Elephants!

We have had limited internet access the last couple days, but for a really exciting reason. We finally got to get up close with some elephants! We had already been to the elephant hospital, but couldn’t get close enough to touch them. A lot of them were recent rescues and were recovering from various ailments and conditions. We visited a camp this weekend, though, where the elephants were rehabilitated and able to socialize with people again. There were 27 elephants at this park, and only 3 were born there. The rest had been sent from elephant hospitals or rehabilitation centers for a good permanent home.

This particular park is about an hour drive from the city center, which makes it a popular getaway for a lot of tourists. The park survives on the money it brings in from tours and donations visitors make. Each elephant can eat a couple hundred pounds of food per day, so you can imagine how costly it is. We spent the first day at the park just learning how to interact with the elephants. One of the first things we learned how to do was feed them. They love bamboo, sugar cane, bananas (by the bunch), and anything they can strip off the trees. They were not shy about taking anything, either. Often I would be carrying an armload of bananas over to my elephant and another one would reach over and steal some. They had to chain up one leg of the elephants (only during feeding time) to prevent fights over food. Most of these elephants are no longer aggressive, but they will occasionally have flashbacks of needing to fight for food. (Think Wookie and Royal during treat time...)

My elephant for the weekend was Khan. I love his name, especially because of the recent Star Trek movie. But he was mostly called by his nickname, Smooch. I quickly found out what this meant…

He loves to give kisses! He will wrap his trunk around your neck and give you a very loud smooch. He was the only one at the park that did this. I can now say I’ve gotten a hicky from an elephant. Khan was one of the few elephants to be born at the park. He is still considered a baby, being only five years old. He was definitely one of the more playful ones, too. His mahout (caretaker) said this is because he is still in his naughty little boy phase. Kind of reminded me of Royal… Here he is taking a rest. He just flops over wherever he wants and wags his tail.

For example, on the second day we rode our elephants through the jungle for a couple hours to a river to bathe them. They were supposed to stop and let us off before going in the water. But Khan got so excited and started trumpeting when he saw that it was bath time that he ran into the water with me on top still. We spent about an hour in the water, playing and washing. All the elephants love to load up their trunks with water and spray huge fountains over everyone.

I did get to try sitting up on one of the big ones the second day. It was soo high up! A little bit scary at first, but actually felt more stable than little Khan. The big one I sat on is named Ohm. He was very polite, even handed me my shoes with his trunk. By the way, the unflattering outfits we are wearing are to protect our skin from rash from elephant's tough skin.

It has been a couple very tiring, but awesome, days.