Alright kids, so you want to see the elephants?
In certain areas of Thailand you can't avoid the tour-hype: there are apparently certain things that you "have" to do when you visit certain places. Normally, without being too cynical, it isn't easy to judge which of these "must-see" things are really worth it, or at all suitable, depending on what sort of tourist you are, and which are simply hype. This is normally made harder by the fact that you are only in said place for a limited amount of time, and are not likely to be back there again (and so have the opportunity to do it again) soon. So it was (is) for us and attractions in Chiang Mai- one of which is the elephants. Now I figure that there must be other places to see elephants- we saw them on Ko Samui, for crying out loud- but Chiang Mai has more elephant reserves/farms/home/camp/condos than you can poke a stick at. And there are enough reviews on the web to convince you pretty quickly that visiting one is THE BEST EXPERIENCE I HAD WHILE I WAS IN ...