Day 8, 9 and 10

(Jamie)

We had a very early start to make the pick up for the elephant park. The drive north took around an hour but the scene we were greeted with was well worth the wait. There were 15 elephants waiting to greet us and im slightly embarrassed to say the Disney child in me did scream out inside wow its Dumbo . We had opted to spend the whole day here and so the Mahout outlined what the schedule would be. After the usual health and safety talk we got the chance to feed the elephants, including two babies, sugar canes. It was an amazing experience to get so close but better was still to come. After learning the basic commands to control the elephants we got the chance to have a ride around the feeding area, it was great fun but far more painful on the gouche than I had expected!! After lunch we headed out for the jungle trek, the views along the path were spectacular and seeing them whilst on the back of an elephant is definatley somthing I will never forget. The path rose steeply into the jungle and after a short break at the top we began the descent towards the river. It was much more tiring going down hill and just holding on was difficult on our elephant, Nom Pui, who kept stopping along the way to rip off branches for a quik snack. We then joined the elephants in the water to help wash them, the baby ones were the most playful and the mahouts kept giving them commands to spray us. We both enjoyed the whole day and for what we first considered a high price (£50) we both agreed that it was well worth it in the end.

We both woke up the next moring aching from the elephant ride and looking for a slower paced day. We got one of the taxi vans up to Doi sutep Mountain to the temple at the top. The views along the drive alone were impressive but the best thing that we saw was an overtaking moped with a dog standing up on the back...crazy!!. The temple was at the top of a long flight of stairs (reminded me of kung fu panda ) and climbing them at such an altitude and at my current fitness level wasn't easy. At the top you could see all of Chiang Mai through the mist (check out the pics).

After the short downhill ride back into Chiang Mai we were heading for something to eat when we spotted a fish spa. For those of you that haven't seen the fish spa in Derby its where you dangle your feet in water and let the little fishes come clean them. We thought we'd give it ago as it was only a couple of pound and we were soon in uncontrollable fits of laughter, it tickled......ALOT, but did leave our feet andrex soft.

Alot of the Thai's are veggies and even those that aren't don't exactly fill their food with meat so by now I was craving it. We walked down to the night market and ordered meat and giant river prawns cooked on the BBQ....was gooooooood!

Today we'd planned to go back towards Doi Sutep mountain and see some water falls. We had to pay an entrance fee into the national park and i wasn't that impressed, the waterfalls were nice enough but there was nowhere to swim and after few mins we were hot and bored. The afternoon was much more eventful, we decided to go for a Thai massage. It only cost around £8 for both of us for an hour! It was definatley very different to the turkish massage i had last year and I'm not sure what was more painful, the massage or the look Michelle was giving me . We felt strange afterwards, achey but slighty looser. Michelle also decided to treat herself (because she never does ) with a manicure.

We have just got back to our room getting ready to go out tonight so i'll leave it here for now. Its our last day in Chiang Mai tomorrow , its been really nice here......BUT NOW ITS ON TO THE BEACHES .