Today I got to volunteer at the Elephant Nature Park and it was one of the coolest experiences! The park is about one hour away from Chiang Mai in the mountains in a pretty remote area. The park is about 5o acres and there are 30 or so rescued elehpants living there. We started our day early at about 8 am. We stopped by a local market to pick up some elephant food (a HUGE truckload of fruit and veggies). All of the volunteers worked together to load the truck with huge bags of food and I have to admit I'm pretty sore! Once we got to the park we were able to stand on this platform and hand feed the elephants. It's pretty intimidating at first because the elephants are soo huge and strong, but once you get started you realize that they're not going to do much harm to you since you're feeding them. After the feeding we jumped into the river with the elephants to bathe them! This part was so awesome because we were right there with all of the elephants throwing buckets of water on them and scrubbing them down. I wish I could bring one home with me!
Elephants have been such a huge part of Thai culture, about 4,000 years! They started out being a form of transportation for royalty, then the logging industry took over and tons of elephants were used to carry and drag huge logs through the forest. The abuse that these animals have faced is so heartbreaking, people literally break these animals of their spirit by caging them in these tiny pens and stab them with sticks with nails on the end until they submit to their trainer. The tourism industry now uses elephants for trekking tours or even as assistants for street begging in large cities. Apparently elephants' feet act as detectors to sense what is going on around them so you can only imagine what is happening to them when they are walking around Bangkok with all the cars and people going by.
The founder of the park, "Lek", has dedicated her life to saving these animals and raising awareness to tourists and the local people. She is risiking her life for these elephants and it's so amazing to hear her story. I can't believe that animals this large can be domesticated, it really is heartbreaking and I'm so glad I did this! The elephants at the park have so much land to run around in and the workers encourage them to live as normal lives as possible. This park is HIGHLY recommended!!
4 comments:
splish splash Tess's taking elephants for a bath. What a cool experience!
Splish splish, I was takin' a bath
Long about a Saturday night
A rub-a-dub, just relaxin' in the tub
Thinkin' everything was alright
remember that skit from Sesame Street?
haha, thanks Moll! I miss your beautiful voice! :) Love you!
The pictures of you with the elephants are just great. The one of the elephant giving you a kiss is so cool. Love all your pictures. I could see why you call your experience with the elephants one of the coolest things. What a view of the city you had up on the hill. On to Vietnam and more fun stuff!
Elephants!! I am so jealous. Looks like you got a big elephant kiss on the neck ... you lucky girl. Love you, miss you!!!
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