Day 3, Elephant sanctuary, Chiang Mai - Thailand

This has possibly been the best day of my life so far. It was a m a z i n g. 

We both wanted to see elephants and there are tons of places around Chiang Mai that offer this service to tourists. However, we didn't want to invest in a money obsessed company which used and abused elephants for the tourism industry. We didn't want to be a part of something so so wrong. After some research, we came across "Ran-Tong, save and rescue centre". The centre is based an hours drive from Chiang Mai, tucked away in the mountain side jungle. 

In the late 80s, logging became illegal in Thailand and many elephants were left 'unemployed' or made to work illegally. The centre aims to save abandoned elephants who have been enslaved all their life and to offer them a better, safer natural environment for them. There are many packages available ranging from 1-2 days or 1-4 weeks. On our budget, we could only afford a half day package which included feeding the elephants, trekking with the elephants and bathing the elephants.  

We were picked up at 7am and arrived at camp just short of 8.30am. On the left of the clearing, a hillside hut over looked the jungle and river. On the right, around 10 elephants stood peacefully, munching on food. We were greeted, given a change of clothes and then introduced to their youngest elephant. A basket of bananas was passed around and we were taught how to say "open" in Mahout. Mahouts are the elephants trainers and live on camp with their families. The camp taught us some basic commands that the Mahouts used such as "Pie" - move forward and "How" - stop. They taught us about the camp, what they do and what they aim to change. 

We were then introduced to the elephants we would be looking after; ours was the youngest (13 yrs) and smallest, named "Superman" (don't ask, I don't know, all the other elephants had cool Thai names but at least Superman was easy to remember). After elligantly struggling (and looking like walrus ontop of an elephant), we began our trekk alongside the river. 

I have never ever experienced anything like it in my life. At one point, I started crying because it was so amazing. We were in the middle of a Thai jungle, mounted ontop of the most beautiful and peaceful animal ever. Tiger rode front first while I was behind her. Superman was quite cheeky and rebellious compared to the other elder elephants. He would take lead but then attacked all the greenery he past. Once we got to an opening in the river, the Mahouts commanded the elephants to lay down. We were handed pans and brushes to clean the elephants while they bathed. We were shown how to clean the ivory of the elephants tusks with sand from the river bank. It acted like somewhat of an exfliolater which we rubbed up and down the tusks then rinsed off with water. 

After the bathing session we headed back for some lunch on the mountain hillside. The views from up here were phnenomenal. The vivid landscape is made up of every shade of green and falls past the horizon. Lunch was delicious; sticky rice, green Thai curry, sweet and sour vegetables and pineapple for dessert. All of it was homemade by a tiny old Thai lady, presumably part of the Mahouts family. 

 

After lunch we fed our elephants the skins of our pineapples and had to say good bye. I can easily say that was the best £20 (1000TB) I've spent in my life. The experience was unforgettable and I'd  recommend it to everyone. They also do a volunteer program which looked amazing and I really wish we'd known about it before we planned our trip. Maybe next time eh?

Just rememeber to look into the company you choose and see if what they are doing is actually beneficial for the animals, not just the company.