Loy Krathong, Yi Peng and elephants in Chiang Mai

The last week of our time in Thailand was unbelievably memorable.

The week started off strong with a three day festival called Yi Peng that overlapped with another festival, this one only lasting one day, called Loy Krathong. The whole idea of both festivals is to praise Buddha through the use of light so these festivals are often referred to as The Festival of Lights.

The main event of both festivals takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar.

This year it was November 7-9, with the biggest night of both festivals landing on the 8th.

On the night of the 7th, the festival was just getting started and there was nothing major going on so Bryce and I decided we wanted to do some shopping.

The main streets of Chiang Mai are lined with vendor after vendor selling their handcrafted goods.

We walked the streets, looking at all the beautiful and cool things we could buy, stopping periodically when something caught our eyes.

We would do a little negotiating with the shop owner, settle on a price, then move on to the next.

Every now and then we would walk past a night market and hop into it to see what they had for sale.

It was a really fun night, walking around and shopping for our family member’s Christmas gifts.

The next day, the 8th, it was the biggest night of the year in northern Thailand.

The streets were packed with locals and tourists from all over as we made our way to a bridge where the krathongs were to be released.

In Thai, Loy means ‘to float’ and krathong is like a basket or boat.

The festival, Loy Krathong, involves sending small handcrafted floating baskets down a river or stream as a way to thank and worship Buddha and the Goddess of Water, Mae Phra Khongkha, for all they provide.

The krathongs are typically made out of a slice of a banana tree base, wrapped in a banana leaf. But now you will also often see them made out of bread or styrofoam. Inside the krathongs you can find offerings of flowers, coins, incense and candles. The candle is intended to shower Buddha in light, the incense is to pay respect to spirits, and the act of the floating away of the krathong is to symbolize letting go of emotions and forgiveness.

Some people even put fingernails or hair in their krathongs to represent their past selves and to let it go with all their negative feelings from the past year.

We got to the bridge where we were greeted with fireworks exploding and lanterns strung on the top of the entire bridge, combining to create a beautiful scene.

As we walked towards the middle of the bridge we looked down into the water and saw a good amount of krathongs. Most of them unfortunately had their candles blown out though so in the darkness of the night it was hard to see and get good pictures of them.

We admired the view off the bridge before continuing to the other side of it where we were met with a busy street full of street food vendors and hungry festival-goers.

Us included.

Bryce got himself a strawberry fruit shake and I got a large bag of caramel popcorn.

We kept walking until we reached the next bridge where at the end of it was a beach that led to the water where people were releasing their krathongs.

We stopped there for a little while to watch then continued on in a large circle around the main streets.

Next, we stumbled upon a little Thai carnival.

Filled with more vendors, carnival games, a ferris wheel and a stage where two young Thai girls were performing a traditional dance.

Of course, we had to do a little more shopping before we walked back to our place and settled in on the balcony to watch the fireworks and lanterns that decorated the night sky all night long.

The next day, the 9th, we were back and forth between deciding whether we wanted to get an hour-long ride outside the city to watch a mass lantern release or not for the second night of the Yi Peng festival.

The Yi Peng festival is about making merit. Essentially gaining happiness and getting brownie-points for the afterlife in the buddhist culture.

Unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to release lanterns near where we were because it is a fire hazard in the city.

In the end, we decided not to because after doing research on it, the whole thing was going to be more of a hassle than expected. Additionally, it was nearly impossible to find any information on it with locations and times.

So we were happy with hitting the streets again and watching the lanterns from our balcony.

We stopped at a night market for dinner, spring rolls, burgers and a cocktail, before walking around to do more Christmas shopping.

Surprisingly, Bryce enjoyed the shopping as much as I did.

When we were done with everything we went back to our apartment and sat together on the couch that Bryce brought to the balcony from the living room, as the sky became dotted with the red glow of the lanterns going up in the distance.

Overall, the Loy Krathong and Yi Peng festivals were both beautiful and an experience unlike any other. Chiang Mai was heavily decorated with colorful lanterns everywhere you looked and candles lined many business fronts. The fireworks didn’t stop for three nights. If the sun was down, fireworks were going at every hour, even consistently into the morning.

It was so fun to see the culture come to life on the most celebrated festival of the year.

Next up on the itinerary was the elephant sanctuary.

At 8 a.m. we were outside our apartment building, waiting for our ride to the elephants.

A yellow truck with the logo “Elephant Jungle Sanctuary” branded on the side of it pulled up, we told the driver our names and hopped in the back.

It was a normal pick up truck but the bed had two benches along the sides and walls and a roof built over our heads.

There were already two couples in the back when we got in.

By the time everyone was picked up we were shoulder to shoulder in there.

We were one of two couples from America, there was an older couple from Toronto, two couples from Germany and a solo traveler from Australia.

After a handful of unnecessary stops, a just over one hour drive turned into two and we had finally made it to the elephant sanctuary.

Two more trucks full of people joined us as we set our bags down and put on the “uniform” of the people that work with the elephants. It was a colorful, striped, woven top with fringe on the bottom.

The purpose of all of us wearing the shirt was so that the elephants recognized us as friends, like the employees there, and also so they associated us as someone bringing food.

