Hello there, I visited CM a few years ago and loved it, the elephant camp we visited was in the Mae Sa valley and we loved it , I think it might have been called Mae Sa elephant camp, there are 70 plus elephants there and you can get right up close to them, we also had a 1 hour elephant ride through a river which I enjoyed, but I must admit it is quite touristy and they made the elephants kick footballs and other tricks in a "show" I do not agree with that.
A much more authentic elephant ride we had was on the Pai river near Mae Hong Sorn , we were taken by our local guide on a long tail boat into a very remote area where there were just a couple of Karen tribe with 4 elephants and it was through very thick jungle - we saw snakes and there were no other people there at all - it was awesome so I think it may be worth travelling outside Chiang Mai for the 'real thing'.


We also visited a very remote hilltribe called the 'black hmong'
this was in a very remote area also and there were no tourists there.
It was probably about 2 hours from CM a great experience - again the hilltribes closer to CM were quite touristy and had stalls set up etc..

Another very good but very long day out is to the Golden Triangle - any other questions feel free to ask , love shirleyV

Thanks so much for info, ShirleyV. How did you go about booking your trips to the hilltribes - was it via a tour company, or a local guide that you found once you were there? Thanks. GN

The trip to see the Karen (long-neck tribes) takes in quite a few other tribes en-route, eg Lisu, Lahu, Akha. No shortage of places to book trips especially near the night-market.
Other places you may want to visit: the Chiang Mai Cultural Centre, Baw Sang (the umbrella village - very colourful).

Thanks - I'd completely forgot about the umbrella village, so thanks for putting that back on my agenda!

GN