Walk with the elephants, watch them foraging and swimming in the river and experience the thrill of white water rafting downstream amid beautiful scenery
Ethical Elephant Tour | Full Day Expereince | Whitewater Rafting | Chiang Mai | Thailand
Embark on an unforgettable adventure with elephants in the jungles of Northern Thailand, ending the day with a thrilling whitewater rafting journey down the Mae Taeng River. As part of a small group, we will pick you up from your Chiang Mai hotel, and our guide will provide safety information during the journey to the project.
Upon arriving at a scenic location in the Mae Taeng Valley, meet the elephants in the jungle and walk with them along hillside trails, offering them sugarcane along the way and stopping to watch them forage and express their natural behaviours. The walk passes through a beautiful forest habitat rich with native plants.
Later, enjoy a hands-on Pad Thai cooking lesson, followed by a delicious vegetarian buffet lunch overlooking the valley. Then, get your hands dirty as you prepare banana, rice, and tamarind balls, a tasty snack that the elephants love. Afterwards, watch the elephants swimming in the river before offering them these healthy treats as a farewell. At the end of the day, cross the river on a bamboo raft, travel upstream by car, and enjoy an exciting whitewater rafting adventure down the Mae Taeng River while taking in the beautiful scenery.
Capture magical moments with elephants in their lush natural habitat and observe these gentle giants in a caring, relaxed environment where they are free to be themselves. By visiting Majestic Elephant Project, you are supporting ethical elephant tourism and helping provide elephants with a better, more natural life.
Activities at Majestic Elephant Project
Feed the Elephants
Walk with Elephants
Observe Elephants
Learn to Cook Pad Thai
Make Banana Balls
Watch Elephants Swimming
White Water Rafting
Activities
- Meet the elephants in the forest and get to know them a little while feeding them
- Walk with the elephants along scenic jungle trails, observing them forage on native plants
- Feed the elephants sugarcane and other seasonal fruits
- Learn how to make Pad Thai, a traditional stir-fried noodle dish
- Enjoy a vegetarian buffet lunch overlooking the picturesque valley
- Prepare tamarind banana rice health balls for the elephants
- Watch the elephants swimming in the river or drinking in the cool season
- Say goodbye to the elephants while feeding them health balls
- Cross the river and drive to the rafting start point
- Whitewater rafting down the Mae Taeng River (depending on conditions)
- For visitors who do not wish to do rafting, you can spend more time with the elephants
Tour Details
Number of Visitors: 8
Tour Type: Full Day Visit
Pick Up: 8:00-8:30am Chiang Mai hotel
Drop Off: 4:00-4:30pm Chiang Mai hotel
Travel Time: 90 mins each way
Fitness Level: Moderate
Age Suitability: Adults & Children 12+
* Minimum of 2 people required for this tour to operate
What's Included
- Transportation from Chiang Mai city hotel to & from the project
- Food for the elephants
- Freshly prepared vegetarian buffet lunch
- Admission fee & insurance
- Whitewater rafting
- Qualified English speaking tour guide
What to Bring
Hat / Cap | Sunscreen | Insect Repellent | Camera | Walking Shoes / Trainers | Sandals / Flip Flops | Passport Number | Clothes that can get wet (swimsuit, board shorts, t-shirt) | Towel | Clothes to change into after whitewater rafting
Tour Price
Adults & Children 12+: 2,500 Thai Baht
Walk with Elephants
Feed Elephants
Watch Elephants Swim
Observe Elephants
Whitewater Rafting
Adults & Children 12+
Moderate
Qualified Tour Guide
Buffet Lunch
Transportation
Book Your Visit
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Visitors at Majestic Elephant Project
Ethical Elephant Tours
This is a small Saddle Off project with a limited number of guests. Our model is based on ensuring the well-being of the elephants, which means no riding, no shows, no bathing or other unnatural activities.
About Your Trip
Start: 8:00am – 8:30am pick up from your Chiang Mai city hotel, or from our office at 8:00 am. If staying out of town, far from Chiang Mai city centre you will need to arrange your own transportation to our Chiang Mai office. Please advise on your reservation form.
Travel Time: Around 90 minutes (safety talk en route to project).
Travel Details: Transfer from an air-con minivan to a 4WD vehicle for the last 10 minutes of your journey to the project.
Return: Arrive back in Chiang Mai city 4:00pm – 5.00pm.
Baggage Allowance: One small day pack per person.
What to Bring: Camera, hat, sunscreen, insect repellent, sandals/flip flops, walking shoes, clothes that can get wet (swimsuit, board shorts, t-shirt), towel, clothes to change into after you finish doing whitewater rafting.
Operational Months: All year round.
Age Suitability: Adults & children over 12 – guests under 18 must be accompanied by an adult.
Fitness Level: Moderate – capable of walking for 1.5 hours along mountain paths with uphill sections and uneven ground and doing whitewater rafting depending on conditions. If the water level in the river is too high or low, whitewater rafting may not be possible.
Topography: Mountain, jungle & river.
Location: Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.
Nearest Airport: Chiang Mai (CNX) – we recommend you stay in Chiang Mai city the night before your visit. Please note that we cannot collect you from Chiang Mai Airport – only from your Chiang Mai city hotel or guesthouse.
