Continue reading »]]> hello, my husband and i are going trekking in chiang mai and we want a 2 or 3 day max trek in chiang mai, preperably visiting doi inthanon park which doesn’t involve elephant trekking? we cannot seem to find any and it is very frustrating. we have our moral reasons for not wanting to ride these beautiful creatures. we look forward to hearing from you.
hi thanks for replying, we are not hearted environmental moralist/activists we just made a mistake of signing up to a tour in egypt on our honeymoon where a camel ride was included. little did we know of the abuse these animals suffer until we saw it with our own eyes. we know there are a lot of differences between thai and egyptian people, and we go to thailand quite often but even so, i still would not want to go on an elephant ride because it goes against our morals. i dont want to go in to any gory details of what we saw of the camels in egypt but lets just say it was shocking and an eye opener.

I would say book it when you get to Chaing Mai. There are plenty of Kiosks on the street with people booking treks. I took a three day trek in the mountains and no elephants were involved. You’ll get a better price in town. I think I paid 1800 baht for three days (there were 6 people in our group but I didn’t know any of them). We climbed to the top of a mountain and stayed one day with a hilltribe. Take some gifts (clothes, and some toys for the kids, maybe some school supplies) all the food was included but they had water, beer and sodas available for extra so make sure you take some Baht 10 and 20s (I think I spent about 100 baht extra).

I agree about the long necks but to assume that hilltribe people are unaware of the outside world and that you would be interfering in their idolic life is kind of paternalistic. Many are refugees from the KMT in Myanmar. Many were employed in the poppy (heroin) business and are now just trying to raise their families. They are poor not stupid.

Please pick an answer (even if not mine) because some here like to use shills to increase their point totals.

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