After everyone put on the shirts we started walking a quick two minutes into the jungle to where the elephants were waiting.

Our guide for the day, who told us to call him Donut, gave us quick instructions on how to feed the elephants and where it was okay and not okay to touch them.

Turns out elephants are very ticklish so you can't touch their belly.

Donut passed out the bananas and we made the last few steps towards the elephants.

Bryce has seen an elephant before but it was my first time seeing one in real life.

It’s surreal.

The elephants aren't shy, they come right up to you, trunk first, begging for the bananas in your hands.

There are two ways that Donut taught us we can feed the elephants. The first is easy, just hold the banana on an end, extend your hand to them and they will grab it with their trunk then put it in their mouth. The second way is a bit more advanced. You approach the elephant with the banana in hand, raise your arm and say “bon bon” (which means candy). They will then lift their trunks towards the air and open their mouths for you to place the banana on their tongue.

We learned that elephants eat for 14-16 hours a day.

Which was very evident the whole time we were there.

Everyone took turns feeding the elephants for a while. They ate bananas, which is an elephant's version of candy, and corn stalk, which is their main food and source of nutrition.

After that the elephants started walking towards a water hole where we were instructed to follow them. We started following two of the three elephants and just before I made my way into the single person wide, overgrown path, I turned around and noticed the third elephant was a few people behind me. I stepped out of the way while I yelled to Bryce, a person or two ahead of me, and pointed to the elephant.

When he turned back and saw it he said it was one of the wildest sights. Then he found a place he could step out of the elephant's way and got the people around him to do the same so the elephant could pass.

After the elephant got through we began following them again. When we made it down to the water hole we watched the elephants cool down from the hot sun for a few minutes before they decided they were done and began the walk back up.

We were on the elephants’ schedule.

We made our way back to where we started and got seated for lunch.

We were nervous it was going to be another snorkeling-trip-situation of only fruit.

Luckily it wasn’t. We enjoyed noodles, veggies, rice, chicken and french fries.

We were given an hour to eat, sit and take in the views before it was time to make a snack for the elephants.

On the menu for them was medicine (or vitamin) balls.

They were made up of a handful of ingredients we unfortunately can’t remember but some of them were bananas, herbs, rice shells, and cut up corn stalks.

It was all mashed together and made into a ball shape before being fed to the elephants.

Everyone got to feed one to the elephants using the bon bon method.

Neither Bryce or I put the medicine ball deep enough into the elephant’s mouth the first try so unfortunately they got a little dirt on them but I don’t think the elephant seemed to mind.

No time was wasted as we got ushered to a path leading to the mud pool we would be giving the elephants a mud bath in.

Donut reminded us not to be worried about getting dirty before we all slipped our way into the mud pool.

It was the weirdest feeling. I’d say the top 6 inches of the mud pool was mostly water but below that it was pure mud.

Every step you took you sunk deeper into the mess. And on top of that, it was very slippery, I even fell to my knees at one point. It was kind of disgusting though because you just have to assume that some percentage of that mud was actually elephant poop.

But you have to quickly push that thought out of your mind because the elephants aren’t too far behind you and they want to be covered in mud and you're the one that does it.

So the elephants lay down in the mud as their invitation to you to make your way over and get to work cooling them down.

Bryce and I made our way to the closest elephant and got to lathering him in mud.

Bryce of course couldn't resist putting a bit of mud down my arm so in return I put some across his chest.

The elephants started to stand up and make their way over to the river next to the mud pool so everyone followed.

We were given little buckets as we stepped into the river to use to help us wash the elephants clean.

After a few minutes of rinsing off the elephants Donut yelled “water fight” and in seconds river water was going everywhere.

We were in the water for maybe 10 minutes before the elephants decided they had enough and made their way out.

Of course we all followed because there's no point of being in a brown river unless there are elephants in it.

Everyone made their way to the showers and changing rooms where we all rinsed off and got back in our clothes.

We were given more bananas one last time so that we could say goodbye to the elephants before leaving.

The elephants enjoyed their sweet treat until they were all gone and then sadly, the day at the elephant sanctuary had come to an end.

It has been five days since we were there and Bryce and I are still talking about how amazing of an experience that was. There are no words for it and It is something that neither of us will ever forget.

Unfortunately, we left Chiang Mai with things that we wanted to see or do but didn’t get to. In the last blog we said we were planning on going to a water park and a pub crawl.

The water park we planned to do two different times and both times it just didn’t happen. We got ready for the pub crawl and walked to it but once we got there it was dead so we just went to a bar on our own.

There was also another cool activity that Bryce found that we thought could be something new to go to. It was a temple with many statues surrounding it depicting buddhist hell as a scare tactic to the people practicing the religion.

Though graphic, we thought it might be an interesting sight to experience and topic to learn about.

But the fact that we didn’t have a moped and had to walk everywhere, made it harder for us to do everything we wanted to. Turns out it’s difficult to find a moped in the busiest week of the year in Chiang Mai, who knew?

That's alright though because if we ever go back, we will certainly have stuff we want to do and places we want to see.

We loved Chiang Mai, it was so amazing.

And now we are back in Bali for the last month of our trip.