Wednesday at elephant nature park

---

6am impromptu yoga watching the sun rise, then spent the morning cleaning and cutting pumpkins and watermelon for elephant lunch, they steam squash for the old elephant who can't chew so well anymore. There is a family here that have taken there two kids on the road (to boys,8 and 10 for a year of traveling the world. How cool is that? There is a guy here from Sweden who has never left his home town, and after planning this for years, came to elephant nature park, pretty brave and cool. I also met this tough New York City cop lady who showed up with her heavy NYC accent and her" life is crap "tee shirt ... Jen, after talking with her, she has never traveled either, came alone, lied to her parents (she's 40) and told them she was with a friend.. Haha. Her brother died a few years ago so on that difficult anniversary she decided to volunteer and step totally out of her comfort zone (this girl is getting off the plane and taking a cab back to work, now that is tough)Interesting lot of people. The elephants have stories too. There is one that had broken her hip logging, then was still forced to log. When she just couldn't any more, she was forcibly bred (they tie up the female and the bull was so aggressive that he broke her back. Now she is safe at Elephant nature park, she limps along and it's had to believe how gentle she is after all the abuse at the hands of man she has had to endure.There are several blind elephant too, due to abuse when they wouldn't behave for there mahut. They were poked in the eye or had slingshot shot into them... There are elephants who know this and befriend the blind one and become the best girlfriend, taking care of her friend in need. All of this and they still find it except able for humans to love and care for them. This afternoon a couple of us went and played with the dogs, they love it when people come to hang out. Then we washed bamboo in the river and while we did the elephants came cruising down to check out our activity, it was great. Then the herd of some sort of cows with horns came and crossed the river right next to us. Later we got to see the elephants swimming together, they have such a blast rolling around in the cool water.

---

Photos

Cleaning elephant watermelon
We washed the watermelon before cutting it up

Park dog
Stumpy the three legged dog, enjoying a siesta.

Comments

[Mom]

Thin place
Jen. I truly think you have found one of your thin places I love sharing it with you. Keep up the blogging. Moms

[Jen in Thailand]

Thin places
I think you are right, I am enjoying every minute!

[Dee]

Hi Jen, Have your name on my Favoritie's bar so I can quickly go to your blog in the a.m. Look forward to your daily adventures and photos.

[ellin]

question
So where do all the watermelons come from? do they grow them on the grounds? or purchase from local farmers - that looks like they go thru a lot of produce!!

[Jen in Thailand]

Watermelons
They do grow a lot of there own food, they have a bunch of plots of land around. They do have to buy some (each elephant eats around 600lbs a day!)