Made it to Bangkok from Kathmandu over a week ago and have been thoroughly enjoying Thailand. As we are way behind in our blog, we are going to skip posting anything about Bangkok and come back to it once we return to the city later in our trip.
We took an overnight train to Chiang Mai, in the northern part of the country and Thailand’s second largest city. You can’t come to Thailand without seeing some elephants, so we arranged to spend a day at Elephant Nature Park. Although we just picked one out of the guidebook that looked good, this one happened to be one that is an elephant sanctuary—most of the 33 elephants were orphaned or rescued, many with sad histories (like one elephant who stepped on a land mine in Burma). While at the park, we were shown a documentary and learned that hundreds of work-elephants were essentially abandoned after the logging industry in Thailand was outlawed in the late 80’s… and learned of the abuses that still go on today to “break” the elephants, allowing them to be ridden by tourists and exploited in other ways. It was a wonderful day helping to feed and wash the elephants, and see them in their more natural environment.
The elephants would give “kisses”
Bathing the elephants in the nearby river
Wow, this looks like a blast! Nice pics
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