Overnight Stay, Elephant Sanctuary & Doi Inthanon Trek

We booked this a few days before we set off for Chiang Mai After a lot of research and caution over the cruel elephant camps that still exist, we chose the Living Green Elephant Sanctuary.

Link to book this experience

Seeing elephants has always been on the top of our list and we wanted to make sure we picked a sanctuary that actually treated the elephants well. We were so sooo lucky with this experience and it’s 100% the best tour / stay we’ve had so far. Book this and you won’t be disappointed. Here’s our summary of the two days which were honestly amazing!

We were picked up from our Chiang Mai hotel in a mini-bus, which is where we met our guide, the brilliant Pao.

After a 1.5 hour journey to the elephant base, we changed into swimming clothes and a trendy blue overall type shirt, ready to meet the elephants. Each person was given a knitted bag full of elephant food, being sugarcane and bananas (the elephants preferred the bananas). Feeding each of the five elephants was truly a once in a lifetime, unique experience.

After the feed was over, the elephants were led down to a nearby river and the whole group (approx. 20 people) bathed and splashed them until they took themselves back to the food area. We were able to learn each elephant's personality while we fed, bathed and played with them.

After bathing the elephants there was a sudden heavy downpour which meant lunch time (for the humans this time), Pad Thai with all the toppings to choose from - plenty for all.

We then learnt that all the half-day people would go on to visit the Doi Inthanon National Park and trek the heaven trail. We stuck around and noticed we were the only overnighters! Here's Maggie all alone when all our new friends left :(

This actually was a blessing because Pao let us have one on one time with all the elephants in the afternoon followed by one on one bathing time as well as making elephant vitamins. A real get your hands dirty task.

After our second bath and feed with the elephants, we were driven to our homestay. If you don’t mind basic accommodation, you’ll be very happy. The village had a lovely cafe / restaurant overlooking rice fields where we shared a Thai food BBQ cooking experience with Pao. This was followed by a few too many rice wines and then finally bed.

As we were the only ones staying overnight, the cafe was very attentive in the morning and served us a giant breakfast including local dishes and coffee (all included in the price).

We finished up breakfast and were driven back to the elephant base for more one on one time and the new half-day arrivals joined us for the drive up to Doi Inthanon National Park followed by a 2 hour trek up the heaven trail to visit the highest point in Thailand.

After all of this, we were incredibly exhausted but in pure disbelief of our adventures over the past 2 days. A mini-bus took us back to our hotel in Chiang Mai (arriving at 6:30pm) and we were shattered!

10/10 experience!

What you should bring with you: