Thailand is famous for many things among which is the legendary white elephant. Behind the legend you find the Asian elephant that played a significant role in the economy of the country for example as mean of transportation or in logging.
Logging with elephant has been forbidden several years ago and now elephants are acting in circus, ridden by tourists or begging on the streets.
Concerned about bad treatments experienced by elephants, a Thai woman decided to create a sanctuary to shelter "retired" elephants and to protect some others. That's the place where we decided to spend 2 days.
A couple days to discover the elephants from Thailand.
We've been picked up at the hotel and after picking up some more people we left Chiang Mai for the park 60km north or so.
In the park we had the chance to watch the elephants eating, walking, interacting with each other. On top we were given the opportunity to feed them. Apparently they eat one tenth of their way each day. I let you picture the amount of banana and other grass that represent.
This was really the highlight of the day. While the first elephant couldn't care less about the banana I was offering, Dani was chasing me for more. She used her trump to ask more food from me. It's actually crazy to manage to interact so closely with them. For me elephants have always been animals from far away. And all of a sudden I'm feeding them, petting them and even bathing them (not completely but enough to make an impression on me).
Elephants are big, powerful, impressive yet gentle and agile. It's a fascinating mix.
Those 2 days have really been magic. I still can't believe I had this chance.
I do hope I managed to get decent pictures. There should be a few good ones in the 100s I took. In case you wonder I took more pictures of elephants than of the pink flamingoes back in August.
We'll see when I'm back. On top we have videos recorded by Alice on get brand new camera!
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