Life has a way of surprising us all and God had bestowed kindness, wisdom and love in absolutely inexplicable ways. Elephants are one of Gods many surprises from whom we need to learn so many amazing things from.
I feel truly blessed to have been able to spend an entire day in the company of these gorgeous Asian elephants. It was a day of self reflection and understanding that we coexist with such amazing creatures and that we have so much to be thankful for.
Luckily for us, this amazing experience in Thailand was possible courtesy the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary which can be found in multiple different cities in Thailand. We went to their Chiang Mai branch. They offer multiple packages which you can book well beforehand. They have extremely good service and take good care of ensuring you enjoy the experience of spending ample time with these beauties. For both of us it was extremely essential to book an ethical sanctuary experience which ensures the safety of the animals before anything else. Since both of us a nature and environment lovers, these things matter alot to us. After doing some research we narrowed to EJS, Chiang Mai.
So you can book the package that suits you the most. For us, we booked a full day experience at EJS. You can check out the link posted above to check more details from their website. Make sure you book this after you have your hotel reservations finalized, as it is easier give them a pick up and drop off point while booking. On that day, they picked us up sharp at 8:00 AM from our hotel (could be 10 mins plus/minus) keeping the traffic etc in mind. We then headed off to pick up more people enroute. Mind it, the ride can be fast and jumpy and the car is like a mini van which has side facing seats, so hang on to whatever you can as there won't be any seatbelts. It was an experience in itself though.
We made friends easily with the others in the car and soon started talking, it was great learning about other people's travel stories and backgrounds. We had a quick tea break halt and then continued on. Please note, if you're nauseous and have motion sickness do have your meds before you start since they don't mention it before hand but a good half an hour of the journey is uphill. Both of us regretted it and stuck to the deep breathing therapy, lol :P
Once there, after slightly over an hour's drive we reached this flat landscape all green and beautiful in between the hills with self sustaining farms and tons of longan & banana trees on the way. It felt amazing to be in between so much green and fresh air. To make things better there was no phone network so everyone decided to get to know each other better.
The sanctuary is setup into multiple camps depending on the type of package you have booked. Each camp has around 25 people which is good enough size to be able to see the elephants in a groups and not overcrowd them. Each camp had separate set of elephants, usually a mix of different age groups and their mahouts.
The day started with a few lessons around different kinds of elephants, the anatomy of an elephant, the varied myths and truths around this intelligent creature. We were then given an equal distribution of soft banana and bamboos to feed and meet the elephants. They train the elephants to understand a certain type of call which you shout out to call the herd towards you, something like "Bon Bon". These cuties are so intelligent they easily figure out where you have hidden the food, in your pockets or arms and their ensure their trunks reach out every nook of your clothing to get their food. We spent a good 30 odd mins with them and then were taken for a walk around the different camps in the sanctuary.
Some of the more older elephants lived a little far off and not with the very young ones, they were close to 80-85 years in age, so they decided to make us walk to the grandmother's location. It was a brilliant walk between the jungle and absolutely made my day. The path was already laid out but walks in nature always remind you of how much one should be truly grateful for.
After this we made our way back from through the same jungle walk and were famished completely. Most of the lunch served (which is a part of the package) was simple farm grown food like fried rice, mixed vegetable, dry fried chicken, some fruits, biscuits and coffee. Enough to fill your stomach for the whole afternoon and enjoy the beautiful landscape without feeling too grubby.
After lunch, we were given spent some time to off to explore and relax before the next activity and we took the time to walk around the farm area and click a few photos and lie down on the grass.
The whole feeling was amazing coming to a place so lush and green with no phone network to disturb and so much green to look at, we just decided to take deep breaths of all the clean and fresh air in this area.
After a rest our next activity was to make elephant lunch, which comprised of us pounding together the following ingredients into a gooey almost sticky soft ball for them to easily masticate. We pounded together cooked rice, husked rice, bananas, lime peels and salt. Lime peels and juice helps in digestion, husked rice gives them the necessary roughage to digest the bamboo they eat all day, Salt is extremely good for their throats and bananas and rice for the necessary carbs. We divided into two groups, pounded it together and rolled them into nice sticky balls.
After this we went back to feed the elephants again and then changed for the final activity of mud baths and swimming with the elephants. Unfortunately it was raining slightly and was already a little cold (ensure you carry light jackets for the same) so the elephants did not stay too long in the mud but the group was so pumped up they decided to splash mud all on each other and finally we joined the elephants in their large waterfall for a quick bath.
The day finally cam to an end around 3:45 PM as we started wrapping up and bid farewell to these amazing and beautiful creatures. It felt sad to leave them and I do wish I had booked the overnight package but the activities were pretty similar on both the days so I guess one day was okay if you're on a short trip like us. The sanctuary cars will drop you back to your hotels well on time which is also inclusive in the package itself. If you're in Thailand, experience this for sure and spend one day of your life with these amazing animals. You will truly feel grateful and thankful for all that we have on our planet.
So book your trip and follow the instructions given on their website. Most of the do's and don'ts are mentioned here itself. Have a great experience and remember
"All good things are wild and free"
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