Year end vacation in Thailand 2017 - Part 2

For our 2nd day of adventure in Chiangmai, we went to the Maetaeng Elephant Park & Clinic, where we got up close and personal with elephants.

We saw the elephants play soccer, do tricks, and paint! Boy, they were good painters!

And we rode on elephants too! Not just any ride, we trekked over a river, up a steep slope, and down the slope but onto the river to cross back to where we started. Quite an experience!

After that, we went on a ride on an ox-cart. Another new experience for all of us!

Last of the adventure rides - a cruise on a bamboo raft. It was so idyllic that most of us dozed off for a bit during the cruise!

To top our Chiangmai mountain experience, our tour guide brought us to a Long Neck Karen Village. It was a settlement for the Karen tribe who escaped war into Thailand from Burma. The Thai government accepted them, provided them areas to settle in, and allowed the men to work in many of the elephant parks, while the women could set up stalls and sell craft in their villages, which are tourist attractions. 

I felt like I was in a human zoo while walking in the village. All the huts and stalls had a karen woman sitting in front, either weaving or tending to their stalls, and all the stalls were selling more or less the same touristy craft and souvenir. I'm not sure how much souvenir they could sell a day, but certainly wish that the Thai government provided them with enough allowance or that tourists like us paid enough (actually, I don't remember paying, but I've read that tourists have to pay an entrance fee into such villages) for these families to survive. I deliberately refrained from taking photos in the village because I just didn't think it was respectful, and also didn't Nadine and Aaron to think it was an ok thing to take photos of these people, without their permission.

The adults did take a nice photo at the bottom of the village, where there's a nice waterfall. The kids were too hot and sweaty, and just wanted to get back to the van. :-/

For dinner, we went to a nice restaurant by the river. Can't remember the name of the restaurant. But the food was fabulous, and cheap, compared to what we'd have to pay in Singapore! Another lovely day in Chiangmai.