The Elephant Nature Park, Chang Mai

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I had my pick up for the Elephant Nature Park at 8am so an early start, but well worth it....

We arrived about 10ish after being shown a documentary of the Park on video on the way which passed the time. We then started our day at the elephant park, we began by checking out the park and it's surroundings followed by the elephant's feeding time, which we participated in. The park has grown to be 200 acres where more and more money is raised for this brilliant cause so it was really nice to see the elephants happy and having so much free space to do what they wanted and lead a good life after the horrific stories that unfolded about their pasts while I was there...... The park is also home to 50 rescued dogs and over 20 cats along with a herd of buffalo. One dog was hopping around on 3 legs but still seemed happy and content, as were the elephants the dogs were free to roam around as they pleased and not a single pink spray or t-shirt in sight, hehe.....

Anyway back to the elephants after lunch we then went down to the river and bathed the elephants throwing buckets of water over them, this was so much fun, one decided to soak me with it's trunk but guess it thought we enjoyed it as much as they did, luckily my camera survived the soaking, ha! We then watched them play in the mud (again i got squirted with mud in my ear when one decided to kiss me!! Apparently this is a sign of good luck!!!) and be fed again, followed by watching another hard hitting documentary describing how the sanctuary came about and how some of the elephants ended up there. This was so interesting but so sad and horrendous at the same time........

When they train the elephants, usually at around 4 years old, they put them through what is known as a crush, this is a cage hardly bigger than the elephant itself and they are left there for a few days to anything up to a few weeks basically until their spirit is crushed, hence the name 'Crush' :-( What they do is barbaric. They starve and deprive the elephant of water and sleep and prod them with sticks with nails on the end until they respond to the commands they demand such as put their feet through a chain, even though they have so little room, this is hard enough to do even if they wanted to. The mahouts or kwans (as their keepers are known) also sit on their backs for the first time. This is all done so they can be 'street' elephants or participate in giving people elephant rides done throughout Thailand. I had no idea until watching this film just how badly treated the poor things were and made to go through just to please a few tourists..... (well mainly to make the mahouts a quick buck i guess :-( ) However i'm so glad I chose to go to the sanctuary rather than an elephant ride as most tourists here seem to, to see them in their natural surroundings and at least seeing out their days somewhere happy after their traumatic pasts..... it's so wrong that even the treks I went on include elephant riding whether people want it or not, there wasn't a single one 'just' doing a trek that i found, although i opted out of the last day (see previous blog!) although when I asked our guide she didnt seem to know if the ones involved in treks here were treated as badly, all I do know is people telling me from our trek how unhappy the poor things looked.......

It also said how a lot of the elephants came to the park through logging being made illegal in Thailand in 1995, therefore the elephants were no longer needed , however many were sold to Burma as unfortunately even today logging is still legal :-(

One of the elephants, a 50 year old lady oozing so much character had a broken back where she was forced to log and also for breeding with males who got violent with her, basically she was 'raped' and has the broken back as a result, apparently she doesn't feel the pain anymore luckily and is happy in the park that is at least something.

Another story is Jokia who was made blind where her mahouts stabbed her in the eyes until she'd do as she was told, so heart breaking.

The film showed Hope's story, Hope is now 10 and is known as a 'naughty' elephant!!! He has to wear a bell around his neck so that visitors like us to the park know to avoid him as he's not allowed to mingle with us but gets on fine with the other elephants and we watched him have a great romp in the river!!! He was brought to the centre at a few months old having been orphaned, he was found shaking with fear when he was found.....

Another had a broken leg from a land mine. All have heartbreaking stories to tell, although at least these ones have happy endings.... The rescue centre's expanding all the time and at least now has the money to buy the elephants out right, when it first started they could only take in ones that were injured but had to by law return them to the mahouts after, therefore the elephants only had a brief respite, one there, who had a hole in her ear where she'd been chained through it was at the park for a second time, luckily now she'll stay there for good.....

That's a few stories to give you guys an idea how much good this place does and it was a really rewarding day out, one of the best days i've had here so far 😊 After seeing the film we went down to the river to play and wash with the elephants again before leaving.....

I'm now attempting to download but with no luck the photos onto facebook, I snapped over 200! But looks like it will have to wait until my return as fbk is having none of it, damn this slow internet connection!!!

Well last day here in Chiang Mai tomorrow so just gonna be a chilled one tomorrow, the last couple of weeks have flown by, has been great but looking forward to seeing Karen on Saturday as some company and laughs will be great, after 2 weeks it's getting a bit lonely not really knowing anyone for more than a day or so..... Has all been pretty sensible for me and realised I need a few laughs as havn't had a crazy one since the bender that was NYE.......

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