We woke up after a lovely night in our wooden hut. We could here all sorts of noises, roosters in the valley, dogs in the field next door and loads of crickets. It all just makes the experience more enjoyable and isn't actually disturbing as you might think. We had breakfast overlooking the valley and got speaking to and very cool Indian man who has been travelling for 18 years non stop teaching people to become Yoga instructors (a very obvious vocation in Pai). He almost enrolled Isla on a coarse as apparently the Yoga and meditation would help labouring women deal with the pain. Watch this space lol.....

We hopped on the moped and headed south towards a Canyon which trip advisor has rated as the number 1 attraction in Pai. We got slightly lost on the way there, going past the turning and ending up on the roads the taxi driver had driven up on, very interesting, especially on a 90cc moped. We eventually reached the Canyon and were pretty much the only ones there. Immediately the view was stunning. We had valleys all around us and mountains in the distance. A very unusual formation of earth.

The Canyon stretched out and winded its way through the valley for about 1 mile. We ventured out climbing up and down very steep and slippery slopes. It seemed like a great idea at first but then became slightly dangerous and clearly not the place to fall as you would need a helicopter to rescue you. Isla was a bit shaken up and needed lots of encouragement to make it across. Once we reached the furthest tip we were rewarded for our bravery with some absolutely stunning views. It was truly breathtaking and justified a sit down to take it all in. I did some daring/foolish selfies leaning over the edge. Not a wise decision when apparently more people have died last year takin selfies than shark attacks. Oh well!

It then came time to leave and the challenge of getting back across the Canyon. Isla did a lot better on the way back, even if I needed to push her up the final climb. We made it without injury and got back on the moped to head for a waterfall that was on the route back. Again the petrol gauge was showing a quarter of a tank and certainly brought back memories of Vietnam. Surely not again....
We winded our way through deserted roads, no houses, no traffic and no petrol stations, thinking to ourselves that the waterfalls must be close by. Isla tells me she was praying for the waterfall just to be around the next corner and thankfully it was.

We walked up a trail for about 10 minutes looking for the waterfall and found it hidden amongst some large rocks. We had to jump out onto some small rocks in the river to get a good look at it. Again we had the place to ourselves, we enjoyed the peacefulness very much, took lots of photos and then headed back to the moped as we had to drop it off at the shop. We got back into Pai and dropped the moped off without any issue with the renter which was nice, we had some lunch and then went to the bus station to catch the mini bus back down to Chiang Mai.

If we had known about Pai we would defiantly stay longer but unfortunately we had to leave. The journey back down wasn't great as it got dark halfway. Isla felt sick and got some sort of anti sickness tablet from two Dutch girls, this made her extremely sleepy but kept the sickness back. The same can't be said for a Chinese lad who must have been sick 4 times on the way down. Not pleasant to listen to and the journey felt longer as a result.

Nevermind, we got back to Chiang Mai in one piece and headed to the hostel to spend one night before going on our Elephant trek.

Saturday 30th January 2016

Exciting start to the day, we woke up and put on our rainbow coloured ponchos for the Elephant sanctuary. At breakfast we met Ren from Colorado and Roman from Switzerland who were doing the Elephant trip also. We all got on really well and jumped in the same truck to get to the Elephants. The journey took about 2 hrs, into the jungle of Chiang Mai, we got out and were handed bags of bananas and sugar cane to feed the Elephants with. We were in a group of about 12-15 people, which was a good size.

We all started to walk through the jungle following the guide, we then walked up a large hill whilst the guide was telling us they have 5 Elephants, 3 females and two juvenile males. They can only keep the males for a certain time before they go to a different sanctuary as the adult males are a bit bullish. The adult females have been rescued from working farms and now live a happy life in the jungle being protected by a small group of people.

As soon as we reached the top, the Elephants came running towards us, happy at the sight of food. Everyone was a bit cautious to start with, the Elephants used their trunks to sniff you out and try and find the food. Very very funny watching the girls squirm as the trunk ruffled around there body. Very quickly the Elephants settled down and everyone else calmed down and just became overwhelmed by these magnificent mammals. They were so kind, loveable and seemed really happy. They were not chained, they had no injuries, no one was allowed to ride them, they just seemed really happy and well looked after which was a relief after all of the other treks we had heard about.

We started to feed the Elephants and the two juvenile males were being very mischievous trying to sneak food from people and also trying to play with one of the keepers who ran away and said he is too strong to play with now. The keepers pointed out that one of the females was pregnant, she had been for 1 year and still has a year to go, CRAZY....... Isla was shocked and relieved at the same time, maybe humans have it easy after all.

After feeding the animals for about 1 hour we followed them up another hill where we watched them drink from a hose and eat even more food. They really do pack it away. We then got to have our lunch and sit down in a group talking about the amazing experience. After lunch we walked up to a mud bath and joined two Elephants that were standing in this mud that came up to our ankles as was probably actually poo. It was nice to see that the Elephants that didn't want to do it were not forced. So we splashed around and got the Elephants muddy, some people started to throw mud at other guests which luckily didn't start a mud fight. After getting the Elephants covered in mud we followed them down to a river. We had to cross the river which was fast flowing and the rocks were very slippy. A few people fell over, 1 American who was rather large fell over, smacked his face and had to go off to hospital to get stitches, as you probably know from reading, Thailand has no red tape so it's not really surprising.

We all got into the deep pool at the bottom of the river and now everyone went crazy with the water, splashing it all over the place. The baby male Elephant was loving it, he was rolling over and over in the water keeping his trunk out like a perescope and then it went under. Did not know that Elephants could hold there breath.

After washing the Elephants we dried off and had some tea whilst we were told about how some tribes still catch Elephants from a young age, take them from there mothers and then torture them to break their spirits and train them to do tricks or ferry people around. Not very nice to hear and hopefully is stopped soon.

We then headed back to Chiang Mai after having one of the best days ever. We were so lucky to be able to stand right up next to these animals and just watch them live their lives without really having to stick to a routine. Once back in Chiang Mai we went out for dinner with Ren and Roman, back to the Hay Bales place and talked about the day and planned to meet up. We then headed off to our hotel which appeared good but later shows its true colours, the toilet wouldn't flush and the only window looked inwards to the corridor which had a light on all night shining through the very thin curtains. Hopefully we can get a good sleep as we have our finale night train to catch before our flight to OZ woop woop.