Elephants!

The next morning, I woke up bright and early, ready to go and play with elephants! I never really wanted to ride on one, so this was perfect. Feed, bathe, and play with them. I was picked up at my hostel, and we went to the food market first. We loaded up a truck with food for the elephants: watermelon, bananas, corn, and pumpkins. The drive was about an hour. We arrived at the park and saw elephants walking around freely. A few came right up to the van because they knew food was coming soon too. At the Elephant Nature Park there are 32 Asian elephants. The oldest is 70 something, and the youngest is 2 years. There are many volunteer opportunities at the park, I was doing the day trip, but there were many other people there staying at the park from 1 week, to several months. The woman who runs the park, Lek, is quite passionate about saving elephants. When logging in Thailand was banned, it left many elephants without work. The only thing the owners could do with them was to use them as a tourist attraction. The taming of the elephants amounts to torture in many cases. Baby elephants walk the busy streets of Bangkok begging for money for their owners. They are very distressed and it is not the proper life for an elephant. So at the Elephant Nature Park, elephants roam freely through the many acres of the park. They do not give rides to tourists. Volunteers come to care for the elephants and get to interact with them in a positive way.
The first thing we did was feed the elephants. I started with the baby. She was bout 4 years old. I had to lean way over the balcony, and he stretched out his trunk to grab the food. They each have a basket of food catered to their personal tastes. She really loved the pumpkins. I gave her a watermelon that she took at first, but then gave it back. I held out my hands, and she gently dropped the unwanted watermelon in them. Adorable!! So I stuck with the bananas and pumpkins.
The second elephant I fed was about 40 years old. She happily took everything I handed her. I was surprised by the dexterity and gentleness of her trunk. And when I gave her a pumpkin with the stem still on, she popped the whole thing in her mouth, crushed the pumpkin, and spit out the stem. I got to pat her on the head. It was so much fun!
Then we took them to the river for a bath. It was still quite hot, and the elephants enjoyed cooling off in the river. The elephants lay down in the river, and we had buckets and brushes to wash their backs. I had my camera, and was so busy taking pictures, that I didn’t get a chance to wash them! Luckily, we did it all over again after lunch. The second time, I jumped right in and started scrubbing. The water was icy, and the relaxed elephants looked like small mountains in the river. Softball sized dung floated past (and hit) my legs, but I didn’t mind too much. It is all part of the experience. The funny thing was that as soon as we finished scrubbing their backs and getting them all squeaky clean, they went over to the dirt and coated themselves with dust again! Actually, it helps to keep them cool, so I understood. We had a nice vegetarian lunch with a nice view of the elephants. Then we watched a documentary about the torture of elephants in Thailand during their training, breaking them in order to have them entertain tourists with rides or painting pictures. I heard from some other people who rode on elephants in Thailand that the elephant seemed nervous, scared, and rocked back and forth on his feet. These are obvious signs that the elephant is distressed. There really shouldn’t be more than one rider on the back of each elephant. The seats they use can dig into their back. The mahouts, trainers, sometimes use a stick with a hook at the end to guide the elephant. This hook is dug in and poked behind the ear to get the elephant to do something. This is obviously painful to the animal. The park I went to has very happy elephants. Their big eyes showed no fear, they have a large valley to roam, and their mahouts do not use the hooked sticks. I did see one elephant get spanked, but he is a very naughty elephant named Hope, and many times throughout the day, I would see Hope take off running with his mahout trailing behind yelling at him. I found it hilarious. Hope wears a bell, so he is easy to spot. He is a baby of about 4 or 5 years and still is a little troublemaker. There is also a blind elephant who was rescued from a mahout who poked her eyes with a stick to discipline her and caused her blindness. Another elephant walked with a very severe limp because she had broken her leg and it never healed properly. This elephant was a logging elephant, and was forced to carry logs uphill even while she was pregnant. One day she fell, broke her leg and lost the baby. Many elephants are abandoned because they cost so much to feed and care for. They are much happier here at the Nature Park than being kept as a pet.
As you can see by this long post, I really enjoyed my time at the Elephant Nature Park. If you head to Thailand, it is a must see for animal lovers. You are able to interact with them in a positive way. If you’re lucky, you may even get a kiss!