Thailand Travel｜Visiting retired elephants in the Chiang Mai jungle

With the previous experience of mistakenly entering a fake elephant conservation camp, this time I went to Chiang Mai, I did a lot of homework seriously, and finally, I chose the one-day tour I found on the Elephant Nature Park (hereinafter referred to as ENP) website.

**Updated December 2022**
This project has not cooperated with ENP (you can book this project on ENP's official website before), and it is now one of the projects under Asian Elephant Projects. If you want to participate, you need to book on the official website of Asian Elephant Projects.

【Background of the Elephant Delight Project】

The owner of the elephants in this park is Pui. Her family originally ran an elephant camp (riding camp) that provided elephant rides. With enough time to eat and other factors, the physical condition of her elephants began to decline.

Now, Elephant Delight's project allows her three elephants to retire in the mountains and wander around with each other's company, without being used as a riding or transporting tool.

【Elephant Delight One-day Tour Itinerary】

At 8 o'clock in the morning, the ENP car came to pick us up at the hotel where we were staying. Apart from me and Mr. Qi, there were four other people with a driver and an English-speaking tour guide.

The itinerary we chose will not enter the ENP. It is to drive for an hour and a half to the mountains north of Chiang Mai to visit/accompany (trouble?) the elephants who are now living there.

There were two elephants that day, a 60-year-old grandmother Mae Keaw (I called her Elephant Grandma) and a 30-year-old girl Thong Khom (I called her Elephant Girl); I'm not sure if the name is spelled like that , but the pronunciation is similar. There was supposed to be a third one, but it seemed like it wasn't in great shape during that time, so it didn't show up.

Leave your belongings on the second floor of the stilt house in the camp area, put the kettle and the things you want to carry into the bag they provide, and then you can go downstairs and start washing fruits (bananas, sugar cane, pumpkin, pineapple), ready to start today Itinerary; if you want, you can change into the Lanna traditional clothing (Lanna clothing) they prepared, I think it is super cute!

• The part about feeding the elephants fruit is to watch them eat fruit quickly with their trunks. The movement of them grabbing fruits with their trunks is good for healing. Sometimes they grab and eat one by one, and sometimes they take several in a row and put them firmly on their trunks until they feel that the amount is enough, and then again Put it in your mouth.

 Little knowledge time:
Asian elephants need to eat about 150-200 kg of food a day, 80% of the time is eating (very envious), their staple food is all kinds of plants, branches and grass, fruits are just snacks, if they only eat fruits, they will be malnourished.

• Walk with the elephants to the place where they sleep at night. Simply put, it is a gazebo. When the elephant girl put the trunk on the shelf and began to doze off, she was so cute that I almost screamed! The distance was actually short, but we stopped as we went, because Grandma Elephant kept stopping to eat the leaves on the side of the road; while she was eating, we happily watched her eat, and Elephant did not try to drive her away Meaning, this is where I feel great.

 Little knowledge time:
When elephants sleep, they lie down or lean on something to sleep. Elephants in the wild mainly sleep on things, because they are too heavy, it takes a while to get up, and if there is an emergency, they cannot run away.

• Preparing rice balls for the elephants While they were resting, we started preparing rice balls: mixed rice with bananas, tamarind and salt; kneaded it into a ball with our hands, and then put it in the elephant's mouth to feed them .
  This is also the best opportunity for the elephant caretaker to observe the elephant's teeth, because the elephant will open its mouth obediently, and wait for you to put the rice ball behind its tongue, so cute! The guide also said that if the elephant needs to take medicine, the medicine should be rubbed into the rice ball, otherwise the elephant will pick up the medicine by itself.

• Vegetarian lunch time yes vegan! When I walked back to the stilt house where the luggage was stored, the lunch on the second floor was ready; I forgot what exactly was there, but I remembered that there was fried noodles, the famous curry noodles in northern Thailand khao soi, fried vegetables and tofu; oh yes, you can also make it yourself Green papaya salad som tum.
  It is filling and delicious. After eating, rest in the stilt houses.

• Take a walk with the elephants to soak in the water by the river
  The ENP official website states that starting from 2018, they will no longer offer the activity of bathing elephants (elephant bathing), so this? I think it's okay to go to the river to soak in water together, but it's completely unnecessary to flush them with water. After all, if they want to flush, they can do it by themselves.

 Little knowledge time:
What elephants need is a mud bath, not a shower with clean water like humans; mud can cool their skin temperature, reduce water evaporation, and also act as sunscreen to prevent them from sunburn.

• The last trip on the raft is to take a raft in the river for about five to ten minutes, and experience the feeling of moving on a boat in the jungle (what to do, this activity is so boring as I said); what about the elephants? They went where they wanted, and when we left, they were so absorbed in eating the wild berries from the trees that they didn't care about us at all!

【Itinerary Information & Price】

Elephant Conservation Camp: Asian Elephant Projects
Participation date: April 8, 2022 Tour name: Elephant Delight
Price: 2500 baht/person Transportation method: There is a special car pick-up if you live in a specific area (basically the entire city of Chiang Mai) Official website: https://www.asianelephantprojects.com/

In addition to Asian Elephant Projects, Elephant Nature Park is also a "real" elephant conservation camp. Visiting their park, in addition to elephants, you can also see other rescued animals (attention cats and dogs! There are cats cat and dog area); after going to Thailand, I would like to join their two-day, one-night itinerary.

Elephant Conservation Camp: Elephant Nature Park
Official website: https://www.elephantnaturepark.org/enp/
The website is all in English. If you are afraid of accidentally making a mistake, you can also book on KKday!
Order from KKday: https://www.kkday.com/zh-tw/product/17837?cid=2298

【Tell the truth time】

After this day's trip (to be honest, it's only about half a day), I think it's worth spending 2,500 baht. I feel that the elephants here are really well taken care of, so if you have the opportunity to go to Chiang Mai in the future, you can report them One-day or half-day trips to their homes, so that they have enough income to continue their operations.

Every time you spend, you are voting for the world you want.

"Conscious consumption" is a very important part of sustainable tourism, so when you choose an elephant conservation camp in Thailand, do some homework in advance to make sure that the conservation camp you choose is really caring for elephants; If you don't have time to do your homework, Elephant Nature Park or Asian Elephant Projects are good choices.

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