Two experiences that changed my life in Thailand
Hey fam,
Julian has been spending days writing and preparing a beautiful story of our time in Chiang Mai and I am so grateful he is the Yin to my Yang but I’m not sure if either of us can fully write the feeling of two life changing moments we had in Thailand I am going to share with you.
Where do I begin? Well, the Elephant Sanctuary visit… As he mentions, I was sick and had a slow start in Chiang Mai but I truly rallied as much as possible because who travels 24 hours around the world just to sit in a hotel room? I had already experienced culture shock, seen things unimaginable like gorgeous beaches, ornate temples, etc. but the feeling that I experienced while at the elephant sanctuary brings a smile to my face and sparks a deep yearning to relive those moments.
We rode in a rickety truck full of other tourists on our way through jungle villages to the Elephant Sanctuary. We hopped out and were instructed on the safety precautions needed for this excursion. What we needed to understand is that these elephants live with the Karen tribe people. The elephants may have been rescued from a camp where they were abused, beaten to submission for riding or from poaching, but with tourists like us, paying for this excursion helps the Elephant Sanctuary rescue more elephants and care for them by giving them food and medicine.
We were advised to change into clothing from the Karen people as a way for the elephants to know that we are one of the good guys and with the tribe. This is when our excursion began. We were introduced to the local herd and then were welcomed to feed them banana and cane sugar. The one thing that amazed me looking back was that these elephants weren’t anything like the elephants of Miami Zoo. They were so free to do as they pleased, they were happy with their tails swaying, ears flopping and were surprisingly fast moving. The baby elephant ran as fast as our pup back home. I never imagined that they would be so active. They were so gentle and free. We even noticed how they would throw dirt on their backs to protect their skin from the sun. How cool!
I promised myself (and Julian) that after a week of taking pictures of everything in sight and obsessing over creating content, that I wanted to be present. I couldn’t help but be completely absorbed in this moment in time, expanding my views and living my passion for animals. I remember Julian trying to take pictures of me while feeding them and I didn’t even care to pose or look a certain way. I am lucky that we have a couple of good shots because I was so speechless and consumed in caring for them that I could care less about anything else.
After feeding them, we ate a lunch prepared by the Karen people. I remember the dining experience was delicious and quickly became entertaining. While we were eating, it started to rain. Our lunch tables were staged under tin roofs and as the rain started making a ping ping sound from hitting the tin roofs, the sound started to scare the elephants. They all scurried away into the jungle, huddling together while it rained. It was so cute to watch how these 10,000 lbs animals got scared of the sound.
After the weather cleared up, the elephants made their way back down to the mud pond and it was bath time. Things were about to get really messy! We took off the Karen tunic that they gave us and we stripped down to our bathing suits. Our next task was to completely cover them with mud! Massaging the mud into their skin felt like rubbing mud on a thick leather suitcase with prickly hair (Ha! can you imagine?). This was the first time that I had had a mud bath as Julian and I were completely covered and waist deep in a mud pond in the middle of a Thai jungle with tribe peoples, wild elephants and other brave adventurers. Everyone around me was smiling and laughing. You could feel their energy while we cared for these elephants and I can’t help but smile when I reminisce.
Once everyone was completely covered in mud, it was time to wash them off, (or vice versa). This is when the elephants’ comedic personality came out. They moved from the small mud bath pond to the large clear pond. We followed them in and got our buckets to wash them off but they had another idea in mind. They would fill their trunks up with water and spray us!! As if straight out of a movie they were so funny and playful and carefree that everyone who was there for the experience was having fun. I wish that moment would never end because I never thought in a million years that I would end up in Southeast Asia let alone have a day caring for wild elephants. People would say that this is a once in a lifetime moment but I can’t wait to return and have my family experience this in their lifetime as well.
The last thing that we did before going back to the city was give medicine to the elephants in need. We mixed up a concoction advised by the tribe to then feed to specific elephants. To anyone reading this, I can’t express how this whole day changed my life and world view. I truly care for how animals are treated around the world and I don’t want to think about them being mistreated for human entertainment. Elephants are such incredible creatures being out in the wild and free to do whatever they want and live however they want. Humans so often only care about themselves and what pleases them and it often comes at the expense of others like animals, the planet, etc. I know that my excursion ticket wasn’t enough to make much of a difference, except maybe to provide food or medicine for a day. But I think that the idea of shifting my way of thinking to a more selfless manner was such a big take away. (You see, what I didn’t know is that my cloud nine happiness was going to continue for the next couple of days… My second life changing experience was about to begin on our journey back to the city after our Elephant Sanctuary excursion).
