Elephant Nature Camp

This week has been an adventure!  Class was cancelled Wednesday and Thursday due to graduation ceremony (apparently at CMU seniors graduate in March, and then have the ceremony in Jan).  Also I scheduled so I don't have class Tuesdays or Fridays! I think in my last post I talked about how excited I was for all my classes, but this week was great because I had basically none.  I actually did learn a lot this past week though.

On Tuesday Kim and I made arrangements to go to an elephant sanctuary called Elephant Nature Park. Mom, Dad, Scott, Darryl, Elliot - you will go with me or on your own.

There are many places where you can see/touch/ride(?)/watch elephants in Thailand.  You may even come across elephant beggars in Chiang Mai or Bangkok.

Not cool.

The Thai woman that started this sanctuary rescues abused elephants like this one and takes care of them at a beautiful and natural location about an hour outside of Chiang Mai.  Lek, the amazing Thai woman that started this place grew up in a small mountain community outside of Chiang Mai and worked/lived with elephants as a child.  Hill tribe people have lived among elephants forever, and until 1990 when logging was banned, they worked for people.  Now all these elephants are "out of work."  There are many other elephant camps in Thailand where you can ride one through the jungle.  I think some of them are okay, and others are not as humane.  Basically there are wild elephants, and other elephants that are legally treated as livestock (as they have been for thousands of years).  Unfortunately there is little penalty for abusing the elephants that are considered livestock, even though the Asian Elephant has been an endangered species since 1986.  We watched a video that showed us how cruel mahouts can be to their elephants.  (But not all of them are cruel!  -- Also during the video there were a few times when a dog was on the screen.  The dog in the room ran and jumped at the screen every time (just like Zoey!))

Anyway, more information can be found on the website.  

Besides being educational, it was also a really fun day!  This place can afford to feed 30 elephants 300 pounds of food a day by visitors who come for the day, or volunteer for 1-? weeks.  So we got to feed the elephants when we got there.  We just took turns placing banana bunches, (smaller) watermelon halves, squash, and banana flowers on the end of their trunks and the elephants grabbed the food and put it in their mouths.  We went on a walk through the property and got to pet and take pictures with the elephants and our guide told us each elephants story as we met them.  They really are cool creatures, I'm sure you have heard.  We watched that documentary, had an amazing vegetarian buffet for lunch, and got to know the people in our small group.  Then we went to the river and bathed the elephants and just waded in the river.  Such a lovely day :)

We really liked the people in our group and decided to meet up for dinner later that night at another amazing vegetarian restaurant near the University.  Kim and I walked there and joined a young couple that was on break from teaching english in Korea, and the cutest couple traveling around Thailand and Burma (aged 65, married for 38 years).  One of the teachers also studied abroad at CMU and gave me some great tips.  He also inspired me to learn more Thai with his flash cards.  The couple was the friendliest cutest couple everrr.  The woman, Bobbi was obsessed with cats (and all animals) and gave me a tip about a cat sanctuary in Myanar (apparently there was a time where there were no more Burmese cats Burma).  Maybe I'll go there.  They were going back to Myanmar after meeting some great people there 2 years ago- they said since then prices have doubled and the country doesn't have the infrastructure to support the tourism after the country has opened up.  More on this later if I decide to go...

Anyway- go to elephant nature camp.  It was great!  Book in advance and they pick you up at your place.

Oh also I would totally post pictures because I decided to put more effort into my blog, but my camera was not cooperating this day, so you'll have to see Kim's pictures, or I'll update later.

These are the only ones I have... 

Love you allll xoxoxo