SE Asia

Highlight of the day was visiting the Elephant Nature Park! I did some research and pretty much everyone I talked to about it recommended this sanctuary. It was opened in the 1990's by a lady called Lek, and since then she's won lots of awards for her charity work and has opened up other sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos.
We got driven from their office in Chiang Mai for about 1 hour 20 up into the mountains. I felt like a giddy kid, as we got into denser forest I had my face pressed up against the window hoping to be the first to see an elephant.
The santuary also rescues lots of other animals, including over 700 dogs, 1600 cats, 100 water buffalo, rabbits, cows, goats, pigs, the lot! So as we arrived, we were greated by lots of cute dogs.
We weren't allowed to touch or feed the elephants during the visit, but all but 6 of the 100+ elephants were rescued from some form of work, so they were used to humans.
Our guide Aey was so funny, and knowledgeable, she knew every elephant by name and would tell us quirks about their personalities or funny stories about them. Older elephants or injured ones, were kept separate so workers could keep a closer eye on them. They had 7 blind elephants and many had permanently broken legs or hips from working in logging or circuses which was really sad to see. There are 300 people employed at the sanctuary, lots of the elephant keepers sat in small huts keeping an eye on the elephants and also feeding or keeping them out of trouble aha. Aey said they can tell when an elephant is grumpy, so they'll give them space and keep them away from people, then certain elephants generally don't like people so they get to chill out away from visitors. There were a few baby elephants that we were told to keep our distance from, not because they were dangerous but they want to play but don't know how to play with humans haha. The youngest elephant who was 1 and 1/2 is best friends with the water buffalo which I thought was so sweet. She pointed out certain elephants we could take photos next to, they were pretty uninterested in us as we had no bananas but it was so cool to be so close.
We saw one elephant steal some leaves from the garden, when she got caught by a keeper she threw it on her back. She then spent the next 5 mins trynna shake them off, grab them with her trunk or flap her ears to get it off, was very entertaining. Observing the elephants you could really tell how intelligent they were, so made me really sad to hear about how they were all treated previously to coming here.
We walked through the park for about 90 mins before having late lunch. Just before our bus left, we got to watch the keepers bring back 11 elephants who are kept further away in the day, walk down the river from a bridge. The keepers basically carry bananas or papayas and the elephants follow, they are very food motivated just like me aha.
For dinner I had a really delicious Kao Soi (curry vegetable noodle soup topped with crispy noodles). The first one I tried wasn't amazing so I didn't get the hype around the dish, but after last night's I absolutely do now! In the evening we had a few beers and went to a cool bar with a reggae bar, a nice way to end a lovely day!Читать далее