Julia and I, along with eight other travelers jumped in the back of a 4 wheel drive pick-up with bench seats and a canopy for a one and a half hour drive to the edge of the Doi Inthanon National Park in the mountains outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand.
The ride out of town and on the highway was smooth and uneventful. We stopped for a quick bathroom break at an outdoor market in a small town to break up the journey. But things got interesting as we turned off the highway and started to climb some bumpy, winding, and less developed roads. We passed fields of jasmine rice shining yellow in the sun with workers in conical bamboo peasant hats harvesting the rice shoots by hand and loading them on carts pulled by musk ox.
Then as we neared the edge of the National Park the pickup and the one behind us moved into low gear and started climbing in earnest and using their four-wheel drive capabilities on increasingly muddy roads. At one point we passed through a fairly good-sized stream and I thought how easy it would be to get stranded if we experienced one of those intense Thailand rain showers while we were up on the mountain.
The Chiang Mai Elephant Land Park abuts up to the National Park and allows the elephants to roam free and consume up to 70% of their food in the wild on their own. The other 30% of their food is lovingly fed to them in the form of bananas, sugarcane, and other leaves and grasses. It was to be part of our job to help feed the elephants. We were joined by another group of 10 for an international blend of English, Canadian, Americans, Spanish, Dutch and Italians. All of the communication from the guide was done in his special style of Thai\English.
We changed into a set of clothing provided by the park – bright pink for the ladies and blue for the men – both to keep our own clothing clean and so that the elephants would see a consistent uniform each and every day even though the visitors were different. We were taught how to feed the elephants via their trunks and also how to issue a command of “Bohm Bohm” in a loud clear voice with a raised arm to let them know we were going to slide the bananas into the side of their mouths.
“Superboy” with a days worth of bananas for the five elephants.
Our fearless guide, who referred to himself only as “Superboy” lectured us on these gentle giants and how to react in their presence. These Asian elephants may be smaller than their African counterparts but they seemed huge to us. We learned for instance, that an elephant can eat up to 19 hours a day and only requires four or five hours of sleep.
The larger elephants sleep standing up while the youngsters lay on the ground. These elephants live similar life spans to humans and the five that were with us ranged from age 16 to 50 with an expectation that they could live into their 90s.
After feeding the elephants bushel after bushel of bananas and taking several photos we were ready to walk with them through the jungle. We had learned that when you touch an elephant to do it firmly as their prickly hairs interpret a light touch as an insect and something they need to slap away. So we hardily pounded elephants with our open palms and rubbed them briskly to let them know that we were friends and not pesky insects. To tell them that we loved them we issued the phrase “How How”
Each elephant had a mahout or handler that were always close by and that used primarily vocal commands or the light tap of a small bamboo stick to get them to behave when they got off track.
Watching the elephants forage for food or relieving an itch by rubbing up against the bark of a tree was incredibly cool. They were constantly eating leaves, branches, and bark as they marched through the jungle with their human friends by their sides.
On a couple of occasions the elephants did become spooked and the matriarch trumpeted out a call to the others and they immediately trumpeted back a response. The guide said the reaction was because they had sensed another animal in the area and noted that they could smell things up to four kilometers away. The likely culprit in this case being a gibbon or a wild boar. It was amazing to see the quick communication between the mother and the teenage daughter and among the other three elephants in the troop. Then just as quickly all was calm and they continued their pursuit of more calories.
The elephants loved their natural scratching posts.
The terrain was thickly forested and included some steep areas so that we were able to see the elephants climb and also use their agility to slide down a muddy embankment on their rear ends. There was also a stream running through the bottom and we witnessed them throwing mud on each other’s back and grabbing up gallons of water and shooting it onto each other’s backs to combat the insects.
After the walk through the jungle we took a break for lunch, changed into our swimsuits and then reconvened in a large pit full of mud and water and I’m afraid more than just a little elephant urine and feces. Our guide said that the mud would make our skin feel smoother than a baby’s butt and that we should rub it on our bodies as well as on to the elephants. Afterwards we found that he was absolutely right – our skin loved the mud treatment.
The elephants and the group all mudded up.
Elephants do not have stomachs like cows but just very large intestines and so the food passes through them every 40 minutes or so and some very mammoth sized elephant dumps happened during the mud baths but were quickly scooped up by their handlers and thrown to the side. Nonetheless it did dawn on us that we were basically rubbing elephant urine and feces along with rich mud on our bodies and the elephant’s rough skin.
Then came the highlight as we were told to walk like monkeys on all fours towards the sound of a waterfall and up a cascading river running down from the mountain. After slipping and sliding on a few rocks in the cool refreshing water we came to a large pool with a beautiful waterfall. We were able to wash the mud off of our bodies and take a shower, although a very forceful one, under the waterfall.
Then one by one the handlers brought the elephants into the pool and we showered them with water. One of the elephants laid down into the pool and another actually went underneath the falls. The other three elephants just stood by as we scooped water from bowls onto their backs to clean off the mud. It looked the the elephants enjoyed the day as much as we did.
Then it was back to the camp and more hand feeding of bananas and sugarcane to the elephants.
I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable wildlife encounters I have ever experienced even though I know these elephants weren’t totally wild. This Elephant camp and others like them are sanctuary camps for elephants that have either been rescued from circus acts or being beasts of burden. We were told that riding elephants is bad for them and something that a responsible human should never do. There are several of these types of rescue operations in the Chiang Mai area and with the help of responsible tourism like this sanctuary slowly attitudes towards the humane treatment of elephants are changing in Thailand.
A last goodbye from the elephants and their handlers.