Our TESOL course ended last Thursday afternoon, and we had the most amazing last weekend in Chiang Mai. As some of you know, the national symbol of Thailand is the elephant. You’ll find elephants on everything from jewelry to bed spreads to key chains. The national beer is even called “Chang,” the Thai word for elephants. What some of you don’t know, perhaps, is that there are only 2 kinds of elephants in the world: African elephants, and Asian elephants. The Asian breed is smaller than their African counterparts, and has small ears and big heads, relatively small ears, that is. Our guide liked to tell us that’s why Asian elephants are smarter, but then maybe he was a little bias. Anyways, it is not uncommon to see working elephants in the streets, and elephant shows are very common.
John and I had the awesome opportunity of seeing some of these amazing creatures up close and personal last Friday. We went to a place called the Thai Elephant Home, where the mahouts rescue abused animals from the streets or from other farms where they are mistreated, and bring them to this shelter to teach people how to treat elephants in kind way, and allow them to roam in the jungle. We went with our friends Charlie and Natalie from England. It was an amazing day!
They picked us up from our hotel in the morning and took us about an hour outside of the city. We changed into the typical outfit of a mahout, and were taught some useful elephant commands. Then we learned how to mount and dismount, and some of the different ways of riding elephants bareback. I didn’t know that you are supposed to ride an elephant on the back of its neck, instead of on its back like a horse, but it’s actually much more comfortable, and you can place your hands on its head for balance.
Once we were all familiar with the basics, we each received our own elephants, and started off on a 5 hr trek through the jungle.
The elephants were very hungry on the way, so it was slow going up the mountain. Every few steps, they had to stop and have a few bites to eat. By “a few bites” I mean an entire banana tree, a huge branch off of a tall tree, that sort of thing.
If you pushed them to keep going when they wanted to stop and eat, they would turn their trunks toward you, and blow a huge string of saliva and mud in your face (that’s why they gave us clothes to wear). The best part was going through a large mud field. The elephants had to slurp and spray at every step. You can see by the pictures how dirty we were!! Especially John!
We got to walk with them through a mud pit, eat some delicious phad thai on top of the mountain, and come back down to take a wonderful bath in the river. My legs are just now recovering, but it was totally worth it!!
Oooh what fun! I'm laughing at the mud on you guys... wow, I never knew they would blow mud and snot on you like that while riding them. I rode an elephant years ago. My folks were actually going to buy him (long story there, lol) and loved riding him on the neck because I was so close to his head. He was a love.
ReplyDeleteWhat fun you are having :)