since we are going to chiang mai, we must definitely see elephants. originally we were supposed to go to mae sa elephant camp, to ride on elephants, and watch an elephant show, whereby the elephants will play soccer and do paintings. this place was highly recommended by my parents. they went there last year.
however just one or two days before the trip, i was reading the online forum regarding chiang mai, and one of the readers recommended elephant nature park. she mentioned that elephant nature park is a sanctuary for the elephants, a place where elephants are protected, and properly cared for. she mentioned that the elephants at mae sa were being tortured. their eyes and ears were pricked by sharp bamboo sticks if they disobey the elephant keepers. i was quite horrified by this, so i decided to cancel mae sa elephant camp and went to elephant nature park instead.
you need to book and pay in advance if you are going to elephant nature park. they will ask for your hotel, and on that day of the tour, they will send a mini van to pick you up at your hotel lobby in between 8 to 830 am.
so darling and i started to wait at the lobby at 8 am. the mini van came at 820. there were already a few ang mor guests in the van. after picking us up the van still go and pick other pple from other hotels. coincidentally there were another two singaporeans, and they also took the traumatising flight with us on sunday!
it was about an hour ride to elephant nature park. during the ride our guide, whose name is Earn, gave us a brief history of elephant nature park, which was opened in 1995, by this lady called Lek. Lek shared a special affinity with elephants and she was horrified by how the elephants were being tortured in order to become obedient slaves for mankind. so she did alot of things to help the elephants, for example concocting her own special medicine to apply on elephants wounds where their tusks were removed, talking to local tribes on treating the elephants better, etc etc. in short she is very very noble.
once we reach there, Earn asked us to wash our hands because we are going to feed elephants, so must have proper hygiene. Earn told us the characteristics of elephants, for example if they are flapping their ears, they are in a good mood and enjoying themselves. if they slam their trunk on the floor, means they PMS and we better stay far away from them.
so the first activity of the day was feeding the elephants. elephants have a super huge appetite. they chew on food for 18 hours per day. we feed them with bananas, cucumbers and pumpkins. when feeding them we must also feed properly, for example how to hold the food when feeding them, and where to stand when feeding them.
next we went to an enclosure to see the baby elephants. we also feed them water using the water hose. haha.
and then is lunch! they provided buffet lunch for us, fusion of thai + western. the food was quite good! better than the food at kantoke palace. :p
after lunch was the highlight of the day. we went into the super dirty river and bathed the elephants! quite scary and also quite an interesting experience. scary because the elephant will anyhow spray water using its trunk, and i also quite scared it will fall sideways and crush me.
we also went for the elephant's kiss. a bit gross... hahahahahahaha.
after that we watched a video on Lek and the elephants. the video showed very disturbing footages of elephants being ill-treated. darling teared a bit. i chose not to see these footages by looking down on the floor. the video was about 45 minutes and i slept quite a bit during the video.
final activity of the day was free time with the elephants, whereby we can touch them, take photos with them and also feed them again!
and it was an hour ride again back to our hotel, and i think everyone KO-ed throughout the ride.
so to everyone, if you happen to go chiang mai next time, i highly recommend you to go elephant nature park instead of mae sa elephant camp. it is 2500 baht per person, which is around 108 sing dollars. yes its a bit expensive, but think of how many elephants you can help with that money, and i believe the money is definitely for a good cause. :)