Julian and I secured a safe and dry spot in the truck on our way back to the city while the other members of our group were in the open bed of the truck with some plastic covering on the top and a little bit on the sides. What these uninformed travelers weren’t aware of was that today was the beginning of the Thai New Year known as “Songkran”. This is a 3 day celebration where the whole country has legit WATER FIGHTS in the streets. Yes I said WATER FIGHTS! So as we started to make our way back to the city we drove through villages where families of all ages were waiting on the street side ready to throw buckets of water at our truck. There were families having picnics, waist deep in the rivers, while their children played by throwing water on each other. There were people whose homes were right on the main road locked and loaded with a hose in hand and ready to drench our fellow travelers while Julian and I laughed from the dry passenger seats of the truck.
This was just the beginning of it all. By the time we made it back to the city we had just missed an elaborate parade in the city square where there were performers in costume, dragons, water fights of course, live music and streets packed with people. I knew this was going to be epic! As a little girl, I remember my mom and Aunt Liz having water gun and water balloon fights every summer. My Aunt Liz’s water gun was always high powered and the best of the best. She would have freaked out if she saw this caliber of water fight. It was the perfect mix of locals and tourists having a huge celebration. That night, we showered and went to the main square. We stocked up on essentials like fresh water, Pringles, Mentos, water guns and water proof pouches to put our phones in. We thought that we were ready for Songkran, but we had no idea!
The next morning we ate a solid breakfast at our hotel and were ready to take on the day! With our cell phones in protective gear, our Go Pro strapped to our chest and our water guns loaded, we headed to the main square. As we approached the square, we started shooting at cars driving by and thought that was the extent of it. Oh no. As the day progressed we noticed that there were people in open bed trucks wearing war paint on their face with barrels of water with an ice cube almost the full size of the barrel. They would use big buckets, not cute squirt guns, to drench anyone on the streets. We ended up posting up on the sidewalk with 2 little Thai boys who were unsupervised and loading up a barrel street side with water from the moat. We kept refilling our water guns with their water and eventually Julian ended up getting down and dirty in the moat to fill large buckets to refill the boys’ barrel. Eventually, we befriended them so much, that they used our water guns and they let us use their buckets. This was my favorite. I was a complete savage. Partnering with the young Thai boy, anyone who drove by, rode on a skateboard or walked by us were completely fair game. I went on a rampage and soaked anyone in site. This just makes me laugh. I have this one video that shows how savage I was. These funny memories take me back to this moment, when I was smiling ear to ear but couldn’t open my mouth without fear of getting sick from the moat water hahaha. We may have spent over 3 hours on the side of the street playing with these kids, but eventually, we moved on to discover more of the city within the main square. We were soaking wet while we had lunch. Afterwards, we wanted to check out a couple of temples.
We researched the Wat Phra Singh (Gold Temple) beforehand and knew that it was a must see! It is a sacred 14th century temple within the main walls of Chiang Mai. We were most excited to see its elaborate architecture covered in gold, including golden elephants. I loved the attention to detail. Everywhere that I looked, from the main Temple to the sides of the temple, had statues of previous monks, while the gold temples in the back were decorated with wind chimes and ornate dragons.
While making our way towards the front of the temple by the main entrance, there was a place that was selling what looked like a cup of water with flower petals that had a sweet scent and single stem flowers for sale. I wasn’t sure what these were for until we decided to follow the locals and purchase a cup of fragrant water, the flower and afterwards, make our way to a Buddha statue by the entrance. We saw people taking off their shoes at the steps, standing in prayer over their water and flower, placing the flower on the alter, splashing the statue like we had done for Songkran, and then finally dabbing their hands on the water they had just splashed and putting it on their forehead. (While writing this I found a video of us taking part in this spiritual tradition. It’s a bit shaky but we wanted you to have a view of our experience).
After this event I came to the realization that the world may be so big and yet we are not so different. I was raised as a Christian but I’m not active in a church. I thought of the connection of the Thais splashing the Buddha statue with the flower water and connecting that to what Christians believe as holy water. Often, while back in my everyday life, I think about how the media tries to divide people and the truth is that we may have different religious backgrounds, we may be born in different cultures in all parts of the world, we may have different political beliefs, we may be from different sociological and economic backgrounds but the truth is that we are so alike… Songkran for me was an incredible experience for the water fights and how they celebrate the traditional new year with their families, friends, tourists and in temples worshiping the Buddha. If it were up to me I would love to celebrate Songkran here in the USA because I am always looking for a reason to get together and have a full on savage water fight.
Visiting the elephants at the Elephant Sanctuary and the days of celebrating Songkran with the locals changed my life for the better and serve as inspiration while we are here at home during quarantine. The way that we treat others and care for humanity is so important. I am so grateful to have had the mentality to live my life to the fullest, be open to travelling so far around the world to experience other cultures and share time with beautiful creatures.
Thank you for reading this story as the experience has truly changed me. I would love to hear your feedback on our articles, diaries, short stories and videos. Please comment with your thoughts below and subscribe to our website so you can get notifications when new content is released. During quarantine, we have been working really hard to build new content to share so that when things calm down we will be ready to keep exploring this beautiful world!
Sending you love,
Nina