10/12/2019

Hello. Today I woke up and was really excited to go to the Elephant Nature Park.  Mom and dad chose that place because we didn’t want to ride elephants because it hurts their spine.  All of the elephants there were rescued from people who were treating them bad. For example, some people use the elephants for riding and for logging.  They do this to make money. Just because elephants are big and strong, it doesn’t mean that people should use them as servants or do their dirty work for them.  Logging is very hard on elephants and damages their body.

There are 70-80 rescued and rehabilitated (that means their injuries are healed with the help of humans) elephants at Elephant Nature Park.  They have a very nice open space to roam. There are also cats, dogs, water buffalo, wild boar, goats, sheep, and cows. We were picked up in a van and drove an hour and a half up into the jungle in the mountains.  When we got there I couldn’t wait to see a real elephant for the first time ever. We got out of the van and went to the bathroom and our guide carried my backpack for me. We met at a table on the platform with many dogs and kittens and I saw an elephant and it was SO BIG.  It had very tiny tusks and very big feet that could smash anything into tiny bits. There were also a bunch of other elephants there that we could see because the platform had a whole view of the park.

Our guides name was Gun and she is from Thailand and she speaks really good English. She was really nice.  She said we were going to feed the elephants!! So we went off to the side of the platform and at the back of it was a crate of bananas and watermelons.  We fed the elephants!! And they ate the banana peels and everything. And they ate the watermelon whole!!! And this is what it sounded like….CRACK-SLURP!!  After that we left the platform and went into their natural habitat. We went out to the river and we saw them swimming and bathing themselves. We didn’t bathe them because at this sanctuary they want the elephants to be how they are in the wild, because the goal is to release them back into the jungle without any human help. Just human protection.  

We met an elephant named Mae Boon Ma she was born around 1955.  She came to the sanctuary in 2003 from a life of illegal logging.  She is an easy-going elephant and is best friends with an elephant called Lucky.  

Lucky was resuced in 2013 and is around the same age as Mae Boon.  She was the star attraction of the Lucky Circus since she was 4 years old.  She got an eye infection at the circus and was still forced to work under the bright spotlights. This  made her eyes worse. Elephants have sensitive eyes. This caused Lucky to become totally blind and she stopped performing.  She stayed with the circus but had to give rides. Then her owners stopped using her in the circus and kept her chained in the backyard.  They tried to breed her but couldn’t and so they sold her to the Elephant Nature Park. She is happy here and is never in chains and is never forced to do work that hurts her body.  Learn more about Lucky’s rescue journey here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhmDMzyrNk

Each of the 80 elephants here have been rescued and have a story like Lucky and Mae Boon.  There are still a lot of elephants that the tourists ride and that are treated badly. IF YOU COME TO THAILAND AND WANT TO RIDE AN ELEPHANT, DO NOT DO IT !!!!!!!! IT HURTS THEIR BODY AND YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM IF YOU RIDE IT.  ALSO, NEVER BUY IVORY. ALSO, IF YOU WANT TO SEE ELEPHANTS MAKE SURE YOU GO TO A PLACE THAT TREATS THEM NICE AND KIND AND ETHICALLY (that means kindly and respectfully). 

After feeding the elephants we got to go to our hut that we were sleeping overnight in.  It was called Dok-Mai and that is the name of one of the baby elephants. We had to sleep in beds with mosquito nets so we don’t get any bites.  The mosquitoes here can give you Malaria and Dengue Fever.  

Malaria is a blood infection from parasites that gives you fevers and never really goes away.  Sometimes it is bad and sometimes it is not that bad, but it never really goes away. We have to take Malaria pills everyday with food.  It’s called Malarone. Taking pills everyday is annoying because you always have a yucky taste in your mouth every morning. Dengue Fever is common this time of year because it is the rainy season. It also can give you a fever and rash and bleeding that won’t stop.  My mom got an email from the US Consulate saying to be careful because there were a lot of cases of the Dengue virus right now in the Consulate compound in Chiang Mai. Guess where the Consulate is?? RIGHT IN OUR BACKYARD OF OUR FIRST THAILAND APARTMENT!!! So every time we go out of our apartment or outside, we have to wear a lot of mosquito spray that we bought at the pharmacy in Chiang Mai the first day we got here.  My mom LOVES to talk about the parasites and viruses because she LOVES that stuff since college!! YUK!!

We had the best time ever at the elephant park. I will never forget it and all of the animal and people friends that I met. I met Sue, Hannah, Mark, Livia, Soi, and Gun.