Blue Tao Elephant Village

My Mum and me took a wonderful two-day adventure with the Blue Elephant Thailand Tours. Our tourguide Mr. Toto took great care of us from the very first moment, when he picked us up at our hotel. We spent our first day at the "Blue Tao Elephant Village", which is an ethical elephant sanctuary, where handfeeding, washing and riding the elephants is prohibited. The day started with "cooking" some elephant treats, followed by the elephant breakfast. We enjoyed watching those elephant feedings. We also accompanied the three elephant ladies for their daily walks and bathing routines. After a marvellous day at the elephant sanctuary we went off to our remote overnight location the cozy "Treehouse Good View Chiang Mai". From here we had an incredible view of the Doi Inthanon to the West and a huge white Buddha statue to the East. We relished a delightful home cooked dinner while enjoying the view and listening to traditional live music (sadly I forgot the name of the traditional string instrument). On the next morning we visited the huge white Buddha statue and adjacent small temple (Samnak Wipassana Phra That Sri Somdej Phra Phutthachinwong). Our trip ended with loads of fun, when we went bamboo rafting. Overall it was a really great experience and I can recommend that wholeheartedly. And I really want to thank Mr. Toto, for being the funny and quite knowledgeable tourguide he was. He took great care of us during the whole experience, never got tired of explaining things and answering our questions and made sure we enjoyed heaps of delicious veggie food ("without fried chicken, right?!")

Our day with Blue Elephant Thailand Tours started well with Simon our guide, a safe driver and a great sense of humour. Whilst visiting the relics/temples he gave us a great quick guide to Buddhism before we headed off for our amazing treetop lunch in the mountains which had to be seen and tasted to be believed! Once at the Blue Tao Elephant Village everything had been thought of including wellies to keep your shoes clean (plus a foot spa afterwards!). Walking next to the elephants and watching them feed and bathe as and when they wanted was fantastic, then a chat with Sirin back at base demonstrated his passion for the elephants as well the challenges faced with changing the sanctuary to an ethical hands off approach in recent years. A great experience with people who obviously love what they do. Thank You.

My friends and I had so much fun on this tour!! Our tour guide Lida was so friendly, informative and spoke perfect English. She also took plenty of nice pictures of us during the tour. Our group was a small, intimate size and the lunch and snacks were delicious! It was nice that we got picked up and dropped off and they even drove us to their office before the tour so we could pay by card. We did not expect to go on a whole hike with the elephants, that was a nice touch. We also did the bamboo raft portion of the tour and it was honestly so fun, I would recommend!