like that. Although while hunting around on virtualtourist.com I found some comments which did concern me a bit.

It was in the Chiang Mai Travel Guide under the heading Tourist Traps in Chiang Mai - Elephant camps, where the general concensus was that they are all pretty bad (comments?)

They did recommend this place though, which may be the sort of thing you're after.

As I said, I haven't been there myself but it might be worth a look.

http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/tour/

Any comments on Lampang?

Cheers,
Violet

Forgot to ask ... has anyone been to the above mentioned elephnt nature park?

Hello,
No matter where you go in Chaing Mai, if you ride elephants it is kinda sad. The elephant handler holds this teak stick with a metal hook at the end of it and periodically whacks the elephants on the head (as you are riding) with it. He uses the metal hook to pull on the elephant's tear ducts to steer. It kinda sucks, because the elephants are really cool and fun to play with. But watching them getting whacked on the head just really ruins it. I dont think they do this unless you are riding them.

Whatever you do dont go to the monkey training camp, it is wierd and sad all at once. The butterfly and orchid farm is probably better. The best place to eat in Chaing Mai is called The Whole Earth.

Have fun