Bed #41 Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai

I think the Elephant Nature Park might be my favourite place so far !

We stayed at an elephant sanctuary and helped out with all the elephants who have been rescued, they all had horrible lives before they came to the sanctuary: in the circus, logging, begging in the cities …

They were all mistreated and lots of them have physical & mental problems from their torture: blind, broken legs, injuries from landmines, missing ears …

Now they live in new herds with their friends and walk around the park, eating, playing in the mud and bathing in the river.

The elephants can walk all around the park wherever they want, even up to the platform where we live, there is a big rail round the wooden building to stop the elephants knocking it down but they stick their trunks right in !

This sanctuary does not allow the elephants to be ridden because they believe it’s cruel.

We helped feed the elephants every day, they eat 250kgs a day !

Some of old lady elephants don’t have teeth so we had to chop up watermelons and make rice & banana balls for them (the size of grapefruits) then you stroke their trunk and put the rice ball or the watermelon onto the end of their trunk and wait until they curl their trunk around it, then you have to let go quickly otherwise they will wrap their trunk around your arm too, they are SUPER strong even though they are old, have no teeth and are blind !

The younger elephants eat bamboo & grass, they have watermelons as a treat but you give it to them whole and they swallow it in one second !

Every day a big truck delivers the watermelons, it took us nearly an hour to unload the truck, I had to sit in the back and throw the watermelons down the line of people to the storage area, it was like throwing bowling balls for an hour, my arms really ached !

Bathing the elephants in the river is my favourite activity

Each elephant has its own Mahout who looks after them and goes everywhere with them, the elephants spend a lot of time rolling in the mud to keep them cool and protect their skin from the sun but they also love splashing around in water, we went down to the river in the afternoon to bath the elephants, they like playing in the water but before they play we had to wash them.

We filled our buckets up with water and threw it at the elephants, the elephants suck water up in their trunks and squirt the water really hard, I got as wet as the elephants because I kept getting caught in the flying water. As soon as the elephants got out of the water they rolled straight back into the pile of mud & poo, they looked exactly like they did before we bathed them !

I had to have a shower afterwards because the elephants poop in the river 😉

Jurassic Park at night

We stayed in a very nice house on stilts right behind where the elephants sleep, all night they make noises like dinosaurs, it was like being in Jurassic Park.

They also have 400 dogs which have been rescued, one of them called Zander is up for adoption, I did try to convince Mama but she said we couldn’t take him round the world with us 🙁

Cost: 8700 THB (€220) per night for both of us – includes all elephant related activities & food. Its a bit expensive but I really loved it 🙂