Elephants

We couldn't visit Thailand and not visit their iconic animal. Elephants here are as common as lions are in Europe. You see them as statues, paintings, house decorations, tree shapes, etc.
OR I'm a big kid and wanted to play with a cute elephant :)
Either way, I made Levka go! And I have to point out that this was the most expensive thing that we did since the beginning of the trip.

Our program:

We drive for about an hour to an elephant reservation. Our tour guide takes some time to explain to us about how this place is run. Apparently its a sanctuary. All the elephants there were rescued from bad environments (logging industry, circus type shows, street walking, etc). At this place they live pretty happily and work with the tourists. We do ride them but very briefly and bare back so the weight is insignificant. As a thank you to the elephant we wash them and feed them.
So after this explanation, we finally got to meet the elephants.

To make sure that they like us we fed them bananas and sugar canes.

After, we got some kisses from this young guy. I'm pretty sure he liked us :)

Then we spent some time learning to ride them. Learning basic commands, how to get on and off the elephant, etc.

We learned very quickly that they don't listen to the tourists. Each elephant has a mahout - a keeper. The mahout stays with his elephant at all times and he is the only one that really has any authority :)

After all the practice we went on a ride through a forest. It's a fun experience but most of the time I felt sorry to make them work. Although the keepers were trying to explain that exercise is good for them.

Finally we were back at the camp and on to the best part - an elephant bath!
Elephants and mahouts get into water first, wait until they finish drinking and pooping. Clear the poop from the water with bare hands. And then allow the tourists to enter. We each get a bucket and a brush and all the fun to splash around. Our elephant was sleeping on her side as we were jumping around, splashing and scrubbing.

All in all, it was totally worth it!

2011.10.27 Baan Chang Elephants