Play day with the elephants

The expat community here in Chiang Saen is made up of the farang teachers (us and the Fulbright teacher at our school) and the farang researchers at a nearby elephant camp.  Since we have arrived in Chiang Saen, the researchers have been very welcoming, and invited us to come visit them to meet the elephants.

The elephant camp is based at a nearby hotel, Anantara Golden Triangle Resort, and part of their funding comes from tourist activities, like elephant rides, offered through the hotel.  Elephants are extremely popular with tourists throughout Thailand, and many can be seen on the streets of major cities like Bangkok and Chiang Mai.  Unfortunately, this is a terrible situation for elephants – they do not experience any interaction with other elephants, the concrete hurts their feet, and they often are not fed well. 

The elephant camp at Anantara offers an alternative for elephant owners – bring your elephant to our camp and we will provide free lodging, education, and health care to their mahouts (the men who take care of the elephants) and their families. While the mahouts work with the elephants, their wives weave scarves from silk they’ve gathered from silkworms.  In addition to tourist activities at the camp, the elephants at Anantara also participate in research – this is the part that our friends lead.

These houses are where the mahouts live with their families

A mahout on his elephant

       As we walked up to the elephant camp with our friend Rachel, she told us the one rule –do not approach an elephant that is not with its mahout.  Respecting the size of the elephant seems obvious, but she said you would be surprised at the number of tourists that rush up to the elephants and hug them without thinking about their personal safety.

Our experience visiting the elephants was unforgettable.  The mahouts indulged our curiosity, giving us bananas and sugarcane to feed the elephants.  The elephants themselves were breathtaking, my favorite being the 4 year old “baby” that was incredibly curious and playful. She kept using her trunk to explore us, seeming particularly fascinated with our shoes.  We were also lucky to even witness interaction between a mother and her baby.  Many baby elephants are taken away from their mothers at a very early age so they can start making money as a tourist attraction.

Mom and baby bonding

Feeding an elephant sugarcane and bananas