A Magical Day with Elephants

Thailand is well known for elephant tourism and I know that that can stir up a lot of passionate debate about animal rights, cultural differences and economic necessity. I’m not an expert in any of that so this article will only focus on my day at an elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai and what I experienced.

When I was planning my trip, I didn’t even think of visiting an elephant park until my friend brought up the idea. We researched for months to find a place that treated their elephants ethically and had really good reviews from visitors. Finally, we decided on Baan Chang Elephant Park, a non-profit organization that rescues domesticated elephants from illegal logging camps and circuses. We picked the one-day Elephant Mahout Training where we will learn about Thai elephants and ride bareback on one.

Morning Session

A small van came to pick us up from the hotel at 8:30 am and we proceeded to pick up other people from various hotels. Our group had 13 people including two young kids and we were guided by a really cool Thai dude named Taz. Once we got to Baan Chang, we were given these pajamas type of clothing to change into. We were already instructed to wear swimsuits under our clothes because we were going to bathe the elephants later in the day.

After changing into the uniforms, Taz gave us baskets of bananas and sugarcanes and led us to where the elephants were hanging out with their mahouts. Mahouts are elephant handlers and are bonded to one particular elephant for the rest of their lives. Feeding elephants is such an interesting experience. They were incredibly gentle with us but the grip of their trunks was so strong. Taz said that elephants can eat up to 18 hours a day and over 200 kg of bananas!

One particular elephant really stood out to me. She was gigantic and had these pink polka dotted ears. They call her the Pink Lady and she held court like she was a duchess in her past life! Her mahout showed me how to place the banana right into her mouth. As we ran out of bananas, we started feeding them sugarcanes. You could hear the loud crunch sound in their mouths. It was incredible! But most of them preferred bananas to sugarcanes. Can you blame them?

Lunch Break

After feeding the elephants, we fed ourselves. We were served vegetarian pad Thai and fresh pineapples. This was when the mahouts, elephants and guides took their breaks too so we got to laze around on hammocks for about an hour.

Afternoon Activities

I had been anticipating this all morning and was half excited and half nervous about riding bareback on an elephant. Before we actually got to ride our elephants, Taz taught us commands in Thai – stop, go, right and left. The only word I remember is “pie” which is the Thai word for “go.” My sense of food association is very strong!

Taz had us practice on two elephants first. One was a much larger elephant and one was a smaller one named Moneybags (on account of her small head and large body!). As Taz was telling us about the history of Baan Chang, Moneybags was capturing our attention by constantly going up to the fence and scratching her butt. I was excited to be called first to practice on Moneybags. She was a good listener and very gentle. I was like “I got this!”

Even though Taz isn’t a mahout, he’s very familiar with the elephants and know their personalities and quirks. He pointed at one elephant in the shaded pen and said, “We call him Gangster because he likes to act tough, but he’s scared of chickens.” He also said that elephants have an incredibly keen sense of sound. If there’s an earthquake or tsunami, they’ll be the first ones to sense it coming. He told us if the elephants start to run, we should too!

You can bring your camera along on the ride but Taz took a bunch of photos with his camera and uploaded it to their Facebook page. It’s an added complimentary service that makes it so much easier for those who don’t want to risk damaging their cameras.

We were assigned our elephants and those who were riding with a partner got to ride on much larger elephants. Since my friend and I opted for individual rides, we were given smaller, younger elephants. Mine was a bull who’s only 10 years old. Somehow though, he was tasked with being the leader of the pack! Getting on him wasn’t too difficult but staying on him required all my thigh muscles. I didn’t have a rope to hold on to so I precariously held onto the top of his head. We walked around the sanctuary for about 30 minutes but my elephant kept veering off and stopping to eat leaves and brunches. He’s a boy after my own heart. I kept yelling, “Pie! Pie!” but of course as a pre-teen, he didn’t bother to listen to me. His mahout was close by thankfully and gently pulled him by the ear when he went off course.

After 30 minutes, we stopped by a small pond and the elephants got to jump in and cool off. You can tell that they absolutely loved this part of the day. My elephant especially loved it, he went underwater and didn’t even bother to come up for air. I decided to nickname him Michael Phelps since he loved the water so much. In the video below, he’s the one on the bottom right hand corner, swishing the water around with his trunk!

At this point, we stood on a platform to watch the elephants and rest our sore behinds. After about 15 minutes of rest, we got back up the elephants and had a second 30 minute ride around the sanctuary. The grounds were really beautiful and well-maintained, and there were plants and trees everywhere.

We returned to the pond and this was when we got to bathe the elephants. The water was questionably brown and murky and Taz kept calling it “organic water.” You have to keep the thoughts of poop out of your mind and just enjoy the fact that you’re scrubbing an elephant. It’s definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience! “Michael Phelps” laid in the water like a boss and his mahout and I scrubbed his belly and back as much as we could.

After the elephants took their baths, it was time to say goodbye. I got a couple of surprise kisses on my neck from my elephant (very strange experience!) and then it was time for us humans to take a shower. There are shower stalls available and they provided soap, shampoo and clean towels.

When they dropped us back at the hotel, we were exhausted and starving but felt this intense joy from being around elephants all day. In a perfect world, all elephants would be roaming wild and free in the jungles. But since that’s not possible, the next best thing would be to give them a good life in humane elephant sanctuaries. From what I saw, the elephants at Baan Chang seemed to be well taken care of and very much loved by their mahouts. There are many other ethical elephant parts in Chiang Mai and other parts of Thailand if you’re keen to go to one. It truly is a magical experience to be up close and personal with these magnificent creatures.