Elephant Nature Park: Overnight stay in Beautiful Teak cottage sleeping to the sounds of elephants..
Sounds Magical, because it was.If you are in Thailand book AT LEAST a full day here.
Basic details :
The elephants stay here only at night. View from my cottage balcony
More on Pricing and programming here : http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/enp/en/13-elephant-nature-park-overnight-visit
How it worked:
Instead of arranging the elephants into groups and routines, they allow elephants to form thier own groups and routines, and build the interaction of humans around that. Each elephant group has a Mahout that watches over them. There are no hooks or sticks or chains used to discpline elephants here, they use positive reinforcement with food treats and other things elephants like to gain their trust and cooperation.Tourists offer food(elephants eat SO MUCH!) bathing and general adoration to the mix. We followed elephants around the land during thier routines and met up with other elephants along the way.
What was great about it:
This program helps trained and working elephants into a rehab situation, most of the elphants are old and or handicapped in some way: Broken Hips, blindness, and landmine injuries are common. There are also some baby elephants who will not be broken ever, and ideally be re- released into the wild if possible.
This program didn't leave out the Mahouts or the people working with the elephants:
Program fosters a dialog with local people practicing traditional methods of breaking elephants to help prevent cruelty, and is attempting to develop more positive cooperative elephant human relationships.There are retraining programs for Mahouts to improve the elephant Mahout relationships for the elephants still working as labor animals.There is employment at the park and jobs created by the ecotourism aspects of the facility. They include programming to help Immigrants from Burma who were working in Lumber trade on the border of Thailand and Myanmar.
There are elephants carved in teak by the Mahouts and locals of specific elephants that tourists can buy they recieve a cut from the proceeds supplementing Mahout income.
Oh right, and the dog sanctuary and adoption program. There are dogs and cats all over the Park, the Park holds 100+ cats and 400+ dogs, the dogs are mostly housed in kennels, but there are a number of them lounging around in the feilds, around the lodge and center building, and even on the porches of the cottages people stay in. There are even a few dogs who attempt to herd elephants or engage the elphants in play. Many dogs and cats get adopted locally and internationally.
Here is a cat in the shrine taking a nap.
Here are some photos of our time with the elphants, these photos will give you an idea on what the elphants do all day, and how the guests interact with them.Please remember, most of these elephants are injured in some fashion, so if they look injured they are. Alot of these elephants were given up to the park because thier owners could not care for thier injuries, or no longer wanted them for a variety of reasons.
Me washing an elephant.
a group washing an elephant.
Feeding elephants at the deck, elephants like people, have favorite foods.This one is eating a pumpkin :)
Elephants getting a good rub and scratch in in the afternoon.
Mahouts and guides hanging out with elephants.Its like a million degrees out everyone was wilting :)
Baby elephant with injured foot.
My husband hanging out with an elephant dining on banana stems
Banana Hunting
Broken hip from forced breeding by previous owner.
Mishapen but a total cutey.
Watermellon time!
Mae Jam Peng "full Moon" 72 yrs old, and does not like other elephants, but doesn't mind people, ear pierced by bullhook.I love her, I bought a Teak carving of her.
Mae Jam Peng
Mae hanging out with some folks from our group.
This is where a bulk of the feeding happens when you first arrive, this is also your view from the dinging area.There is a red line on the ground you observe to protect you from mistchevious elephants pulling you off the deck to get good ( Navan is naughty)
Momma and Baby Playing together, so much cute! It was awesome to watch elephants take care of a baby, usually a baby elephant has a mom and some nanny elephants so if it gets scared they all protect the baby.
Mud baths :D I took these from the balcony that stretches over part of the land which is awesome for sitting and watching.
Buffalo Herd they were given... This was the least thought through part of the tour, noone seemed to know what to do about them breeding like crazy.
Finally some video clips of the whole visit :
Basic details :
- Pick you up in Chiang Mai Old City, in a nice Air Conditioned Van that seats 6 guests, 2 hour drive with a stop at a rest stop.
