We woke up early and had a great complimentary breakfast buffet at the Le Meridien. I would put in on par with some of the Vegas buffets I have tried in the past. We had to get up early because today was our day to be "an elephant owner for a day" at Patara Elephant Farm.
(Warning, this post is pretty long and almost all about elephants, but it was an amazing trip and there is just so much to talk about.) If you just want to see the pictures not including the ones taken by our tour, click here.
If you plan to take the Patara Elephant farm trip in the future, you might want to skip this post so all the info will be new to you.
Our day at Patara Elephant Farm started at 7:30am. The shuttle came to pick us up from the hotel and drove us 45 minutes to the elephant farm. We then met our guide and co-owner, Pat, who started the farm 11 years ago. He gave us an interesting history lesson on Thailand and the role elephants played in the last 800 years of Thai history.
He talked about how elephants were used primarily for battle 800 years ago by kings and warriors, and then used mainly for logging the last 400 years. He explained how Thailand escaped European colonization (it is the only SE Asia country to do so) due to agreements the Thai king made with each of the European countries that were colonizing other SE Asian countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Phillipines, Malaysia, etc) - in exchange for not invading Thailand, the European counrtries were to be provided with vast supplies of a Thai natural resource - Teak and Red wood. Elephants were a crucial part of the logging industry in Thailand back in the day and Pat believes it was the elephants that helped save Thailand from European colonization (a little skewed I know, but an interesting story regardless). However, due to mass deforestation (reduced to only 20% forests), the Thai King vowed to reduce logging signicantly to preserve Thailand's forests (it has now increased to 30% forest coverage). Because of the edict, the need for elephants in logging was eliminated and the elephants were primarily then used as transport or sold into circuses. Additionally, because of the massive deforestation that occured, the number of elephants in Thailand decreased from over 6,000 to now about 3,200.
The goal of the Patara Elephant Farm is to care for healthy domesticated elephants and attempt to either reintroduce them into the wild or breed them. For this reason, the farm maintains a healthy and happy environment for its elephants and actively seeks out other elephants that are healthy and young enough to breed. They do not train their elephants to perform circus acts. In fact, they rescue many elephants that are deemed "useless" by circuses because they are now too old (over the age of 5) or buy other healthy elephants that owners no longer want.
Another intere
sting fact - elephants are not categorized under Thailand's department of agriculture, instead, they are registered by Thailand's "department of transportation" and are in the same category as trucks and buses. Each elephant is required to be registered with the department and has a small microchip embedded as part of the registration process. Thus, if you wanted to, you could legally ride an elephant on the freeway. Enough with history lesson and on with the fun stuff. Our purpose at the farm was to act as an elephant owner for the day. We both agree this was perhaps one of the most amazing and memorable things we have ever done.
After the history lesson, we were introduced to our elephants. I was matched with Mewenee, a 36 year old female, and Theresa was paired with Champuu, a 9 year old female which was bought from a circus not too long ago. Champuu was the youngest (and perhaps one of the most delinquent of the bunch). Before we met the elephants, we were provided with native tribal garbs made by the Karen long-neck tribe. They were made of beautiful multi-colored yarn. The farmer pants were a one size fit all, so they were made to fit a 400 lb man. The two of us could have easily fit into one pair of pants and it would have still been loose.
After dressing, we were asked to bring a basket of local organic bananas and sugar cane to feed our elephants as a friendly gesture. But, before we could approach the elephant, we had to assess whether the elephant was in a good mood. This required ensuring that the elephant was flapping its ears and wagging its tail. As you can imagine, upon seeing about 3 bundles of bananas and sugar cane to feed 4 grown men, the elephants were pretty darn happy. We had to say "mai" ("ok") to see if it was ok to approach the elephant and the elephant would respond with a loud roar. Then we would approach the elephants from the front and say "Bon" so they would raise their trunks. We then proceeded to unload the entire basket of fruit into the elephant's mouth. Mind you, this was not giving it to them via their trunk...this was sticking your hand in their mouth, having their tongue slobber all over your arm and having them suck on your arm, thinking it was a banana!
