Kissed by an Elephant

Our favorite day so far! Got picked up at 8:30am to go to the Elephant Nature Park, about 60 kms outside of Chiang Mai.

Had an amazing day feeding the elephants – each elephant eats about 400 kgs of food per day! We got down and dirty washing the elephants in the river, which was an incredible experience, standing amongst a family of 3 tonne giants. The highlight was when the baby elephants came out to play.

The nature park was started by a woman called Lek, whose vision is to create a better world for Asian elephants. Lek’s aim is to try and promote awareness about the cruel practices traditionally involved in domesticating elephants for village labour and tourism exploitation. There are currently more than 30 rescued elephants living at the Elephant Nature Park. They are no expected to work and perform. Instead they are able to wander the park, feeding at their leisure, bathing in the river and playing together in the mudpit. After watching a couple of confronting documentaries of how elephants are typically trained and their spirit “broken”, we wanted to suggest the following when visiting Asia, to stop these beautiful animals being exploited:

- Never pay to feed begging elephants in the streets, anywhere

- Do not ride the elephants, not even on elephant treks

- Never buy a painting, which is advertised as being painted by an elephant

If you want to get up close and personal with the elephants, we highly recommend the Elephant Nature Park (www.elephantnaturepark.org), where all the proceeds goes towards conserving elephants.