Blue Elephants

Day 7 – June 20, 2016

Monday

Today was one of the main reasons I have wanted to come to Thailand. To ride elephants. I suppose this is somewhat controversial, but I carefully picked a very conscientious company with excellent reviews and we had an unforgettable day.

We did the “All day just elephants” tour with Blue Elephant. It is about a 2 hour drive to the Blue Tao Elephant Village located in the beautiful pine woods on the backside of Doi Inthanon Mountain, Southwest of Chiang Mai. We each had our own elephant and we got to be a “mahout” (elephant owner) for a day, alongside the real “mahouts.” In the white Karen Hill tribe, they have been caring for elephants for hundreds of years. When an elephant is born in this village, he or she is given to boy or girl (teenager) as a gift from their parents. This elephant is their own and they train them from the time they are born. So the elephants in this village are family owned. The mahouts live in the elephant village and care for their elephant every single day. To earn money, they allow two people per day to help them care for their elephant. We fed the elephants, played with them, cleaned them and then got to go on about a 2 hour ride bare back through the jungle with them, taking breaks along the way to let the elephants feed and scratch on the trees in the forest before heading back to bath them in the watering hole. It was totally a bucket-list experience!

I got to ride on Boon-jan, the mama elephant. She was the mother of 5 of the other elephants, including an adorable little 2 year old elephant who stayed right by her side the entire time and even nursed several times throughout the day.

It was harder than I thought to stay on the elephant. You climb up and nestle in right on their neck but each time they take a step it throws you a little to each side. And when the bend down or lift up their head to eat or look, it’s easy to lose your balance. You are supposed to bring your knees up and squeeze your legs together to hold on. After about 45 minutes, my legs were shaking because my muscles were so sore. There is no bridle or saddle to hold on to, just a rope around their belly but it is not tight enough so it slides around if you pull on it. I found the easiest way when we were walking on flat ground, was to hang my legs down beside Boon-jan’s ears and lean forward and put my hands on top of her head. The mahouts said we are so small, the elephants can’t even feel us up there.

Bathing the elephants was the best part. If you just didn’t think about how you just saw the mahout scooping up giant elephant poops out of the water you are in and throwing it off to the side. If you just ignored that part and swam over and climbed on your elephant and started scrubbing, it was amazing! We splashed and scrubbed and the elephants seemed to love it. And we loved it too!

Breakfast at the house is amazing!

The elephant lifted Mikey off the ground when he hugged him. Mikey loved it!

Wet and tired at the end of our elephant day.