One of the quintessential things to do while in Thailand, especially in the Northern bits, is to take a ride on an elephant. As both of us love animals we were game until we learned that most tours here include an elephant dance/soccer/painting. Elephants are slow moving mammals that were never meant for these activities and our participation would only encourage their exploitation. Luckily, we discovered the Baan Chang elephant park in Chang Mai. Here, elephants are not forced to work, nor are they forced to carry hundreds of tourists on metal chairs for 12 hour a day. In this park, elephants can be elephants and tourists are guests in a more natural environment until they can be safely released in the wild.
The Baan Chang Elephant Park was opened 5 years ago by a former Thai tour guide who worked at other elephant parks where money making is the key objection. At the Baan Chang park the health and happiness of the elephants are the top concern. Tourist money serves only to feed and care for the existing elephants, rescue others, and expand their acreage to accomodate more rescues. We spent 6 hours at the park and both Jarret and I can say that it was one of our favourite travel experiences ever. We feed them treats, learned commands, rode them bare-back through the forest, and gave them a good scrub down in there watering hole. The ride through the woods serves as the elephants' exercise which occurs whether tourists are there or not and the elephants take a 20 min break half way through the hike. During their break we learned about the park and the lives of the elephant's keepers, who spend nearly 24 hours a day with them.
Our day with the elephants was hard, tiring, dirty, fun and incredibly rewarding. It was awesome to finally see a side of Thailand that does not cowtow to every tourists desire. As Bom (the park owner) said: "People complain on trip advisor that the elephants are hairy and they don't like it. What am I supposed to do, shave them, I don't think so. They are not here for you, they are here for them" Finally!
Watch Leigh learn to ride this beautiful creature:
No comments:
Post a Comment