Day 7: Elephant Nature Park

While thailand has been awesome, I was looking forward to today the most. We were picked up from our hostel at 8:30am and driven about an hour to Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary and rescue centre for elephants located in the Mae Taeng district of Chiang Mai. On our way there, we were shown a really depressing but informational video (think: Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty commercial but half an hour long). We learned that 80% of tourists in Thailand choose to ride elephants. Not only is the 500 kilo on their backs (if you add up the weight of the iron chair, human, etc.) painful for them, but the abuse involved in training elephants for this type of work is horrific. Elephants are also often used in logging, circus shows, and festivals - all of which require them to be chained up, separated from their families, and often emotionally/physically abused. Sorry to ruin your day. 

Fortunately, Elephant Nature Park (ENP) has rescued 70 elephants from these abusive environments and given them a sanctuary where they can roam freely with 400 dogs (rescued after the tsunami in 2004) a bunch of cats, monkeys, and water buffalo. 

Our first task of the day was to feed our new friends. The blue basket below (my feet included for size comparison) is just a small snack for these gentle giants, and every few minutes tourists and park volunteers come by to feed each of them another basket-worth of food. The elephants at the sanctuary eat watermelon, bananas, and sticky rice. If you have food, they're also perfectly happy to pose for a photo with you.

The elephants at ENP often hang out in families which they are allowed to choose for themselves. This photo shows family meal time. If you look closely you can see a little baby elephant in the middle.

We walked around for a few hours and learned about the different elephants at ENP. Below is a picture of Habu. She is about 30 years old and was recently rescued from the Thailand-Myanmar border were she was being used for logging. As you can see, she suffered a severe dislocation to her leg, but our guide reassured us she no longer feels any pain (you can tell if an elephant is in pain by the noises they make) and is happy at ENP.

After an amazing Thai lunch provided to us by ENP, we got to watch the elephants bathe in the river and play in the mud. This baby elephant rolling around in the mud was probably the highlight of our day. He was also completely stoked to get sprayed in the face by a water hose.

We then got to help bathe the older elephants who weren't strong enough to bathe themselves by throwing buckets of water on them. Some of the elephants will only agree to get bathed if they are simultaneously getting fed - Mom, don't get any ideas, Nappy is spoiled enough as it is ;). 

Sadly, ENP is usually forced to pay off abusive owners for their elephants ($2000-4500 per elephant). ENP is often contacted by loggers, circuses, etc. when an elephant gets injured or is too old to work, and the money the owners receive is often used to buy baby elephants for the same work - it's a vicious cycle. But we hope that over time, through ENP's work tourists will become more educated and fewer elephants will be forced into this type of work. 

We had an awesome day learning about these gentle giants and hanging out with them in an environment where we knew they were happy and well cared for.

In the evening, my friend Alyssa who's spending a few days with us in Chiang Mai took us to Saturday Walking Street, an even bigger and more bustling market than the ones we've seen so far. It's just one street wide but goes on for about a mile. We thought we would just have a quick peak but ended up spending 2.5 hours there snacking on different foods and buying various items. Before we knew it, we had shopped the length of the entire market. 

Finally, we wrapped up our night with a beer in the Nimmanhemin neighborhood near Chiang Mai University. The vibe was much more local and the bars were filled with uni students on their summer vacation. 

We were thankful to have Alyssa with us to help translate - she's only been here a year but her Thai is excellent. We went with her to the grocery store to buy peanut butter, bread, and crackers - all foods she can't get in her small village (a 4.5 hr bus ride from Chiang Mai), and then finally took a tuk-tuk home.