Booking Details: Bookings close at 4pm (GMT+7) on the day before the date of your tour if made in person at our office or 24 hours in advance if booking online. A 30% non-refundable deposit is required to secure your booking. The balance can be paid at our Chiang Mai office by 5pm on the day before your tour or by cash to the tour guide when they collect you from your hotel on the day of your tour.
Majestic Elephant Project Reviews
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This project was definitely one of the highlights of my vacation. The local staff were really funny and had great personalities and made the day really great. The elephants were wonderful and the day was definitely surrounded around their benefit rather than ours which was fabulous. Everyone in my group was extremely pleased with every aspect of the day.
This was an amazing day! The elephants were such beautiful creatures to stay with. Also the staff were very helpful and knowledgeable. I am very happy to have chosen you and will book your project again if I come back to Chiang Mai. Thank you very much for giving me such a beautiful memory.
Thank you for an amazing day! Everything was perfect and it was a really emotional experience seeing elephants up close, in their natural environment and well taken care of. Special thanks to our guide Om, for making it such a memorable tour and taking good care of us!
Mos is an excellent guide. Passionate about the elephants, charming personality, great communication and a great day with the elephants.
I visited the elephants last month at Majestic Elephant Project and it was wonderful. Khun Tu is a great guide. Thank you.
Thank you for an amazing experience and one of the best days of my life.
It was a great day. Thank you for the wonderful experience with the elephants at Majestic Elephant Project.
Once in a lifetime experience and so refreshingly based around what the elephants wanted to do! Me and my boyfriend spent hours researching for a properly ethical experience we could have with these wonderful animals and were so glad we found this place. The whole day was based around what our two elephants wanted to do, from how long the walk took to whether they wanted to get in the water and bathe or not. The small group of 6 makes it wonderfully personal and our guide was really knowledgeable and clearly really cared for them. On top of all this the white water rafting was so much fun and a great way to end the day. Thank you Majestic Elephant Project and our tour guide Ohm for a great day and everything you’re doing for your elephants
As a registered veterinary nurse, I researched for hours trying to find the right organization to support. When I found Asian elephant project, I was impressed by their information and the feedback I had received from fellow veterinary workers which is why I booked with them. Our tour guide ‘Ging’ was kind and genuine with a real love for the elephants. We were treated with respect, felt safe and were well fed! We shared so many laughs and we’re in awe the whole day, it felt like a dream! Thank you so much again elephant project for allowing us to participate in your wonderful efforts. We will be forever grateful for this opportunity of a lifetime.
Absolutely wonderful. Tu was a great guide who showed a lot of care and pride in the project. The mahouts were good to the elephants. Marco/Francisco was a blast on the raft. The cooking experience was fun and delicious and the elephant activities were once in a lifetime. Thank you so so so so much for this experience and for caring for these elephants ethically.
Our guide went above and beyond to make our day amazing (sharing information, taking pictures, providing food/water/towels) but what really made the day was hearing his love for the elephants and why he started Majestic Elephant Project.
Majestic Elephant Project was amazing. Our guide was excellent and the way they allow the elephants to make choices for themselves rather than forcing things on them to please tourists was an encouragement. They do elephant tourism in a way that is respectful of these magnificent creatures.
It was an amazing day and the guide and food more than we ever expected. Really happy!
Thank you so much for this amazing experience!
This was our best tour in Thailand to date. Perfect in every way. We really appreciated the in depth knowledge and info provided by Por and felt good about supporting this work. Great day. Oh and thank you for taking care of our shoes!
Life During Covid at Majestic Elephant Project
At Majestic Elephant Project, the elephants are lucky to live by a beautiful stretch of the Mae Taeng River where they can take the weight off, cool down, and hang out together swimming in the heat of the day. During Covid there were no visitors for almost two years. The elephants spent their days foraging on natural vegetation in the surrounding forest, cooling off in the river, scratching their bodies against rocks and covering themselves with mud. They also enjoyed food that was brought to them, including grass, cornstalks, banana tree stalks, pineapple, watermelon, and of course their favorite- bananas. To get food to these elephants is quite an arduous task. After cutting corn stalks & banana tree stalks in the fields and loading them onto a pickup truck, the mahouts and staff then have to unload the food, carry it down the river bank to a bamboo raft and finally transport it across the river to the elephants on the other side. After visitors stopped coming, the mahouts were kept busy cutting and preparing the vast amounts of food that the elephants require daily. Keeping these massive herbivores properly fed was a huge challenge. Thanks to the staff who worked hard to care for the elephants and thank you to all the kind people who supported the elephants by helping to buy food for them during these difficult times.
Project Background
Khun Tu and his wife, Pin established an elephant riding camp for tourists with whitewater rafting back in 1996. Over the years they became more aware of how the elephants suffered in this form of tourism and how much it affected their health. Many years ago they saw some of the other local elephant camps transitioning away from offering elephant riding and decided they wanted to make the change to a more ethical program. Following the Saddle Off model, which focuses in improving the well being of the elephants, Majestic Elephant Project opened to visitors in August 2016. The project is home to a small herd of female elephants who are now enjoying their retirement from a hard life working in logging and and later giving rides to tourists. Khun Tu is also the guide at Majestic Elephant Project and is able to provide visitors with fascinating insights into the habits and nature of elephants. They are glad to have embraced the opportunity to change to a more compassionate model, where the elephants live with dignity, are able to roam and forage and interact with each other in an atmosphere of respect and admiration.