The Elephant Safari

The Long Boat on the banks of the Maekong river

on the river


first sight of the elephant camp

Our elephant still searching for bananas and sugarcane
pieces even after we had finished feeding him all that
we had



Northern Thai style picnic lunch: those neat triangular
banana packages contain rice


Sticky rice steamed in banana leaves

the tsongtao

We had planned on doing an elephant safari in Northern Thailand for a long time before we actually reached Thailand. Earlier R was trying persuade me to sign up for one whole day of mahout training, at the end of which I would be riding alone on an elephant, and directing him myself! R wanted to add the Mahout certificate to his many accomplishments, however..... I was not very keen on spending an entire day of my precious vacation becoming a mahout. So we compromised by going on an elephant safari in Chiang Rai. We went to the main town of Chiang Rai and hunted down a tour company called Golden Triangle Tours, highly recommended by Frommers. After going through a variety of tours that they offered, we settled for this one which combined a long boat ride, an elephant safari, a northern Thai style picnic, a visit to three tribal villages and a famous local waterfall.

We started off from our hotel around 8 am, after a good breakfast and were driven to the banks of the Maekong river a little outside Chiang Rai where a longboat awaited us. I had thought that there would be some more people along with us for the tour, but was pleasantly surprised to realise that it was only us, which meant that we could spend as much or as little time at each destination as we liked! The upriver longboat ride was very pleasant in the morning hours, we saw some riverfront houses which obviously belonged to the very wealthy, some shrines and even a river front beach with small cottages built along the riverside where people could picnic and spend the day. On the way, our guide Natcha, who spoke excellent English pointed out the various types of vegetation prevalent in Northern Thailand. In an hours time, we reached the elephant camp village, Ruammit . The villagers of Ruammit are from the Karen tribe and Christian. As we ent on a Sunday, the village looked a bit deserted as most of the villagers had gone to church. It was right around a bend in the river and quite a sight.. 10 - 15 elephants sauntering along a river embankment, quite similar to an ' Indian ghat'. We spent some time with the elephants and talking with other guides and tourists, while the village organization decided which elephants we would get. My mother in law recently told me that R's childhood ambition was to work in a zoo or a circus. True to his childhood ambition, R immediately went about getting acquainted with the elephants. I was a little more hesitant, but utterly thrilled when an elephant I was photographing made a salute!!! We even saw a pregnant elephant whose baby could be seen moving inside.

After we were assigned an elephant, we climbed up to a 'machan' or elevated platform which made it easier for us to climb on the elephant (this was the part I had dreaded before I saw the machan, a previous experience riding a camel in the Jaisalmer desert had taught me that's the roughest part of the ride... when the animal stands up and one is suspended midair for a millisecond!) However this was easy and we also had the 'howdah', the elephant seat. I have to use Indian words as I never got to know the Thai words. The mahout sat on the elephants head , as cool as can be, his legs dangling on the elephants forehead, and thus he sat for most of the trek. We had a bigger elephant, clearly the patriarch of the tribe ahead of us, carrying an Australian couple. The patriarch barged ahead of other elephants , who rapidly made way for him as he trumpeted his arrival to his followers. Clearly, none was going to mess with him! We passed out of the village, the surrounding farmlands, and into the dense tropical jungle. At first, I hung on with some trepidation, clutching tightly to the the iron bars of the 'howdah'. R was enjoying it immensely , this was something he had been wanting to do ever since we decided to visit Thailand, his only regret was that he had to sit on the 'howdah' and not on the elephants back! Slowly we both got used to the elephants gait, though every downhill part of the trek had me clutching to the howdah for dear life. The elephant walked adroitly down narrow pathways, up steep hillsides and through shallow streams. I had to admire its dexterity in navigating this terrain, despite it's size (The Thai elephant can weigh anywhere between 2500 to 4000 kgs and the average height is around 2.5 m). After a little more than two hours through the tropical jungle, we came to the second tribal village camp on the other side of the hill. We had bought a bag of bananas and sugarcane pieces for our elephant at the first camp and fed this to him here. It was a delightful sight to see him munch through the contents of the entire bag in a matter of minutes. Elephants can eat 200 kgs of food and drink 100ltrs of water per day, so I guess it was just a small snack for him. He even examined the plastic bag to make sure there wasn't anything hidden inside at the end.

From here we went by tsongtao to a picnic spot in the hills, it was a very pretty location, by the banks of a stream in a heavily wooded area. Our northern style Thai picnic lunch consisted of sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, stir fried chicken, fried catfish, jackfruit steamed with red chili paste , stir fried baby corn and beans, and fried tofu, all this accompanied by a green colored peanut based dip and a red chili based dip. We were supposed to dip the chicken, or tofu or fish in the dip and then eat it with the sticky rice. The food was delicious and tasted even better, I suspect because we were having it outdoors! The steamed jackfruit reminded me of the 'fanasachi bhaji' (raw jackfruit )my mother makes, a great childhood favorite of mine. According to our guide, Natcha, the Thai version is made by steaming raw and chopped jackruit for a long time till it is quite soft, and then pounded with red chili paste along with some other ingredients. We made short work of the food and then lazed around the campsite for a while.

After a short ride in the 'tsongtao' through the mountainous countryside, we reached the Khot Korn waterfalls. We did make a quick stop at another tribal village, but perhaps because we have seen similar villages before, it was not a very unique experience for us. I t was however fun to ride in a tsongtao. Tsongtaos dont usually have air conditioning, to compensate, a pedestal fan was strapped to the seat near the front end of the passenger section. It was one funny sight! The Khot Korn waterfalls gave us an opportunity to enjoy some more of the beautiful northern Thailand countryside. Overall one of the highlights of the trip for us was definitely the elephant ride and the picnic lunch.