Baan Chang Elephant Park

So - OH MY GOD! This was such a highlight of our entire trip! We spent a most fantastic day hanging with elephants! What was especially rewarding is that this park rescues elephants from "shows", "hard labour" and any other number of poor situations where elephants might find themselves. The owner of this park used to be a tour guide and saw how horrible some elephants were treated. He was also a monk! He finally succeeded in his dream of creating his own refuge for elephants. So they now lead the life that an elephant should! What is also great to know is that Thailand has now made hard labour for elephants illegal (although it still does happen, especially with logging in the jungle.)
So now all day all they do is eat, frolic and spend time with their "mahout" (the caregiver of the elephant). The elephant's only daily chore is to take tourist's for a jungle walk, but it is all bare back, not those horrible box seats that typical "elephant rides" provide. The owner said these are quite uncomfortable and painful for the elephant. Oh what a magical experience!
This park has 9 adults (2 of whom are preggers) and 2 babies! They carry for 24 months! No thanks! We first got to meet all the elephants personally and their mahouts. In this park they are very strict about each mahout having only one elephant. They bond with it and take care of it all day, 7 days a week - no holidays ;o(. To see the relationship each elephant and it's mahout have is just so precious! They goof around together, play together and have such a wonderful connection.
We next got to feed them all bananas and sugar cane. They were so friendly and you would pop like 8 bananas at a time into their mouths or hand them off to their trunk. Those suckers can chew like the dickens!
After we bonded a bit, we then learned all the words to go left, right, stop and straight and how to get on and off. Then it was practice time! It was so much fun, especially when they actually listened to you!
So after a quick once over, we were off! Our elephant was called Mayupie and she was 8 months pregnant! We led the pack with two elephants behind us. We were lucky to have only a small group of 6 in total - 2 girls from Holland and a couple from Germany. They all spoke English and were lovely! We were all happy to get to be so close and intimate with the elephants who followed their mahouts quite happily! There was no need for a lot of instructions on our end. There was only one naughty 5 year old elephant in our group who just wanted to explore. The poor girls from Holland were thrown about like crazy!
After we got back it was straight to the water hole so we could wash them. They LOVED this! We got soaked (as you will see in the video). Matt got the brunt of it - ha ha - but I certainly got my fair share!
Enjoy the pics! And don't fret about the chain around one baby. It is chained to it's mother while it is still feeding and also for protection, as one of the older abused elephants does not like babies. It goes along with it's Mom everywhere and it's grandma also lives in the park too! They are such a happy family. When we got back it charged ahead, dragging it's mummy behind to see it's grandma and then came with us for a swim!
Man - if you ever get the chance to do this DO IT! It is something Matt and I will NEVER forget!
Many hugs!
xxoo