Thailand
Ban Mae Lot

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    • Day 10

      Day 10 - Elephant Nature Park

      February 17, 2017 in Thailand ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

      One of the best days ever today. Ever. As you'll see from Facebook we have a ton of videos and photos greater than the 6 I can post on here which will do the day much more justice than I can put into words.

      We were picked up by Pai our tour guide along with the 8 other people going to the Care for Elephants day. Elephant Nature Park are trying to save as many elephants as they can who are either in the circus, logging trees or being forced to beg on the streets. There were some who had stood on land mines now being rehabilitated. They're also trying to convince other elephant businesses to stop treating elephants cruelly and our day was spent with a business who used to offer elephant rides but have stopped to change and look after elephant's welfare instead. As an added bonus the intro video was done by Lou from Neighbour's which flew over everyone else's head on the bus (mostly Americans) but made me giggle.

      We had 4 elephants with us today - Pooki, Ma Gael, Kamoona and Lucky (the baby of the group at 4 years old). We started by feeding them watermelon, pumpkin and cucumbers. You held out the food in front of them and tucked it into their trunks. Elephants are very greedy so when you'd run out of food they'd still be trying to get into your bag for more though some are fussy and reject the cucumber for the sweet fruits instead. We were given a bag of bananas and more cucumbers and went for a walk for about an hour through the park with the elephants alongside, feeding them as we went. It's really strange walking along with a creature a hell of a lot bigger than you at your shoulder but the ones we were with were so gentle even though they'd been treated so cruelly in the past. Apart from Lucky who was donated by a guy given an elephant as a gift the older elephants were all rescued from logging.

      We left the elephants for a while and had a lovely veggie lunch in a rest stop dangling our legs above the river (plus Ovaltine. The Thais seem to love Ovaltine!) then went into the river with them and bathed them. i.e. threw buckets of water on them and dodged the poo they dropped in the river. The elephants know 1pm is bathing time and even if there's no humans with them will head to the river to wash the old mud off. Ma Gael was my buddy for the walk back - probably cause I looked like a giant watermelon. There were times I was scared of being accidentally crushed by a wrong footing but we made it.

      We left out group of elephants behind (sob) and went to meet the other families of rescued creatures at the main park. There were girls with broken ankles which had healed broken and blind ones being led around by a sighted elephant BFF, so sad, plus babies born in the park and lots of dogs and cats they'd also saved (about 600!). There are about 70 elephants in total which they've bought from other industries. It was one of the best experiences of my entire life and if you're ever in Chiang Mai I'd recommend that you go.

      This evening we went over to Flight 52 as I was craving pizza. I love Thai food but I've had it 3 meals a day since Sunday so time for a change. It's a new restaurant and run by a great Danish guy who spent a lot of time chatting with us. Amazing pizza and out fair share of two for one Mai Tais.

      All in all a perfect day. Thai cooking school tomorrow which will have a tough job topping this.
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Ban Mae Lot, บ้านแม่หลอด

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