The best way to describe how amazing this experience is would be by telling you about my day at the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary in Chiang Mai. They also have sanctuaries in Phuket, Pattaya and Koh Samui. This day would honestly be any animal lover’s dream. Due to Thailand being famous for elephants, there are lots of ‘sanctuaries’ to choose from but only a few of them are actually ethical and from what I’d researched and heard from traveller friends, Elephant Jungle Sanctuary sounded like the best one, where they actually care about the animals instead of just the money.
So on the website you can select from a full day which is 8am-5.30pm for £60, a morning visit which is 6.30am-1.30pm for £41 or an afternoon visit which is 11.30am-6.30pm for £41. Megan and I are the opposite of morning people so the morning visit was completely out of the question. Then we decided the afternoon visit still has a long duration and it meant we didn’t have to wake up early, so we went for that one.
We were picked up from our hostel (Hug Hostel Rooftop, Chiang Mai) at 11.30am by a songtheaw (basically an old pickup truck with benches in the back – very common in Thailand) and then we went around town picking up five more people before we set off for the hour and a half journey, which went pretty quickly as we were chatting to the others. When we arrived, we had a briefing and changed into colourful Kayan tops which represent the tribe that the staff belong to. You could see the happy elephants playing in their big field and running around during our briefing, which was so nice because I’d driven past a few domestic elephants in north Thailand already, and they’re literally in an area so small that they can’t even turn around. These five residents of the sanctuary however haven’t always had a good life – they were all rescued years ago from various places like elephant riding camps.
Our first activity was feeding the beautiful creatures and as soon as we all walked over to the feeding station they all trotted over and stood in a row behind their fence. Elephants eat 150kg of food a day so there were plenty of huge buckets of fruit for us to give them. You could either hold a piece of fruit up to their trunk and they’ll take it and feed themselves, or my personal favourite, if you shout ‘bon’ they’ll lift their trunk up and open their mouths so you can either put the fruit directly into their mouths or you can throw it in!
After their fruit starter, we moved out onto their field and stood with them for photos while they munched on crazy amounts of long grass. A fantastic inclusion is that there’s a professional photographer following the group around all day and then all the photos are posted on the Facebook page where you can download them all for free! After a short water break we then took our Kayan tops off as we were about to get a bit wet. It was time for a shower for one lucky elephant! We took a brush each and as the leader hosed her off, we all worked hard to brush the crusty mud off her rough skin. However the only reason she kept still for us was because she had a whole crate of bananas in front her! They are so greedy.
The next activity was my favourite one and I reckon it was their favourite too – mud bath time! Everyone ran into the muddy pond in their swimwear, followed by the five elephants happily chasing us in. They all knew to flop over onto their sides so we could get washing! We grabbed handfuls of mud and massaged it all over them and they absolutely loved it. You could tell they were all so happy and in their element. Suddenly the little baby stood up and we were instructed to step away from her as she was about to do a huge poo… That was when I realised what I was actually stepping on and rubbing into my hands…
After we dirtied them up, we ran into the river to rinse them off. Afterwards, we got individual photos with the elephants and they were having so much fun spraying water from the river with their trunks. Amazing. Then they got a relaxing break from us humans while we showered and sat down for a buffet dinner, consisting of really tasty Kayan chicken and potato curry and lots of vegetables. At the end of the day we got to say a last farewell to the beautiful elephants by feeding them some more fruit and I must admit I shed a tear when leaving them because they were just so happy and I was so glad they were being well looked after.
Doesn’t this sound like a dream? I’m not trying to advertise Elephant Jungle Sanctuary but I just think they do such a great job with the elephants and it’s so nice to see that the animals are happy and safe. At the same time, I would want anyone going to Thailand to use this company if you’re wanting to get up close with the friendly giants, because as I said earlier, they’re not looked after properly in many of the other places and it can be difficult to decide whether a company is truly ethical until you arrive and it’s too late. Thanks for reading!
Safe travels!
Em Wanders x
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