A person can absolutely not come to Chiang Mai without seeing elephants. That’s a given. The hard part is figuring out how to go about seeing them without being left with ethical questions about how those elephants are being treated.

Elephant Nature Park

After some online research and listening to recommendations, I went with Elephant Nature Park. This is an elephant rescue and rehabilitation center that has been operating for 25 years. They have a very large herd of rescued elephants and an impressive amount of land to house them. The land is divided by a river that runs through the property, with the majority of the elephants able to roam around the park as they please – towards food, into shade, into the pools or river, or to the mud piles. The only exceptions to this rule are the elephants who are still in the process of being socialized to either other elephants or to humans, and these ones are kept in separate areas.

The goal of the ENP is to provide an environment as close to nature as possible for the elephants. This means that some of the activities that are standard in elephant visits elsewhere (such as bathing the elephants) are not done here. Here, the elephants swim, frolic, and splash in the river on their own or with their friends/families, and then head right over to cover themselves with mud.

The visitors at this park are here to meet the elephants, learn their stories, and watch them in this environment.

Along with elephants, ENP has rescued and provides a natural environment for dogs, cats, water buffalo, and a variety of other animals that can be seen wandering about the park.

The elephants

Unfortunately, none of the elephants at Elephant Nature Park have very happy backgrounds. They come from working the tourist circuit carrying people on their backs, being used as beasts of burden, working in the circus, and more. A couple that we met today had stepped on land mines, and have spent years recovering from the resulting injuries. Many are blind due to abusive handlers, and some have leg and back injuries from being forced to carry too much weight for too long.

Okay. We’ve made it through the sad background. Are you ready for some photos and videos of beautiful, spectacular, amazing elephants??

The visit

We were showed around today by Tong, who has worked at ENP for four years and was a lot of fun.

Before we had even left the visitor area, a trunk started reaching towards my group asking for food. Tong pulled out a crate of watermelons and told us to go ahead and feed her. Though elephants shouldn’t survive on watermelons alone, a crateful makes a great appetizer for them!

We were brought on a tour through the park, meeting elephants along the way. The elephants all have their own relationships with each other, generally forming strong friendships with one or two others, or else adopting younger or older elephants as family.

This is Lucky. She was my favorite elephant we met today, as she was an utter goofball with an attitude. This blind lady will throw her food on top of her head to indicate to her mahout that she doesn’t like what she’s eating, and that she wants a new batch.

Her two best elephant friends each passed away at the park not long ago, and were buried there. Lucky tends to stay near the burial places because she misses her buddies.

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This blind elderly elephant has adopted this young orphan boy as her own. He helps guide her around, and she offers him a maternal touch.

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It was a joy to watch this family of four come to the river to bathe together. The baby is a four-year-old who is very playful. They’d all roll around in the river together, with only their trunks popping up above the surface of the water every now and then. There is a moment in one of the videos where three of the elephants sort of “hold trunks” that just made my heart melt!

The elephant bringing up the rear of this group stepped on a land mine years ago, and is unable to put much weight on her back right leg because of it. Though she walks very slowly, the other three elephants make sure to wait for her.

All of the sudden, this group decided that is was time for their mud bath. They walked out of the river towards a big pile of dirt which they started throwing on their backs and rolling around in. This mud coating on their backs acts as sun block and helps keep them cool.

Then we walked down the river to meet another family that was happily eating together. When we got there, a young female who had been playing with this family’s young male heard her mother call and trotted away back home.

Then we met Mae Thai, who used to be the head of the last family we saw, but due to some disagreements, now prefers to be on her own. She is 71 years old, missing an eye, and is the biggest female elephant in the park. She hung around with us for a while, moving around just enough to create the perfect photo shoot!

Non-elephants

All throughout our visit, we saw plenty of other rescued animals in the park. It’s quite the menagerie in there! Most of the dogs are kept in a separate area, and some of the 300+ cats could be spotted darting around the fields now and then.

So that was quite the day! Lunch was included as part of the park visit, and ENP picked me and the other visitors up from our hotels in the morning and dropped us back off in the evening.

Dinner and a trip to the spa

I figured I’d have a pretty chill evening after the day I had. I grabbed a red curry from a casual restaurant around the corner from my hostel, and then went to get a Thai foot massage.

For 250 baht (about $8), I got an hour of pampering which ended up being far more than I expected. I walked in, was provided with floral iced tea and cookies, had my feet washed, and was given an hour-long massage that was mostly for my feet and legs, but which also included my arms, shoulders, and back, and then was given cup of hot tea and more cookies to cap off my visit. The massage included strategically applying pressure to certain points throughout my body, and I am feeling gloriously loose now because of it!

Finally, I’m chilling in a coffee shop across the street from my hostel while a group of people who work here strum a guitar and sing together. Not. Too. Shabby.