Today Rory and I spent the day at the Elephant Nature Park (ENP), about 1.5hrs outside of Chiang Mai. Warning to readers: this may be boring, but I'm going to give you a little background on the ENP.
The park was established as a refuge for abused and orphaned elephants who had been working in the logging or tourism industry. The founder of ENP, a woman named Lek, started with 4 elephants and now has 37, 2 of which were born in the park. All of the elephants are able to roam free in the park and form herds as they please. To help with the expense of feeding and caring for the elephants ENP allows visitors to come for a one day tour. During the tour you learn about Asian Elephants, the history of the park and the ongoing issues of abuse and neglect currently used to train and keep elephants.
During the tour we were able to help feed and bathe the elephants. Tourists could not ride on them and the elephants were not made to perform for us. In addition to the one day tours, tourists could also volunteer for a week. The volunteers pay to volunteer and are provided with room and board. Aside from saving on the costs associated with hiring help, the majority of the volunteers' fee goes towards the food and medical assistance required to maintain the elephants.
With the exception of the 2 elephants born at ENP all of the elephants seemed to have suffered from some form of abuse. A few elephants have poorly healed limbs from falling down the hillside when they were working in the logging industry. Another elephant was injured by a land mine along the border of Myanmar. And another is blind in both eyes as a result of slingshots and sticks being used to prompt her to work when she refused.
I loved the experience, and would highly recommend going to anyone visiting Chiang Mai. It's bit more expensive to visit when compared to the price of an elephant trek, but the money is being put to better use.
On a lighter note my favorite comment of the day came from an elderly woman from Chicago who asked an Australian woman if there were a lot of Hispanics in Australia as well. After a confused pause the Australian replied "no, there are not many at all."
One of the 2 baby elephants.
A view of part of the park with the Elephant Medical Centre to the left.
It takes a LOT of food to feed 37 elephants
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