Elephant Hills - Surat Thani, Thailand

I’m literally staring at the screen not sure what to write - another moment of awe as I reflect on yet another amazing part of this trip.

We spent 4 nights at Elephant Hills Elephant Sanctuary in Surat Thani, Thailand. This was a decadent treat - beautiful landscapes, interacting with and feeding beautiful Asian Elephants, amazing Thai food (getting our spice on), luxury tent, jumping off a huge traditional Burmese junk boat into salty Indian ocean water, and connecting with a phenomenal group of different people from all over the world.

I didn’t realize how elephants were used for labor here - including transportation of large trees that have been knocked down, tourism - elephant rides, circus style shows, etc. Elephant Hills rescues these work elephants and gives them a wonderful life in the countryside of Surat Thani. Some things we did:

Day 1- canoeing and learning about and feeding the elephants.

Day 2- kayaking in the mangroves and jumping from the second level of a large boat into a very salty river that connects to the Indian Ocean.

Day 3 - rode a long tail boat out to a floating camp where we spent the day swimming in and relaxing along a 100 meter deep lake surrounded by high gumdrop shaped mountains that reminded me of Guilin, China. Stunning - oh and then there were the huge fish we swam with 🐟 🙃

Day 4 - school work, packing, a ginormous spider (huntsman spider right outside our tent) and a day traveling to Koh Samui - girls are going to try Muay Thai fighting today!!

Hope you are all well! Be safe.

Next stop: we’ll be in Koh Samui until Monday - one night back in Bangkok - and then Kathmandu Nepal!!Read more