Elephants in Chiang Mai

We headed in to the countryside and spent a morning doing "Mahout training" in Chiang Mai. One word: amazing!!! 

I have to say we (well, mainly me!) were a bit dubious about the elephants at first. So huge, yet so very friendly. The first stage in our mahout training was to get changed into our elephant outfits (below).

Tickle tickle

Say "aaah"

They had some stairs which people used to mount the elephants. We duly noted these and moved on. During elephant school, the mahouts showed us, in a lot of detail, how they mount the elephants. We wondered why they were explaining this so thoroughly, as there were stairs, weren't there?! However, it became clear that this was how we were expected to get onto our elephants too. Below is how NOT to climb onto an elephant gracefully... My second shot was a lot better, but maybe not so entertaining to watch.

Trying to be brave and feed two at once.
My face pretty much sums up how I felt about this.

Getting a bit braver...

We went for a trek on our elephants. Ours was called Mefou and he was pretty chilled. He only sprayed us once with muddy water (and it became clear why they give you special clothes...) Our trek was for an hour, which, in my opinion, is plenty of time on an elephant. Not the most comfortable of rides! 

There was a baby elephant in the group. His Mum was doing a trek so the little Dumbo followed us around, constantly running under the legs of our elephants and generally causing all sorts of mischief.

The trek ended up in this river where we bathed Mefou using a natural shampoo (made out of wood??) One clean elephant, and a great day had by all.