Chai Lai Orchid

Best vacation ever, amazing experience with elephants. We stayed at riverside, its a cute bamboo lodge, my son jumped into the river anytime he wants. We joined the full day jungle tour, our guide Sam was fantastic. He knows the village very well, very fun to hangout with. The elephants are definitely the star over there, my son didn't want to leave in the end of the trip. Highly recommend.

Booking here was honestly an absolute disaster, but the activities and elephant experience was absolutely wonderful. I emailed a few months in advance after being confused by all the options online to confirm my booking. There are several room options and I am honestly still very confused how to book which room you want. At check in, the employees did not know we were spending the night and thought we were only doing the Doi Inanthonan tour, which was concerning. Upon arrival, we immediately went into the tour of Doi Inanthanon. It would have been nice to have some time to put our things in our room, change, etc, and we did feel a bit rushed into the activity. The highlight of the tour was definitely the hike led by a local Thai woman and the lunch following. It was lovely and probably one of the best meals I had during my time in Thailand. There was alot more driving involved in this tour than I expected. An hour to the park and another two hours back at the end of the day. Once we got back to Chai Lai Orchid, they told me I couldn’t have two nights in the private bungalow, I would need to have one in one spot and the second night in the other. This was confusing, but whatever. They mentioned the private bungalow we would have the next time was new and had a bathtub. Breakfast the next morning with the elephants was lovely. We then started our hike to the waterfalls with our tour guide, Sion. Sion is an absolute light and we absolutely adored him. He did everything perfectly and was such a fun host and leader. This hike was literally the hardest thing I’ve ever done and took MUCH longer than the website leads on. We did the hike to the waterfall from around 9:30am to 3:30pm and all the other activities on the tour the following day. This hike was not beginner mode but so fun. The lunch he made us, including the vegetarian soup with lemongrass, mushrooms, and cucumbers was so delicious and one of my favorite things I ate in Thailand. After the hike, we went back to Chai Lai Orchid to get our luggage and checkout. I was confused why we were checking out in the middle of our stay, but again, whatever. Then, we drove to our bungalow which ended up being a home stay in the Karen village. I think we would have enjoyed ourselves here and it seemed like a lovely experience, but not what I booked. I looked back at emails and confirmed I had emailed them a few months back to confirm I wanted 2 nights in the private bungalow. I just don’t think anyone actually read my email or saw I had questions about booking and wanted to make sure I was booking the correct option. Also, this obviously was not the new bungalow with the bathtub. I emailed Chai Lai Orchid to ask them if we could still go to the private bungalow and they did solve the issue. It still was not the room I requested with the bathtub, but whatever, it was a beautiful room with a beautiful view of the river. At the end of the next day we were pretty confused about transpiration. Sion told us he w