I can’t remember which blogger said that but this quote is one of my Mantra for this trip: “when you travel, you vote with your dollars”. That sentence made sense when I had to search for a place to spend some time with elephants.

My friend Diane, has a friend, Rich, who has a friend who spent an amazing day at this Elephant Retirement Park. Every advices and tips from travellers helps on the road as there is so many agency and tours that propose exactly the same kind of things that you are never sure which one is good and which one is evil.

This Company proposes three options. I had the time and the money so I choose to stay two days and one night there.

In the morning, the van picks you up at your hostel and drive you to the park, one hour away from Chiang Mai. When you arrive, you have a little introduction given by Tommy or Kai. They explain how the day will be spent, how to react with the elephants and write your name in Thai on your arm because everybody in the camp is not English speaker.

  
  
  

The park is pretty new and really nice. Eight elephants are living here with them: 2 “children”, three adults, a mummy and her two babies and an injured pregnant elephant. Most of them have been taking care of after a trauma and what I really enjoyed is that elephant riding was not a thing here. No hooks, no punitions, they were “controlling” these huge animals with bananas and their voice.

In the morning, you feed the cuties by giving them some bananas. An elephant recognise your voice and your smell. If you give them food they will be happy and they will love you for the entire day. And also probably for their entire life!

At first, you can be a bit of a pussy when you realise how BIG and TALL they are when you are next to them but after putting your hand in their mouth to give them bananas it’s a matter of second before you feel confident and fall in love with them. Their stories are really touching and they all have a personality as an elephant as IQ like humans does. You can feel how calm and peaceful they are but at the same time they can be afraid easily. Big strong animals but scared by a noise? The stereotypes is actually true then? My heart nearly melted when I saw this little 6 month old baby playing at catch me if you can with the owner of the park, Noi.

  
I have a been a bit sad noticing that one of the elephant was chained in the middle of the park but Noi explained me that the old lady was here for only 15 days and she was still scared of human after her trauma. And when an elephant is scared what do you think it will do?  It runs. Anywhere. The camp is located in the jungle but all around, people where living and working in the fields. The little town was not that far and they could have easily destroy a lot of thing and probably kill unententionnaly people. When I saw how the elephant were escaping easily their parks when they wanted to have a bath, I accepted that explanation. That made sense. She was new and she didn’t know yet that her new home was here.

In the afternoon, after a nice buffet, you change your cloth and get to go bathing in the pond with the elephants. I was really surprise to see how happy they were to be completely immersed into the water. You forget how huge they are until they stand up to go to the mud point.

You can easily imagine that helping the elephant getting muddy normally finish into mud fight. It supposed to be good for your skin… I hope it is good for the digestion too because I think I accidentally ate a bit of that thing that day…

You clean them again in the pond and the rest of the afternoon is spend with them while they relax in their park. You can watch how the Mahout (their masters) cure them also and you can ask all the questions you can to the people working there.

The Mahouts were really playful and nice with the elephants. I was so impressed when I saw for the first time these two young Mahout directing the two biggest elephants of the camp. Obviously the size doesn’t matter to be respected.

At the end of the day, everybody can hug a last time the elephants (and the Mahouts too if you feel like it!!) before coming back to your hostel.

Except that I was staying. And I realised with great joy that I will be on my own that night…

Infos here : http://www.elephantretirementpark.com