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Asia

Pamper, don’t ride, an Asian elephant in Thailand

asian elephant
Pampering elephants at Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Elephant Nature Park is a sanctuary for rescued elephants from the tourism and entertainment trades in Thailand. Every elephant has a heartbreaking story. To help, you can visit ENP as a day visitor or overnight guest or you can stay longer and volunteer.

Please don’t ride elephants in Thailand, South Africa or anywhere. They are wild animals even if born in captivity. In order to ride an elephant in the tourism industry they need to be ‘broken’ and there is a lot of evidence that states the process is very cruel.

If you love elephants that much and want to be close to them, please consider visiting them at Elephant Nature park instead. You can walk with them, bathe them and even have your photo taken with them.

Read: If you love elephants, don’t ever ride them. Here’s why. 
Visit elephantnaturepark.org

A beautiful sunset in rural India

 

SunsetGanges
After travelling the Ganges River for 4.5 hours by row boat to our overnight camping spot, we were treated to this sunset. It wasn’t a formal campsite, just a spot on a sandy beach by the river somewhere near Allahabad, India. Occasionally we would see 1 or 2 people in the distance across the river or fishermen that rowed by. The following morning we were greeted by the rare and elusive Ganga bottlenose dolphins. This was one of my most memorable experiences while on a small group tour with Intrepid Travel in February 2015.

Sunrise boat ride on River Ganga in Varanasi, India

Sunrise on River Ganga (Ganges) in Varanasi, India. There is so much to observe as life unfolds by the river’s edge, but if you don’t look the other way, you’d miss this. The way the sun peeks through the smoke filled skies as it rises is a something worth getting up early for.

 

Life unfolds by the River Ganges in Varanasi, India

Life unfolds by the river Ganga (Ganges) in Varanasi, India. I captured this as I drifted by on a boat as the sun rose.

This was one of my most memorable experiences while on tour with Intrepid Travel in February 2015. I’m counting

http://www.eta-i.org/valium.html

down my favourite experiences and images from my travels this year.

Thanks to IntrepidTravel and Toronto TravelMassive for taking me to India for my first time. I won a 15-day tour at Toronto Travel Massive’s 4th anniversary celebration.

Buddha in the Sulamani Temple in Bagan, Myanmar

Each morning we are born again. What we do today matters most. – Buddha

Found this Buddha statue and a quiet moment at the Sulamani Temple in the ancient city of Bagan, Myanmar. This temple was originally built in 1183 and rebuilt after the 1975 earthquake. Today, over 2200 of the original 4000 temples/pagodas still stand. Each temple has many Buddha statues within it.