Happy Elephants in Thailand
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Photo by Into the Wild Elephant Camp
Hey y’all,
So, yesterday I hung out with half a dozen elephants.
If you are ever in Chiang Mai, the most ethical company for this kind of tour is Into the Wild Elephant Camp. Due to animal activism, many of the companies have shifted away from riding elephants to caring for them.
However, many are still putting these magnificent creatures into pens and chaining them up, and not caring for them all that well. We saw them at other camps on the way to this one.
At this place, the elephants roam the property freely and they are VERY happy elephants.
Here’s the link:
https://www.intothewildelephantcamp.com/
Elephants are awesome! Intimidating, but awesome, and yesterday was magical. Even if I got injured, it was a fabulous day.
For the record, it wasn’t the elephants’ fault. It was the guide’s for guiding me to wet, jagged rocks and mine for not sticking with the direction I had chosen.
I was part of a group of 6 who signed up for the all-day experience. A solo dude traveler from Scotland, a couple from Ireland, a brother and sister from Germany, and me.
As soon as we arrived, we changed into red poncho-type tops, so the elephants would recognize us as their herd.
I think sugar cane helped sweeten them up towards us because that’s the first thing we did. We each got a bag of sugar cane the same color as our poncho, and the elephants were all about us then.
6 elephants for 6 of us. 2 large, fully grown elephants and 4 young and growing elephants.
Sometime next year, it will be 7 elephants because one of them is pregnant. She’s 1 year into it, and we could feel her baby bump on both sides.
Did you know elephants are pregnant for 2 YEARS??!!!! Our guide told us the baby elephant will be about 2 meters when it’s born. Poor elephant mama!
The elephants ignored the 1 elephant/person rule and swarmed to whomever had sugar cane in hand. Since I took my time feeding my elephant, I still had sugar cane when everybody else was out. At one point, I was swarmed with 3 elephant trunks around me.
They could smell the sugar, I tell you.
I guess elephants, like humans, have a thing for sweetness.
Anyway, our tour entailed feeding the elephants, hiking with the elephants, hanging out with the elephants while they fed on anything green, coming back for lunch, feeding the pregnant elephant our lunch leftovers (she was the only one who hung around where we were eating), smashing and mashing the “elephant medicine” – came from the source, various foods like rice, bananas, sugar cane cubes, and bitter root and other stuff mashed together manually to make a ball of vitamin and mineral mush – and feeding them a ball of gunk apiece.
Then we gave the elephants a mud bath and took them to the deeper pond where they rolled around in the water.
Photo by Into the Wild Elephant Camp
We splashed them and they splashed us. But they were definitely more comfortable and playful with the staff who works with and cares for them every day. They acted like giant, goofy dogs – especially the young elephants, who sprayed all of us from their trunks.
The two giants were more dignified. One of them wouldn’t get in the pool with us. The pregnant one did though. But no rolling around in the water for her.
Anyway, to experience this piece of specialness was worth slipping on a rock. That happened at the first leg of the hike. We walked single file with elephants in front of and behind us.
I had fallen behind with Scottish Joey and the elephants made it to the creek ahead of us. They splashed and sprayed themselves and got the rocks wet. Joey found another route further up the creek bed. I was taking that way, and should have stuck with it because the rocks were dry.
But like an idiot, I listened to the guide who said the rocks right next to the elephants were a better route.
It wasn’t.
Photo by yours truly!
I made it across two rocks before I slipped on the third. I fell on my right shin and flopped gracelessly into the creek.
I was right next to the elephants when it happened, and made some kind of shriek because my leg hurt like hell. The guides got me out of there quickly and the elephants made snuffling, distressed noises and came out of the creek when I did, swinging their trunks and one of the bigger ones was scratching the ground with its giant foot.
“See, the elephants are worried about you! They know something happened and it scared them too.”
I don’t know if that was actually true, or if the guide lied to keep me from freaking out.
I was more than a little intimidated. I felt compelled to bow to the elephants to tell them I was fine, even with blood streaming down my leg.
No OCD concerns about germs, health, and safety over here. One of the guides patted at my wounds with his sandy hands, and the Irish nurse cringed and thought to herself: “Oh, don’t do that. Don’t do that.”
We kept hiking.
Photo by Into the Wild Elephant Camp