Location: Chiang-Mai, Thailand

We woke up this morning pretty early and both were wide awake right away because we get to see elephants today!!! This is the one thing we booked on the trip before we actually left and we were both so happy the day had finally come! I spent ages and ages researching different sanctuaries because so many of them will say that they are ethical when they actually aren’t. I’m happy to say we found one that seemed pretty good.

We were picked up at the hostel and whisked off down a twisty winding road along with 10 other people. Our guide, Rainbow, was very knowledgeable and very mild mannered, giving us endless facts and info any time we asked for it. I was feeling a little green around the gills after the 2 hour car ride out to the western countryside near Baan Nongtao, but the elephants were waiting and I had limited time so ignore it!

Walking up to the fields we saw one elephant in the distance, slowly eating its way towards us. Ohhh my godddd it’s happeningggg!!! I practically squealed with excitement and Garrett was just all oooh’s and ahh’s. They weren’t even near us yet and I was already freaking out! We were given a whole spiel prior to being allowed to meet them which entailed five main no-no’s:

• Do not stand behind an elephant or they might kick you, back up into you and get startled, or walk right over you.
• Do not run from an elephant because they will playfully run after you… but they run 40 km per hour so that’s not going to end well for you.
• Do not touch an elephant on the belly – they are super ticklish and will flail. They do tickle each-other though, which is an adorable fact I didn’t know!
• Do not touch an elephant on the butt unless you want a strong slap to the face from a thick tail. I mean, I get that – I’d slap a stranger for touching my butt too!
• Do not carry a backpack or bag – they might try to steal it from you, smash it with a foot and look for treats inside.

All in all there were eight elephants on this sanctuary, and today we were going to see four of them. We met the 45 year old Matriarch, Baan-Mi, who was strong and commanding. She had been rescued from a logging operation and was the first on this sanctuary 8 years ago. We met 13 year old Chet-Bakhail who ran up to us so fast in her ‘youthful excitement’ that the staff all started trying to call her with treats to calm down before meeting us. She knows we all have bags of goodies I bet. Mayoun was 40, rescued from a place where tourists would ride her. Last but not least we got to meet Mae-e-Lou, a 54 year old who was blind in one eye, so you had to call to her if you approached her from her blind side. She was so sweet and would happily reach towards your hand making a very strong sucking sound with her trunk for the sugarcane chunks we were carrying around in bags. Because she had the added complexity of being blind, not as many people were hanging around her so we both spent most of our time with her, and she ended up being our favourite.

All four elephants wandered around a field with us and like 30 cows and a dog. Is this what heaven is?? We could hold our little chunks of sugarcane out for the ladies to grab with their trunks, or stand beside them and yell ‘BON-BON!’ and they would lift their trunks so you could put food directly in their mouths. We learned that elephants eat 10% of their body-weight every single day, which means they have to eat for like 18-20 hours a day. They don’t have stomachs (just intestines) so they don’t derive as much nutrition from what they do eat, which explains the volume requirement!

While feeding we were allowed to pet them and I just couldn’t get over how cool their skin felt. It’s like a very fine grit sandpaper made of thick mushy leather, coated in sparse wiry hair. Weird description, I know, but it was wild to touch. A few of them were wearing heavy duty cow bells because apparently they tend to wander off and get lost in the surrounding jungle. They were so quiet that sometimes you’d be feeding one of them and suddenly on your other side one would sidle up looking for a treat and you wouldn’t even know it was there until you felt it reaching for your bag! The ones not wearing bells are apparently ‘crashers’ who make a lot of noise and are easy to find.

There was an option to bathe with the elephants but Garrett and I opted out. It definitely took some enticing for the elephants to go in, and two of them did wander in eventually with about a dozen tourists. We were both glad not to join this part because we didn’t want to participate in anything that wasn’t in the elephants best interest… I’m not an expert and I don’t want to be a snoot about anything but this definitely felt off. Like it was more for the tourists picture opportunities and less about the elephants wants and needs. It helped that lots of other people didn’t go in either.

A bunch of young guys ended up having a water fight in the pond, soaking each other head to toe right near the elephants. We felt even better about our decision not to join in this part when Ban-Mi took an absolutely massive poop directly in the pond… and the guys who had been throwing water in each-others faces all went perfectly still for a second… and then quietly climbed out. Garrett and I laughed about that little scene on and off for literally the rest of the day!

The elephants all had such distinct personalities, which were noticeable even from our short time there. I would love to see them in the wild from afar, but feel so lucky to have had an opportunity to meet some domesticated ones up close. Garrett and I both were in a daze for so long afterwards because it felt like a dream. Did we actually get to feed and touch elephants today?! WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD!

We toured through parts of Doi Inthanon National Park, but it was so cloudy up in the mountains that it was hard to see the pagodas right in front of you, let alone the views across the valleys. We stopped at a huge waterfall on our way back to Chiang Mai, a local coffee farming village where we got to taste test coffee, and a shrine… which was all wonderful and beautiful and cool but my mind was still on the elephants. Everything for the rest of the day didn’t feel totally real. That feeling continued into the Saturday night market we went to up the road from our hostel, which was full of beautiful hand-made items and delicious food. But still, La-La-land for me!

We both hit a wall and decided some sleep after such a long and awesome day would do us some good. Maybe my brain will come back to earth tomorrow.

Does counting elephants work the same as counting sheep?

Bliss.

Sav