One of the things I knew that I wanted to do in Southeast Asia was an elephant tour. The classic tour was meeting in a large group to watch elephants do tricks then riding through the jungle on the back of an elephant. I imagined myself like Hannibal invading Rome on a war elephant.

Doing a little research I found out that people riding elephants is really bad for the animals. They just aren’t built to carry human beings the way horses or camels are, despite being so large. There are still some places that do that kind of tour, but the elephants get extremely warm down and usually have to be drugged in order to continue functioning in this capacity. We found a nice, responsible elephant sanctuary about an hour and a half outside of Chiang Mai. The appropriately named “Elephant Jungle Sanctuary” in Changklan Muang.

A converted truck picked us up outside of our hotel. The truck bed had two benches running the length of the bed, with a covered top. We set out towards the mountains where the elephants live. The roads are very windy. We got to know the people in the truck with us very well. Two four person families, one from Austin Texas and the other from Canada. You meet a lot of Canadians traveling, they get more vacation than Americans.

The bus jumbled us around in the back of the car like tic tacs. The terrain in northern. Thailand is similar to western North Carolina, but the climate is more like Florida. So it’s hot, and you are bumping around on bumpy windy roads. I almost lost my breakfast a few times.

The elephant sanctuary is literally that, a sanctuary. There’s is a babbling brook that turns into a waterfall with a large pool of water for the elephants to bathe in. Then the water narrows again before browsing for another large pool of water. We make our way between the two large pools of water to a hut. We get a short instruction on how to interact with the elephants. We each put on colorful pancho. The guide tells us this is what elephants are used to seeing.

We feed the elephants mini bananas and sugar cane. Before feeding them you yell “bon-bon” and they raise their trunk to expose their mouth. If you don’t put it in there mouth they grab it with their articulating trunk and hoist it in their mouth. If you stand close enough they’ll snatch the food right out of your pocket.

After feeding the elephants we made some medicine for the elephants. Crushed raw rice and bark, mixed with cooked rice and banana. This is supposed to be good for the elephant’s digestion.

Next we cleaned and bathed the elephants. Hosing them down and cleaning the leaves and assorted items stuck to their backs. Next we gave them a mud bath (Jaimie did not get in the mud bath). About 10 minutes into the mud bath the elephant I was covering in mud relieved himself. I and the other people bathing that elephant had enough at that point. When we left, the elephant angrily sprayed mud water at us as we walked away. I was far enough away that I was safe but a few others were not so lucky.

After the mud bath, was a real bath in the moving water. This was for both us and the elephants as we were all dirty from the mud. The elephants, especially the babies were very friendly and playful. They do this every day so they are very used to people and seem to enjoy the interaction. It was an amazing experience for me and you feel like you get to know the elephants like a pet at the end. Not just passing by another animal at the zoo.