The second thing we did after the initial feeding was learn to check our elephant's health. There were four checks made to determine whether an elephant was in good health. These are:
(1) confirm its ears and tails are flapping - this means the elephant is happy. If an elephant is ever still, that's a bad sign - and either its sick or in a defensive state.
(2) check for dirt marks on the ears and sides. This means the elephant has been sleeping on its side (Elephants sleep for 30 min on each side, then get up for 10 minutes and then sleep on the other side for another 30 minutes.They repeat this for 4 hours.) If an elephant sleeps standing up, that means it's not feeling well. The elephant knows that if it sleeps lying down while sick, it may not be able to get back up.
(3) check to see if there is sweat on its toes. Apparently, an elephant only sweats at its toes. If there is no sweat there, that means the elephant is dehydrated.
(4) examine the elephant's poop. There should be at least 6 droppings, it should be wet (digestion is well), not smelly (digestion is well) and be of a certain fiber size and length (teeth are good, can chew food). Yep, we did all of this. We all had to smell the poop, but Theresa's guide actually made her touch, squeeze and pull apart the poop. Surprisingly, the elephants' poop was not smelly at all. Perhaps, that's the sign of an elephant getting good quality organic fruits and vegetables!
After our inspections were complete, we had to then bathe the elephants in the river. This required us to get in the water with a small brush and bucket with the elephant. Apparently, elephants are prone to skin infections, so it's very important to make sure its skin is clean. We learned proper brushing technique and then got to work. We had to brush the ENTIRE elephant, when I say ENTIRE, I mean ENTIRE - back, front, side, feet, butt, trunk, tail, etc. I think our lack of skill resulted in us bathing ourselves in the river more than we bathed the elephants.
After our elephants were cleaned up, we learned some basic Thai commands on how to guide our elephants while we rode them bareback. "bai" means "go", "how" means "stop", "yanna" is what you say when you want your elephant to focus and not do something it shouldn't be doing, "di di" means "good elephant", "toy toy" means "backup", "now long" means "sit down" and "look" means "get up."
We also learned three different ways to get on an elephant - (1) by having it lie down, (2) by asking it to give you a lift up with its foot and (3) by asking it to give you a lift up with its trunk. Theresa decided to skip elementary level and go advance by trying the trunk method. Needless to say, she was none too smooth and there's a funny picture of her attempting to get on Champuu in our album.After everyone was situated on their elephant (which required you to pretty much sit on its head with your knees up and feet behind its ears), we headed on a long ride to our lunch spot at a waterfall. We went through the forest, on narrow paths that often went up and down treacherous hills, through bamboo trees. While gentle, those elephants are pretty unruly. They get distracted easily by food (which is any vegetation in the forest), so there was a lot of "yannas" and "bais" being yelled out to get the elephants to move in the right direction. At some times, you had to watch out for falling bamboo as the elephants would yank down entire huge stalks as they walked by for a "snack".
Riding bareback on an elephant is an interesting experience. Once you sit up there, you realize it's a lot higher sitting perched on an elephant's head than you thought it would be. At first, the stride of the elephant is a little unsettling, but then you get used to it. Elephants are very surefooted - they always have three feet on the ground at all times and they go up and down slippery slopes slowly but surely. You don't even hold on to anything after awhile. There is a rope behind you that you can grab on to particularly when you're going down a steep hill. Being the youngest, Theresa's elephant was a little "unfocused", and at one point pitched up on two feet. Luckily, she held on tight, and eventually got the elephant to cooperate with a lot of "yannas", "bais" and "didis". After about 15 minutes, you really get used to it - however, avoiding huge spiders, falling bamboo and other brush and bramble kept us busy.
Once we got to the waterfall, the elephants decided to go for a swim to cool-off - and took us along for the swim. They sprayed us with water, rolled around, and played. We were completely drenched. We then got off and while the elephants continued to cool off, we headed for the waterfall to clean up ourselves. It was really clean and refreshing and perfect after a messy elephant ride on a hot day.
