A Taste of Thailand - Elephants, yippee!

The moment I was waiting for with great anticipation... our visit to the Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary located a couple of hours north of Chiang Mai in the bush. I booked us for an overnight stay and I'm so glad I did. During the day, many people were there, but after the day visitors left, there were only 16 people (not including staff and volunteers) who stayed on. This allowed us to get an early start the second morning and we walked with the herd and watched them frolic in the river.

We were also able to hike up into the bush and see several of the elephants in their natural jungle environment, which was breathtaking! It was a lovely time there with plenty of "hands on" (literally) elephant time.
We fed them, bathed them in the river, petted them, hugged them, etc. It is simply magical to hold an elephant trunk or have one suction-cup your knee. There are 39 elephants at the park and all but a few were rescued from being abused, retired without care or orphaned. No riding, no tricks and no show here... simply elephants being natural and happy elephants. We learned about the practice of "breaking" the elephant as training to prepare them for working and it was heart wrenching. This is why you do not want to support elephants in the tourist trade. Most of the elephants are mistreated in one way or another. Do not engage in elephant tourism. Instead, visit and support a real sanctuary like the Elephant Nature Park. I think we took about 15 GB of photos and videos of these wonderful, intelligent and gentle beings.

With Elephants, Equanimity and Joy!