Chiang Mai, Thailand

So excited to visit an Elephant Santuary. I read a lot about elephant santuaries, so I'm well aware that they are not all created equal and that they don't all treat the elephants well. Riding an elephant is cruel, the elephants are "crushed" broken down to learn how to train them. It's really so sad and hard to watch. I knew I wanted an ethical elephant park, one that protected the elephants and taught my children compassion and kindness. We picked The Elehpant Nature Park and a great experience!

Day One:

The day we arrived we wondered around aimlessly trying to get our barrings. I had underestimated the size of Chiang Mai. I thought it would be much-much smaller. We weren't off to a good start. Little to no sidewalks, hard streets to cross, the heat and the hunger was kicking. Now I had three hangeries with me and the restaurant I picked out on Trip Advisor was CLOSED! Alas we found a nice placed called the Good Kitchen and their fans (no AC) were very welcomed along with a meal to fill our tummies. Conner was the most adventourous ordering the "Thai Omelet". It's scrambled eggs with fish sauce and onions. Not exactly breakfast food, but it was dinner time, so he was happy.

This flight was a breeze! A quick 1 hour flight to fly between Bangkok and Chiang Mai, plus domestic, no customs, no immigration...this was nice.

Easy to be a little irresponsible tonight with our taxi card to get us home! Uber is easy to use as well. Wifi is everywhere and it requires little sign language with the driver in trying to explain our ride home. I've also learned that most taxi drivers can't read our Western alphabet and struggle when I write things down. So instead we've been leveraging maps. This little card here for our hostel sure is handy!

Day Two:

BEST DAY EVER! With our tour pre-booked to The Elehpant Nature Park, we just waited for our guide to pick us up at our hostel. Oh! Forgot to tell you we're staying in a YOUTH HOSTEL! Remember the part about "perspective"? Well, we're here to teach the kids perspective, compassion and appreciation. To me that comes with travel. That's my answer. For our accommodations I mixed it up, some Air BnB apartments and homes, some low budget hotels and youth hostels, a home stay with a friend in Vietnam and one over the top hotel in Singapore.

Okay brace yourself, I took a ton of pictures and while I cut back on what I placed in this blog...there's still a BUNCH. I just loved today. Here's Aiden feeding the elephants, this is how the day starts...nice and slow exposure to the elephants. They come in for feed as a family, usually about 4-6 elephants.

Now some exposure, the boys are both hear petting a friendly female elephant.

A family picture! Their skin is really rough with tough hair sprinkled throughout.

This is a family "elfie". Ha, ha. An elephant-butt-selfie is more like it. I really do love a good selfie.

A couple of elephants playing in the mudd. It's hot in Thailand and anything to cool off must help.

The lunch is included in the day. It's a vegetarian buffet and really quite delicious. It's a mixture of a bunch of goodies.

An up close view of an elephant that followed me around. There's a bunch of friendly elephant and the number of injuried ones is really sad. A coupld stepped in landmines, due to people illegally logging in remote areas. We learned a bit of history on Thailand on this tour as well.

Famliy picture with a family of elephants.

My hand on a sweet, old, injured elephant It's hard to not connect with these animals. They have huge eyes that stare at your when you pet them and they follow their gare slowly as you move around.

VIDEO: Feeding elephants at Elephant Nature Park.

VIDEO: Watching elephants at Elephant Nature Park.

VIDEO: Bathing elephants at Elephant Nature Park.

VIDEO: I made a friend at Elephant Nature Park.

OMG, I have seriously always wanted to do this! Fish spa treatment basically involves customers placing their feet into a water tank filled with toothless garra rufa fish – also known as "doctor fish". Within seconds, an army of fish will gather at the customer's feet and nibble the dead skin tissue away.

VIDEO: Boys try a fish spa. Chiang Mai. Thailand.

VIDEO: Conner's turn for the fish spa.

A close up of these little garra ruga fish.

Of course now the boys want a turn! It's a tickling machine, the fish nibbling on you feels like the same tingling sensation you get when your foot falls asleep. It's so bizarre!

VIDEO: Night Bizarre in Chiang Mai.

Day Three:

We went for a tour to the Doi Inthanon National Park, a two hour drive away. It includes the highest point in Thailand and a visit to the King and Queen twin pagodas, which are so picturesque.

Today we were definitely most certainly tourists in an organized tour. Definitely not my favorite way to travel, I prefer making my own schedule and going at my own pace, adding and removing tourist spots at will. But with an inexpensive tour taking us to two of the places we wanted to visit, we just went with the flow. Here we are in our oh-so-sexy raincoats visiting the highest point in Thailand.

VIDEO: Doi Inthanon National Park in north Thailand.

Conner with the Queen pagoda behind him. So very pretty here.

Aiden gets the photography bug!

Steve and I in front of the King pagoda.

I told you guys it was picturesque! And it cleared up. It was refreshingly cool at 7,500 altitude. Nice.

Cheesing it out with our tour guide, who was fabulous at taking group pictures. A few waterfalls in the National Park.

At the Karen Village, still in the park, we found coffee friends! Coffee is grown in this region and we bought a bag from a local roaster. 100% Arabica of locally grown coffee, we dig this kind of stuff.

Day Four:

Today we take a morning cooking class. Yay! We'll be able to make you guys Thai meals when you return. Right when class ends we head to the airport to Laos.

VIDEO: Tuk tuk ride Chiang Mai.

We're in cooking class at Zabb E Lee Cooking and we highly recommend it. The entire family had a fabulous time.

Our cooking instructor takes us to the market where she walks us through all the ingredients. We learned a lot about local Thai eggplants and spices.

Conner chopping up veggies.

Viola! Amazing Tom Yum Soong soup and my seafood medley.

I'm so proud to see my picky eater branching out and eating all sorts of veggies and spices. He loved the curry sauces, so fabulous!

VIDEO: Feeding elephants at Elephant Nature Park.

The ingredients to varies curries, Panang, Masamam, Red and Green Curries.

VIDEO: Shopping at market for cooking class. Chiang Mai.

VIDEO: Cooking class in Chiang Mai.