- They play two informative videos on the ride there, one is expressly to explain safety guidlines when interacting with the elephants, the other to describe the plight of the Asian Elephant.
- If you stay overnight, you will be staying in a gorgeous cottage overlooking either the river or the elephant "stable" where the elephants sleep, and only sleep, they are released at dawn.
- Per adult : 5800 Baht/ 175$ USD per adult, for an overnight stay including accomidations and food and programming. Tremendous value.
- Programming offers one day visits, over night and full volunteer programming.
The elephants stay here only at night. View from my cottage balcony
More on Pricing and programming here : http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/enp/en/13-elephant-nature-park-overnight-visit
How it worked:
Instead of arranging the elephants into groups and routines, they allow elephants to form thier own groups and routines, and build the interaction of humans around that. Each elephant group has a Mahout that watches over them. There are no hooks or sticks or chains used to discpline elephants here, they use positive reinforcement with food treats and other things elephants like to gain their trust and cooperation.Tourists offer food(elephants eat SO MUCH!) bathing and general adoration to the mix. We followed elephants around the land during thier routines and met up with other elephants along the way.
What was great about it:
This program helps trained and working elephants into a rehab situation, most of the elphants are old and or handicapped in some way: Broken Hips, blindness, and landmine injuries are common. There are also some baby elephants who will not be broken ever, and ideally be re- released into the wild if possible.
This program didn't leave out the Mahouts or the people working with the elephants:
Program fosters a dialog with local people practicing traditional methods of breaking elephants to help prevent cruelty, and is attempting to develop more positive cooperative elephant human relationships.There are retraining programs for Mahouts to improve the elephant Mahout relationships for the elephants still working as labor animals.There is employment at the park and jobs created by the ecotourism aspects of the facility. They include programming to help Immigrants from Burma who were working in Lumber trade on the border of Thailand and Myanmar.
There are elephants carved in teak by the Mahouts and locals of specific elephants that tourists can buy they recieve a cut from the proceeds supplementing Mahout income.
Oh right, and the dog sanctuary and adoption program. There are dogs and cats all over the Park, the Park holds 100+ cats and 400+ dogs, the dogs are mostly housed in kennels, but there are a number of them lounging around in the feilds, around the lodge and center building, and even on the porches of the cottages people stay in. There are even a few dogs who attempt to herd elephants or engage the elphants in play. Many dogs and cats get adopted locally and internationally.
Here is a cat in the shrine taking a nap.
Here are some photos of our time with the elphants, these photos will give you an idea on what the elphants do all day, and how the guests interact with them.Please remember, most of these elephants are injured in some fashion, so if they look injured they are. Alot of these elephants were given up to the park because thier owners could not care for thier injuries, or no longer wanted them for a variety of reasons.
Me washing an elephant.
a group washing an elephant.
Feeding elephants at the deck, elephants like people, have favorite foods.This one is eating a pumpkin :)
Elephants getting a good rub and scratch in in the afternoon.
Mahouts and guides hanging out with elephants.Its like a million degrees out everyone was wilting :)
Baby elephant with injured foot.
My husband hanging out with an elephant dining on banana stems
Banana Hunting
Broken hip from forced breeding by previous owner.
Mishapen but a total cutey.
Watermellon time!
Mae Jam Peng "full Moon" 72 yrs old, and does not like other elephants, but doesn't mind people, ear pierced by bullhook.I love her, I bought a Teak carving of her.
Mae Jam Peng
Mae hanging out with some folks from our group.
This is where a bulk of the feeding happens when you first arrive, this is also your view from the dinging area.There is a red line on the ground you observe to protect you from mistchevious elephants pulling you off the deck to get good ( Navan is naughty)
Momma and Baby Playing together, so much cute! It was awesome to watch elephants take care of a baby, usually a baby elephant has a mom and some nanny elephants so if it gets scared they all protect the baby.
Mud baths :D I took these from the balcony that stretches over part of the land which is awesome for sitting and watching.
Buffalo Herd they were given... This was the least thought through part of the tour, noone seemed to know what to do about them breeding like crazy.
Finally some video clips of the whole visit :
Click to view