A long post, but you're not allowed to look at the pictures until you read it all!

Elephants are a big deal in Thailand, and have been for hundreds of years. Centuries ago they helped to build the Thai kingdom--as tanks during times of war and bulldozers and cranes in times of peace. Even in this century, elephants were widely put to work in the logging industry. However, in 1989 logging was banned in Thailand (people realized that less rainforest meant worse monsoon flooding), leaving many elephants out of work. At this point, there were over 20,000 elephants in Thailand. A decade later, that number was reduced to 4,000 and continues to fall. An elephant can eat up to 250kg of food per day, so an unemployed elephant is a very expensive pet. For their mahouts who could no longer afford to support them, it meant selling the elephant to a trekking company (giving rides to tourists through the jungle) or taking them out on the city streets to beg. Elephant begging has been only recently banned in some, but not all Thai cities, and even though it is banned, the fines against it are so low that they are no deterrent, and that's when the police even bother to enforce the law. A trekking elephant usually has a slightly better life than a begging elephant (at least it gets to be in a more natural habitat), but the way in which these elephants are trained is typically through the old tradition referred to as the "elephant crush". This process involves separating a young elephant from its mother, locking it in a cage just big enough to hold it, and procceeding to literally beat it continuously for as many consecutive days as it takes for the elephant to submit to human commands. This has been the tradition of elephant training in Thailand for hundreds of years, and most people consider it the "only way" to domesticate an elephant. It still goes on today, especially in small villages where elephants are kept for help with farming and hard labour. It is the way all domestic elephants are trained, including the ones used for giving rides and trekking. By Thai law, elephants fall under the same category as cattle, and therefore can be treated in whatever manner the owner sees fit. It is a sad contradiction in Thailand that a creature so respected and culturally revered is then treated with such monstrous cruelty and apathy.

However, there are some people trying to change this state of affairs. 

Enter Lek Chailert, a Thai woman brought up in a northern Thai hill tribe who grew up to start the Elephant Nature Park--a sanctuary for rescued elephants 65 km outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Lek began raising money in the nineties to buy elephants from abusive owners and bring them back to her sanctuary for rehabilitation. Over the years, Lek has been involved in a number of projects to help elephants, including her "jumbo express" project which brings medical services to elephants in remote locations as well as projects to restore ruined rainforest land and release elephants back into the wild. Her work has been lauded by several organizations, including National Geographic, which produced a documentary about Lek and her work. While this sanctuary does not exist to entertain tourists, it does however depend on tourists to help fund it. There are countless "elephant camps" in Thailand which are specifically designed as tourist money-making machines. The elephants give rides, paint pictures, play instruments, and perform other unnatural tricks for visitors. When I first got here, I was interested in seeing elephants in some context, but I really didn't know a lot. I saw ads for elephant camps literally on every street corner, most offering rides and a show. I even tried to book a trip with one of these camps, but it was booked a month in advance. Then I stumbled upon the Elephant Nature Park. It was the only place that did not offer rides or a show. It was quite a bit more expensive than other places, but after reading up a bit on their mission, I was totally convinced it was the right place to go for my Thai elephant experience. It makes me sad though, that so many visitors to Thailand go to these other parks, not because they don't care about elephants, but because they just don't know any better and they are bombarded with misleading information from these other so-called "elephant conservation parks" which even put things on their ads like "Save the elephants!" and "Protect Thailand's Treasured Elephants!" when all they do is charm unwitting visitors by forcing the animals to behave unnaturally in order to make money. In some cases, this kind of work is the only way for some elephants to live. They have already been domesticated (through brutally cruel means), and so are unsuitable for living in the wild. They are expensive to keep, and so if the only way to afford taking care of them is to make them give rides and do shows, then I suppose that's better than letting them starve or forcing them to beg on the street. However, I think Lek's park and her vision for Thailand's elephants is by far the better option. So ANYWAY, after all that rambling here are the pictures of my day at the Elephant Nature Park! Oh, and here's their website if you want more info: http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/

The website is unfortunately really crappy, but it still has a lot of great information. If I knew anything about web design, I would totally redo their website for free. Alas, I know nothing. Any volunteers?? :-)



The elephant beside me was at the clinic (green building) to treat an infected foot. Her friend (bringing up the rear) never leaves her side and accompanied her to the clinic. I think she was suspicious of my motives and was moving in to make sure I wasn't going to hurt her friend.



Jokia is blind in both eyes, so she rests her trunk on the pavement and waits until she feels someone give her food. She was once a working elephant who gave birth one day while hauling logs. Mother and baby were marched up a steep hill and the baby fell and rolled down, dying at the bottom. Jokia immediately laid down and refused to work. Her trainer became angry and shot at her eye with a slingshot. When she became violent, he shot her other eye with an arrow. When she arrived at the elephant nature park, she was immediately adopted by an elephant around her age who became her protector and guide. Now the two are never seen apart.

Bath time! Elephants are great lovers of water and bathe every day when they can. I think the expression on her face implies a contented sigh. "Ahhhhhhh"

Is she thinking of squirting me back?

After the water bath comes the mud bath! They coat their skin in mud, which acts as a natural sunscreen and bug-bite deterrent. Mmmm wallow wallow wallow

It takes a LOT of food to feed 34 elephants. The park purchases all the produce for the elephants from local villagers and also hires locals to act as park managers and tour guides.

It's not just a haven for elephants, but also cats and dogs (and buffaloes, too, strangely enough)! People began dropping off stray and abandoned cats and dogs at the park, where they find friendly humans to take care of them. The animals are spayed or neutered so things don't get too out of hand.

I think this kitty was a fan of my scratching technique.

One day, one of the baby elephants randomly started sucking people's faces with its trunk as though to "kiss" them. Each time she did it they gave her a banana, so now she does it any time someone stands right next to her. My kiss was quite wet, and smelled of banana.