VISITING ELEPHANT NATURE PARK

WARNING! 
If you don't like heaps and loads of pictures of the most magnificent animal walking on our planet, this ain't your post. If you on the other hand requested it, e.g you are my sister, you're in for a treat.


So...
Today, we felt smart. We felt good about ourselves. We felt like we did something that... mattered.
We were not dumb tourists. We did not contribute to the sick buisness of elephant tourism that is still going on today. We put our time and our money and our minds on something... real.

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It was a beautiful day. We were tired - going up before 7 am isn't our thing, but it was for a good cause.
We arrived at the office ten minutes to nine. A dog, blind on one eye, enjoyed the sun while barricading the entrence. Another dog played and sniffed the people waiting while jumping around on three legs.

If our hearts melted by the sight of one hurt creature, would the rest of the day cause a emotional breakdown?

Well, yeah.

We started the one hour long car ride while a introduction video was played. The man on the screen started telling us how to approche and feed an elephant, all illustrated by cartoons.
After that, another film started that was quite the opposite of the funny cartoon elephants kicking the stupid cartoon tourist. It was the story about elephant tourism, told from the other side of the unique masterpieces painted with trunks and hordes of people laughing at elephants dancing.

Logging.
Begging.
Painting.
Riding.
Dancing. 

Did we know that these activities can only be performed by an elephant that has undergone a series of spirit-breaking rituals? Tourtured again and again until they lost their will to live and tried to commit suicide? Because only then an elephant breaks their natural behavior and start to act like winded-up toys, like robots.


The whole car was quiet. I felt some kind of subconscious immunity - I had already read all of these terrible things hundred times before, when researching for this trip. I turned to Jonathan to discuss it, but his jaws were clenched and he looked away, seemingly more distressed than I've ever seen him. I know he is an animal lover, much more than I am, but that this movie would leave him speechless for almost ten minutes? I didn't expect that.


We drove by a lot of Elephant camps on the way. We saw people riding and wading through water on an elephants back.
All we could think was:

HOW STUPID IS MANKIND?

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We arrived and our guide, named with a single A, asked us to sit down and wait for a while.

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 But we didn't have to wait long...

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Our walk around on the 400 hektar started.

The park was absolutely beautiful. A told us they let elephants explore the surroundings so they can have more space to play on, because the land still was "a little too small" for a herd of 70 elephants.

Soon enough we got to a couple of females hiding from the sun under big parasols.

"Some elephants you can touch, some you can't. This, you can." A said and let us close up to the elephant one by one.

I was a bit sceptical. Did the elephant really want people touching her every day?
"This one does no mind", A said. "If she don't like, she go away. But on legs, elephants are sensitive. People that want to hurt elephant hit the legs with sticks."

Jonathan was nervous. Elephants are big animals - and these ones had been through so much. Why wouldn't they suddenly flipp?

He managed try anyway, at least for a brave second, and touched the elephant carefully on the side of the face, then he felt done for now.

We moved on to another group of elephants.
"Why does that one have a rope around its foot?" someone asked A.

"This one blind. She don't see, so if tourist is behind, and she suddenly backs... not good." He smiled, as did the rest of us, because the mental picture of an elephant sitting on a person is still somehow entertaining. But we watched close not to stay behind any elephant thereafter.

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"You want to see baby elephant?" A asked. We responded positively very quickly.

In the distance, a caravan of elephants approched.

And there he was. The boy was born inside of the park, since his mom was pregnant by the time she was rescued. We learned that the elephants are pregnant for 2 whole years!

The ladies and the young one got food, and we got to take a photo.

One of the girls had lost haft her foot, due to a landmine. It was really disturbing to see. Another one had gotten a log on her front leg as a child and now, decades later, it was still twisted.

A third had broken her nails, a very common effect of having people on your back 8-10 hours a day. Just a friendly reminder next time somebody talks about their amazing trekk in the jungle on the back of an elephant...

We get to feed this girl a banana and Jonathan's finally overcoming his fear of being crushed by an elephant butt.

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We only took the halfday (explained why here) so we missed bathing with the elephants, but we at least got to watch.

It seemed soo fun, but in one corner of our overheated, impression-filled brains we were glad we didn't have to stay in the gazing sun for too long.
It was a lot to take in, the whole experience: hearing the stories of elephants being abused for the pleasure of man, seeing their wounds. A told us a story about one of the oldest elephants;
She was used for logging while pregnant and had to have her baby while still dragging a log. The mahouts (elephants' trainers) didn't let her go back to see that her baby was okay, but instead pushed her to continue. The baby died soon after and the mom got depressed - the very same reaction a human would have. She didn't want to work, or eat, but the mahouts still pushed her. When she refused, they stuck a nail trough her eye.

I quickly turned away, crying.
It got a little better when A told us that the elephant besides her had taken care of her since 1994. In a timespan as long as our own lives, this elephant had guarded the greiving mother - it was incredible.

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The day was almost over when a big truck pulled in. We got to witness an elephant being rescued!

"It's kind of cool being here on the same day that happens" an australian woman in our group said, "knowing this park has been opened since 2003 and there's 70 elephants,  this doesn't happen every day."

We could not agree more, and then it was time to go.
Before leaving, knowing we was not by far done with Chiang Mai, we promised to return and stay longer next time.

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We hope you enjoyed our "little" recaps. There's so many stories still untold from our visit to Elephant Nature Park, but even I got tired of changing the light and contrast on 500 pictures...

HAVE YOU BEEN TO ELEPHANT NATURE PARK? 

ARE YOU PLANNING ON GOING?

TELL US IN THE COMMENTS!