After our dip, we were presented with with an amazing lunch. There was fried chicken, three different types of sticky rice (regular, red rice with coconut mile, and a white one with custard), sticky rice baked in bamboo, passion fruit, corn gelatin and other Thai desserts, and tangerine oranges. It was too much food for all of us, so we gave all of our leftover food to the elephants, except for the fried chicken.
After lunch, some of us decided to go for another dip in the river with the elephants. You could step all over the elephants and they wouldn't care. They were having too much fun rolling around and spraying themslves with water.
We noticed that Champuu was the only elephant with a chain attached to her leg. We learned that in order to keep all the elephants from roaming, they need to keep one of the elephants chained when they are resting. And since Champuu was the youngest and most unruly, she was the one that was chained (but still able to roam around).
Before leaving, we gave them a quick bath to cool them off, then took our elephants on the road this time to get back to camp. Once there, we took a break and then were shown how to get two people on one elephant. For us, this required having Mewenee bend her head down and each of us jumping up on her head/neck. When we were both on, I was sitting in the normal position and Theresa was on Mewenee's head with her feet dangling between Mewenee's eyes. We then took a very scenic ride around the farm through the river and around the rice paddies for about 30 minutes. For some reason, we were ahead of the group and got some privacy with just the trainer.
It was then time to say goodbye to our elephants. Theresa was one of two awarded "best student of the day". It was a questionable pick. Probably because she had the most disobedient and youngest elephant. For her reward, she was told to close her eyes and she would recieve a kiss by someone. She opened her arms and the two youngest elephants each kissed her arms. She said it was like a vaccuum cleaner sucking on you.
We fed the elephants one last time and bid our farewells. P
at was the best guide and you could tell he was truly passionate about Thailand and the elephants. He had some final pieces of advice for us: (1) Walk like an elephant (elephants are surefooted and always look down at their feet) - Meaning we should be careful with our steps.
(2) Eat like an elephant (they only eat vegetables and will not eat or drink anything if there is any remote signs of pesticides) - Meaning that we should not eat as much as an elephant, but we should eat more quality fruits and vegetables.
(3) Treat loved ones like an elephant - Meaning if your loved one wants to go one way, eat something, do something, let them do it.
All in all, it was an amazing experience, and, as you can probably tell from this post, a truly memorable one. Not only was it educational, but allowed us to experience how it would be to work/live in the countrysides of Thailand. We learned what gentle and beautiful creatures elephants are, and now revere them. I don't think we would ever again be able to enjoy a circus show again after learning how the elephants are treated. This will be an experience that will remain with us for a long time. Hopefully we can return one day and revisit the Patara Elephant Farm.
As an added bonus, they took pictures and video of us during our experience. We will be watching it tonight. Can't wait to show it to you all once we arrive back state-side.
Anyhow, once we were dropped back off at our hotel, we went straight for the shower and then went for a swim to wind down from an adventurous day. A nice sunset summed up the day.
For dinner, we followed the concierge recommendation and went to the Antique House for "authentic" Thai food. We specifically asked for a "non-touristy" place. Funny how the entire restaurant was full of tourists.... We had fried wontons with chicken and crab, fried fish stuffed with pork, and a house special beef, which was more like sweet and sour beef with veggies, For dessert, we had mango sticky rice and chocolate ice cream. Overall, the food was just okay. The bill ended up being 700 bahts, which was 7x more expensive than last night. It wasn't close to being 7x better. It was our only misstep in Chiang Mai.
Going to the Patara Elephant Farm was definitely the highlight of our Chiang Mai visit and would actually recommend flying there just for the elephants, if you happen to be in southeast Asia.
For the rest of our pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=theresang1977&target=ALBUM&id=5388800999769151521&authkey=Gv1sRgCM2F94qa8JiBGg&feat=emails
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