Elephant Jungle Sanctuary
Apparently Chiang Mai is the place to go for elephants. We booked over a month before planning this trip and by the time that November was upon us people were having a hard time booking a place to see elephants that wasn't abusing them in some way.
We decided to go to the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary which came to us as a recommendation from a Thai student as one that wasn't engaging in any animal cruelty. Riding on elephants back is bad for them and often at places where that is allowed they try to control the elephants with pokey sticks, pain, and fear. Thankfully we went to a place that didn't have any of that and where no one was ever riding on any of the elephants.
We took a really early bus out of Chiang Mai to the location out in the jungle of the sanctuary. 3 of us rode in the front of the truck with the driver, the other 12 or so were in the back which was a modified truck bed with a roof, totally open air and you sit facing each other. They had a good time and made good conversation but I had a headache even in the front seat with all the curvy roads so I was thankful to not be in the back.
When we got there (finally) we were met with a small valley area with a river and lots of grass and foresty areas on the hills around it. There were several groups of elephants in various parts of the area and no fences between them. While there may have been fences around the edge of the large property I never saw any as far as I could see and from the top of the hill you could see the river, most of the valley, and small bamboo farm area so I think I would've seen any fences. The workers were really nice and not one of them was carrying any sort of tool to make the elephants do anything. The entire time we were there they would kinda push the elephants where they wanted them to go, entice them with food, or kinda try holding their trunks and walking. There is no way that they could've pulled on the elephants trunks or successfully pushed them in any way either, that was just them kinda helping direct. It was relieving to see how friendly the elephants were and clearly unafraid they were of their handlers.
The first thing we did was wash our hands and head down to feed the elephants. They introduced us to a herd of about 6 elephants of varying sizes and ages. The oldest elephant was in her forties I think and the youngest was a baby only 7 months old. They were all so cute and so relaxed and then they saw us walking up with bananas and sugar cane and they got all excited and came over to meet us. Elephants eat a humongous amount every day and we got to feed them several times but this first time was especially fun. All of the elephants were allowed to eat the bananas and sugar cane and we could throw it in their mouth or let them take it in their trunk and feed themselves. They knew the drill and would patiently wait (or not so patiently) while you fed them. The baby was only allowed to eat bananas that were peeled and was a little bit clumsy about the whole feeding thing. It was soooooo cute. And elephants are extremely smart, their social dynamics are really fun to watch as the baby would run around and throw tantrums and sometimes just lay down on the ground and inconvenience the other elephants and once one of them yelled at the baby with a really loud trumpetting elephant sound and the baby got up real quick and resumed normal walking. It was cute. And when I say 7 month baby I still mean gigantic animal who you had to protect your feet from stepping on. The older ones were really good about this and never came close to anyone's feet but the baby was still clumsy and would kind of just walk into people and not even go around them so people would have to get out of its way which was still pretty cute.
We were were these elephants for a while and then went down to feed another group before heading up for lunch. After lunch we made some "medicine" for the elephants which was to help with their digestion and was made of bananas, a certain seed or bean looking thing, and some grains. We then went down to feed these to the happy elephants and got in a huge mud pit with them. It was bath time and elephants use mud both to cool off and to repel insects. We had a really fun time throwing mud all over the elephants and then got in a giant mud fight between ourselves as well. It was hilarious and fun and games until one of the elephants took a huge shit in the mud and water we were in... pretty much everyone ran to the other side at that point while the workers collected the poop to get it out of the water. We actually stayed in that mud for quite a while after that and everyone just kind of pretended that wasn't happening because we wanted to stay with the elephants.
After our mud bath (picture above is before) we spent some time feeding the elephants and then walked with them down to the river where everyone was given a bowl for water and we all piled into the river/pond area. It was definitely moving water but we were in a pooled more stagnant part and the current wasn't that bad. The elephants absolutely loved it and were playing and swimming and we were throwing water on them to get the mud off and cool them off while also having water fights between ourselves and cleaning the mud off ourselves as well. The elephants were so fun to hang out with and after the river then rolled around and threw more dirt and mud on themselves.
At this time it was the end of the day and we all went and got to take showers and change into the extra change of clothes we brought. It was a super fun day and actually really tiring. We piled back into the busses and went home.
This was honestly one of the coolest experiences I've had here. The elephants were so cool and being able to really spend the entire day with them was great. We had such a good time and the best part of all was that we didn't go to an animal cruelty place.