Eco-Touring in the Foothills of the Himalayas

The main draw of northern Thailand is the natural beauty of the mountains outside of Chiang Mai. One of the most popular eco-tourism activities is a guided multi-day hike to visit remote hill-tribes. However, after hearing from other travellers that these were usually a (sometimes exploitative) rip-off that didn’t live up to the hype, we opted to do a few other eco-based activities instead.

1. Hiking a Waterfall

Instead of hiking for days through the mountains, we managed to squeeze in a shorter excursion to a waterfall. In the jungle canopy, we followed slippery stone steps up the side of a waterfall that seemed to go on forever. The waterfall was steep and narrow, and went even further than the steps ascended up the mountain. The short but strenuous hike allowed us to gauge how vast the mountains are – walking through a small fragment of the area, gave us some perspective on how vast and expansive the Himalayan foothills must be as they extend further north.

2. Elephant Riding

We also organized a trip to an elephant sanctuary recommended by our guesthouse. Elephant tourism is extremely popular in northern Thailand and on some of the islands in the south, but we wanted to make sure we went with a company that treated the animals well. There are many tour companies that are known to mistreat their animals or treat them like “circus” animals. The sanctuary that we visited (not mentioned in any guidebooks) was set in a valley surrounded by hills, where we came face to face with a dozen female elephants. From our experience, the elephants seemed happy, well-treated, and had seemingly close relationships with their individual caregivers (or mahouts). For the day, we learned about Asian elephants, fed them, rode them bareback through the jungle, and gave them baths. Even though I got the “aggressive” elephant Pai Coon (who kept trying to hit me with bamboo), it was a one-in-a-lifetime experience.

 3. Ziplining

One of the things that I looked most forward to when planning our trip was the chance to zipline through the jungle. After looking at a few different tour providers, we opted to spend a bit more and go with the Flight of the Gibbon, featured on the Amazing Race. On the drive into the jungle, the driver put on a taped clip of the episode. The experience was definitely one of the highlights of our time in Thailand. We spent hours flying down some of the largest ziplines in world, standing on platforms surrounding massive trees, “freefalling” and sliding into nets, abseiling, and getting 360 views of the forest canopy. One of the highlights was seeing a family of resident gibbons swinging through the trees, and getting free (and clean!) T-shirts after zipping around the mountains was like winning the backpacker lottery.