October 28, 2025
We were up early to get picked up at 7am for our Elephant sanctuary adventure. Wee found us a coffee spot to stop at on our way out of town and then we hit the road. The 90 minute ride had the usual Harry Potter audio book and Paw Patrol podcast entertainment and went by quickly. After a winding, twisting final stretch, we arrived at the sanctuary and already saw elephants roaming around the property.
After meeting the handlers, donning traditional Karen ponchos and learning a few safety tips, we were off to feed the elephants some bananas for breakfast. Len tried to snag a banana to eat himself but we urged him against it as most were a bit mushy and not meant for the humans.
One host, “Mr.Handsome” said, “If the little girls want to get closer to the elephants, their parents can go with them” Both boys went up to him to correct him and they repeated themselves a few times before he understood and accepted they were in fact boys. Similar to the coconut boat captain in Vietnam, he at first insisted “Nooo, not boys, girls!”
After feeding the elephants bananas, we made elephant vitamins from grass, rice, tamarind, probiotics, salt, and more bananas. The sticky, mushy vitamin mess was then formed into balls to be again fed to the elephants. The boys were the only kids at the visit today so they were repeatedly selected as volunteers to help which they loved.
Next up was an elephant bath in the river. Definitely more of a performative bath, we were given small plastic bowls to use to splash water on the elephants as they walked through the river. Then the elephants were directed to a nearby mud pit where we were directed to help cover their skin in mud to keep them cool. At first, Len and I acted like we were going to participate but we couldn’t handle the mud pit. From the jump Ollie made it clear he would not be entering the mud pit. Kyle persevered and rubbed a bit of mud on an elephant before grabbing a handful of mud and rubbing it all over Ollie. Up until this point I was feeling good about our elephant experience but parading the elephants around and letting humans rub them with mud felt weird to me, like an activity meant for social media only and not for the elephants.
After rinsing off the residual mud in the river and getting changed, we had a simple lunch (chicken curry, tofu, rice, veggies, watermelon) and played Uno. The food was not the boys’ favorite and Len in particular was not a fan. Thankfully, our driver for the day had gifted Len a bag of shrimp flavored crisps that hes been obsessed with and he happily munched on those.
Since the elephant excursion started early at 7am, we were back at our hotel before 2pm. We all had showers and prepared for a bit of quiet time before heading out on our next adventure of the day. Kyle, Ollie and I finished the Harry Potter 6 movie while Len watched more Wild Kratts shows on his iPad. Len’s Harry Potter stand off continues.
With Halloween looming in a few days, we spent the afternoon on a mission to get costumes. First we rented motorbikes from a shop near our hotel and then we were off. Kyle found a spot online that rented costumes which felt like an ideal option for us. The only downside being that the shop was a ~30 minute ride away via highway on the motorbikes. After driving to the suburban shopping center where the store was located, we spent 10 minutes walking around looking for the actual shop. The storefront had changed since the picture on Google was posted and we were worried it had closed but were thrilled to finally find it. The boys were laser focused on super hero costumes from the start and thankfully we found a few that would fit them right away— Ollie as Captain America and Len as War Machine. Keeping with the theme, Kyle chose a Thanos costume while I weighed my options. I briefly considered a “lady Spiderman” costume but in the end felt like a hulk costume was more fitting.
On the motorbike drive back to town during a point of quiet reflection, Lenny goes, “You know Mama, I’m sad both my birthday presents broke. And paw patrol Uno is gone.” His birthday presents in Saigon both broke the same day we gave them to him and we think we left Paw Patrol Uno at the hotel. Thankfully we have our backup Uno deck to get us through.
We had dinner at a rooftop Japanese spot back in town. Unfortunately our long motorbike ride back into town meant we just missed the spectacular sunset and just caught the tail end of it. There was live music and a lovely view but this meal wasn’t one of our best. The kids were clearly tired and Lenny wouldn’t stop throwing Uno cards each time he lost. Len ended up eating a few bowls of edamame for dinner and Ollie a few plates of crispy gyoza.
We grabbed ice cream at the 7-11 nearby before heading back to the hotel. The kids were acting wild so I shifted into Hulk mode and “Hulked Out” on them which they loved and unfortunately only fired them up further.
