My family and some friends recently spent the day at Baanchang Elephant Park near Chiang Mai during our three week trip to Thailand. My young adult children and their friends are most concerned about animal exploitation, and have refused to see any animal 'shows' or animals kept in suboptimal conditions, so it was with a lot of research and some... More

This is the real thing. Get out, learn to ride and wash the dirt away afterwards when you bath your elephant. You will love every moment of it! We did the 3-day mahout training at Baanchang Elephant park and can only highly recommend it. The elephants are treated very respectfully and, as a result, are relaxed and friendly. They are... More

All in all well worth the money and as others have said, it's worth paying extra for your own elephant as it allows more time with them. Our guide, Sumit) wasn't great. He was repetitive and not very engaging. Luckily our interaction with him only was limited and the time with the elephants more than compensated. After our pick up... More

The elephant experiences were very well organized: first a short lecture, then you feed "your" elephants, another short lecture on how to get up on and down from an elephant and you then get up on and down from 2 elephants; another short lecture to learn the commands, then a short ride using those commands (go, left, right, down). Then... More

If you are not one for shows with animals in chains then this one is for you. We got to feed, ride (bare back) and wash the elephants. Great day being a Mahout and our guide Tom was very helpful. Also a nice lunch. Showers didn't feel super clean was the only downside. More

Today we visited the BaanChang Elephant Park - definitely the highlight of our trip! Our guide Tom had such a gentle spirit and was truly passionate about his work. The briefings were informative and he made sure we were confident before climbing atop these gentle giants. What an exhilarating experience to not only ride bareback on these beautiful creatures but... More

We visited Baanchang Elephant Park after doing a bit of research into the best/most elephant friendly place in Chang Mai. The elephants get fed well (as do the tourists, lunch was massive and delicious!) and seem very happy in their work (probably because they used to be logging elephants and ones who have been rescued from a more touristy environment... More

Let's face it, being from Canada, we're never going to get that close to an elephant in our lives. We had the greatest time at Baanchang elephant park! We were given the role of elephant trainer for the day. We were instructed to change into their designated "trainer" clothing and meet out front for a brief training session. We had... More

Did the day tour that included orchid farm, karen long-neck village, elephant riding, hiking to an awesome waterfall, whitewater rafting, and bamboo rafting. our guide was great and easy to talk to, and the activities were great, and for less than US$50? can't really go wrong :) thumbs up More