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Many people in our group had never had an encounter with Thailand's most majestic animal... The elephant. Prior to our arrival, we all had the stereotypical expectations of what that experience would be; elephant riding, elephant painting, and petting the babies. Excited and exhilarated, we soon realized that at Elephant Nature Park, there are more natural and rewarding ways to interact with elephants... And we walked away impassioned and informed of the hardships of the… Read more

Hellooooo bloggers, it's your crew from Pacific Discovery Thailand! We just spent our first week here in Thailand and I gotta say.... it's been amazing. Having arrived in Bangkok, we were shocked by the vibrant city of friendly faces, food stalls, and humidity. The vivid colors of Khao San Road, the relaxation of a Thai massage, and the majestic temples were a good taste of the culture and people of Thailand. Soon we were on our way to the old capital of Thailand, … Read more

The Elephant Nature Park has been my favorite part of the trip so far! It is a beautiful sanctuary for elephants who have been abused by their mahout (trainer), put through the phajaan torture training (a torture phase to turn the elephant submissive so they know their owner is in control), used for illegal logging, trekking, breeding programs, and trained to perform demeaning circus tricks. A lot of the elephants suffered in their past but are now living the life they d… Read more

The start of our two day trekking trip began at 5:30 am in Chiang Mai. We drove for three hours on an extremely windy road but the scenery was beautiful. We arrived in Pai at our first destination where we unloaded our backpacks, ate some snacks and met our tour guide. After, we drove a little further until we reached the trailhead. The hike began with a very steep incline which got us all huffing and puffing. We finally reached the top of the first hill where we looked … Read more

We spent the last weekend rock climbing and caving in the mountains around Chiang Mai. As a group, we learned a lot about the physical demands of the sport but also though the challenges, we learned a lot about ourselves. Ignoring the brief abseil I did when I was ten years old, I'd never done this kind of thing before. We started with a "warm up" rappel to practice our skills. This turned out to be quite easy for most but our big first day challenge was to rappel down a… Read more