Thailand

Day 4
Today is elephant day! How can you go to Thailand and NOT spend the day with the beautiful Thai elephants? I chose to go to an ethical elephant sanctuary an hour and a half from Chiang Mai which doesn’t have any riding or cruelty involved with the animals. The owner of the hostel set this all up for me, all I had to do was be waiting outside to get picked up at 8am. They picked me up in a pick up truck with a topper on it so it was likely sitting outside while driving, odd but a cool experience. We drove about an hour before stopping in a small town to go to the bathroom and grab food to break up the trip. The drive was remote through winding roads and once we got closer we went off the road and pretty much off roading to get to the sanctuary, which was a huge open space. We arrived at the sanctuary around 10:30am and had a quick introduction to the history of the place and learned a little more about the elephants and their behavior. We all were given traditional shirts to wear and bananas before we were introduced to the elephants to spend time feeding them and taking pictures. We see elephants in movies and at the zoo and know they are big animals but standing next to them it was still shocking to me to see just how big these animals are. The elephants are able to walk freely and are not forced to do anything they don’t want to do. They seemed so happy and engaged with all the visitors. After taking some time feeding the elephants, the staff walked them down to a stream that was in a shaded area to spend more time with them there. While we were down by the stream one of the guys proposed to his girlfriend which was really sweet. At 12pm it was time for lunch which was rice, salad, chicken wings and some fruit. Everyone chatted getting to know each other and talking about their travels while eating. Once lunch was cleaned up we learned how to make herbal medicine balls which have ingredients that help to kick the elephants healthy and make sure they are getting the nutrition that they need. We mixed all the ingredients together and rolled them into baseball size balls to go feed to the elephants. When we fed the bananas to them, they would take it with their trunks and put it in their own mouths. With the herbal medicine balls being the consistency that they were, we had to get the elephants to open their mouths and feed it to them. The staff taught us the Thai word to have the elephants open their mouths and I was able to put the ball right inside. I found myself several times looking at the elephants and just amazed that I was spending the day feeding and touching these animals and felt so grateful to be experiencing this. My favorite part of the day was the mud baths. There was a huge mud spa area where we got in with the elephants and rubbed mud on them and then we walked down to the river and threw buckets of water on them to rinse off the mud. Besides the fact that this is fun for the elephants, the mud baths actually help to build a natural defense on their skin to keep them clean so it is also good for them. We spent a little time swimming with them and after the staff brought them back up, which was so refreshing because it was very hot out. Once we were all done swimming we went back to the main area and it was time to watch them measure the elephant and learn how they calculate the weight of the elephants and the checks they do to ensure the elephants are healthy and growing the way they should. They did have a baby elephant onsite that they had separated from most of the other elephants that we were not allowed to touch (since they don’t have an immune system developed yet) but we did get to look at it. Like baby koalas, baby elephants eat their mother’s poop to obtain the bacteria required to properly digest their food, which we actually saw happen while we were there. After changing back into our clothes we said goodbye to the staff and were given a traditional shirt to take home with us which was unexpected but a nice souvenir. We left the sanctuary around 4:30pm and headed back to our accommodations. This elephant sanctuary offers morning visits, afternoon visits, full day visits and overnight visits. I decided to do the full day visit which I am happy about because I feel like the half day visits would not have been enough time. I got back to the hostel around 6pm and after showering I decided to go to a restaurant across the street for dinner because it was convenient. I was getting up early the next day to take a bus to Pai, so after dinner I decided to watch some Netflix and go to bed early.Read more