Elephant Reserve in Chang Mail Thailand

During our 2006 trip through Thailand Lindsay and I had an INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE. No trip to Thailand is complete without some interaction with an Elephant. In fact, traveling through this country for more than a few days without seeing an Elephant is probably pretty hard (we saw one right in the middle of Bangkok following its master down the street). There are numerous Elephant amusement parks where you can ride them and watch them do tricks. We had planned on doing something like this but then one night while doing research I came across the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai. This incredible place was started by Sangduen Chailert (A Thai women activist) as a sanctuary for Elephants. Instead of having the Elephants amuse everybody you actually spend the day serving them. The day started out when a small Thai gentleman came and picked us up in a truck. We then went straight to the local market where a shop owner proceeded to bring us bag after bag of old bananas. We loaded them up in the truck and took off towards the mountains. After a beautiful drive through the mountainous jungle we arrived at a beautiful sanctuary next to a river. The sanctuary was made completely of wood/bamboo and consisted of one large structure in the middle with decks that surrounded it. Upon arrival we were introduced to the staff and they began to tell us about the troublesome life of an Elephant in Thailand. They talked about the incredibly abusive tactics used to train these animals and how they are often abused into submission. They then proceeded to explain that 90% of elephants in the countries “amusement parks” are mistreated (we were glad we did not go to one). We then spent the rest of the day feeding, bathing and interacting with the elephants. This was by no means a zoo…we were literally touching, feeling and at one point almost swimming with these amazing animals. The first thing we did is participate in feeding time. They brought out the bags of old bananas and slowly all of the elephants began to surround the main building and we all stood on the deck feeding them. It was such a cool experience to see/feel as their giant trunks would come up and grab the bananas out of your hand. We ended up feeding one really old elephant and one really young elephant for about an hour. After a quick Thai lunch we then walked with the elephants down to the river to bath them in the water…this was an absolutely incredible experience. We had brushes and buckets and we would splash water on them, wash their skin, etc. The local Thai kids were jumping off the elephants into the water, etc but we were just awestruck being in the water with these amazing creatures. There were two very small baby elephants in the water with us and they would literally disappear under the water and then pop up a few seconds later. Watching these two baby elephants swim/play in the water was one of the cutest things we have ever scene. As the day turned to evening we walked back from the river to the main house along a dirt path. The feeling was surreal as we walked through the green jungle next to numerous elephants. At one point I remember just hearing someone say “watch out” and a giant elephant was walking right behind me…they are very quite (many of them have bells around their neck so that you can hear them). The evening ended with a play/wrestle session with one of the tiny elephants. There were about 5 of us standing around this cute little guy as he would “charge” and push us around. It was like playing with a gigantic puppy! As the day ended Lindsay and I felt like we had participated in something truly magical. In fact, this experience helped spur on our love for travel and sense of adventure. To this day there are few travel experiences we have had that compare.