This wonderful three day tour departs Chiang Mai and from here you'll travel through the hills to Mae Hong Sorn - a sleepy village boasting just one set of traffic lights!

With two nights at a superior hotel, experience the surrounding area, including a ride through the countryside on the back of an elephant and visit the Long Neck Karens and other hill tribe villagers before flying back to Chiang Mai to conclude your tour.

The Elephant Village was opened in 1973 as a sanctuary for former working elephants. These elephants, through reasons of injury or ill health, can no longer be used as a part of the backbone of heavy work in the jungles of Thailand. Also because of their diminishing habitat, it is now longer possible to return them to the wild.

The Elephant Village provides these magnificent creatures with a safe haven, where they may live out their lives with dignity and freedom from fear. Spend the afternoon being entertained by the big tuskers, see them having a bath and how they were once used as a working animal. The elephant show includes demonstrations of training techniques, bathing, traditional roundup methods and the Glong Sabad Chai Ceremony with a war elephant. At the end of the show, visitors will have the opportunity to take a short ride on an elephant for an extra cost.

This trip is a gentle way to see Chiang Mais? People?s lifestyle. Leave hotel to Wat Chai Mongkol where you start cruising through rural Mae Ping River by long-tail boat for 30 minutes. Softly moving along the river you will see wooden houses and modern residences with colourful scenery and lifestyle of the local people. Arrive at a local farm house where you can take a leisurely stroll around the grounds.

Continue on to Waroros Market, to see and feel the real northern people way of life and much more. In order to feel more about it, we take a tricycle ride along the main road to the old city. Then come to the main temple in town named Wat Prasingh (A.D.1345), housing a very old and sacred Buddha image, Phra Singh, for a visit. This temple contains supreme examples of Lanna art at Viharn Lai Kham which was built to house Phra Singh image enthroned inside. Lai Kam refers to the elegant gold tracery used for decoration. On the inner walls of the Viharn Lai Kham are some murals of two fables. Prince Sang Thong of the Golden Conch lies on the north wall and the Heavenly Phoenix takes up the south.