One Day Experience Elephant and Bamboo Rafting and Waterfall

This day adds a bamboo raft ride to the camp's one-day elephant program. You spend most of the day with the elephants in Mae Wang, cool off at a waterfall and then drift down the river on a bamboo raft poled by a local boatman. It suits people who want the elephants plus a bit of gentle adventure without any real hiking.

Pickup in Chiang Mai is between 08:00 and 08:30, followed by about an hour and a half of driving south with a stop at a local market. At the camp you change into a camp shirt and your guide explains the elephants' history and behaviour. You make vitamin balls or tamarind treats, feed the elephants bananas, sugar cane and grass, and spend time watching them. After a buffet lunch of Thai food and fruit you join the elephants in the mud spa and walk to the river to bathe and brush them. Then comes the waterfall for a swim, and the bamboo rafting, a calm ride with a few small rapids. You are back at your hotel in the late afternoon.

The camp sits in a village in Mae Wang district near a national park. It has taken the saddles and chains off its elephants and does not offer riding; you walk with them, feed them and bathe them instead. You will be wet for most of the afternoon, so wear your swimsuit under the camp shirt, bring a towel and a full change of clothes, and keep your phone in a dry bag on the raft.