Photos of readers

This is the penultimate submission in the tank, so by all means re-form the queue with your own submission.

Yesterday’s post featured Steve Reiber, and today we have his wife Gayle. Steve wrote the text but the pictures are of Gayle (and friends):

Gayle and I have visited Chiang Mai Thailand 3 times in the last 4 years.

We went originally to visit Elephant Nature Park, an Elephant conservation park founded and operated by Lek Chailert. Home to over 180 rescued elephants, Elephant Nature Park is also a dog and cat sanctuary as well as host to various abandoned or mistreated farm animals.

We have since discovered Chiang Mai’s fantastic food scene, appreciation for coffee, a few excellent tattoo artists, the omnipresent 2 wheel culture and of course the benefits of Thai Massage.

We’ve made a couple of good friends in Chiang Mai that we stay in close contact with.  We have visited some of the very ornate temples which are virtually everywhere, but prefer the more remote ones for meditative practices.

These pictures are of Gayle with her favorite elephant, Mae Jan Peng (or Ma Cham Paign) and with Lek Chailert who was once considered an enemy of the state for her efforts in elephant conservation. She has since been recast as a national treasure and is spreading her model of humane and ethical elephant tourism to other elephant parks.

We have also visited Happy Elephant Home which is modeled after ENP in their focus on conservation and responsible and humane treatment of the elephants in its charge.

Obviously under the current circumstances further visits are on hold, but we donate what we can when possible and we have “adopted” an elephant at Happy Elephant Home to help them recover from the lost tourism that supported their rescue efforts.