The Terrific3 travel blog

There are a lot of elephant rescues and sanctuaries in Thailand. For many years, and still currently, elephants (mostly female ones) have been used in the illegal logging business to carry trees and do other labor. This has been hard for them both physically and mentally. These rescues give elephants a new life. They get housed in nature, fed, and taken care of.

I had read a lot about “ethical” sanctuaries, and felt pretty strongly that I didn’t want to go to one where we rode elephants. The arthritis in their backs from working so hard was often already bad, and I didn’t want to contribute to more pain. A lot of people I talked to recommended the Elephant Nature park, so we signed up for a full day tour.

The day started with a 6am wake up and a taxi into chiang mai as we were too far outside the pickup zone. We left their office at 8am, picked up a few people from their hotels, then drove over an hour to the park.

The place is amazing. As I told my kids—in a zoo, elephants are captive in a small space. Here they can roam around over lots of land, and the human areas are smaller. As they should be.

In the morning we walked around and “met” some elephants for 2 hours, took photos, and then we had a vegan Thai lunch (served by them) (impressed this vegan) and the boys and I went to the cat rescue area to pet some cats. They also rescue dogs from the dog meat trade, as well as buffalo.

The day was amazing. To be so close to these majestic animals, to see their true nature, in a peaceful environment with a mountainous backdrop. Truly unique. My kids were engaged the whole time.

After lunch, it was was raining as we watched as a few elephants walked to the river to swim and bathe. I have some videos I’ll try to attach.

We ended the day with pizza at mad dog pizza near the office downtown. S isn’t eating much thai food, and I don’t want him to waste away, so this is our compromise.