Elephant Haven

The whole reason we went to Kanchanaburi was to go visit some elephants. So much research went into finding a place to interact with elephants but in a place/way that was safe and non exploitative to the animals.  There is a big animal tourism market in Thailand (although there is a push to end it that seems to be slowly working) and Mark and i felt very strongly about not contributing to the abuse of animals.   Any place that offered riding elephants was on the no list- and there are lots of those.  We checked with humane societies and PETA to find a group that is dedicated to the care and protection of elephants that have been rescued from abusive working situations.

Now that’s I’ve brought you all down, let me tell you about this amazing place we went to, the wonderful people running it and the truly fantastic experience we had at Elephant Haven.

The day started off with an hour-long bus ride from our hotel to the haven site, not a bad trip, lots of interesting scenery and even some stray monkeys on the road.

As soon as we pulled up, there was an elephant waiting by a small wooden fence.  We were given a basket of watermelon and a bundle of bamboo and we got to start feeding the elephants.

I don’t know who was more excited at this point 🙂 The downside is, I was so busy taking pictures, that we ran out of watermelon before I got to feed anyone.  So, there will be a lot of pictures of the beginning of our day, and not so many of the afternoon because I decided it was more important to be in the moment with my family than take pictures.

After we finished with the bamboo and the watermelon, it was time to make their breakfast. We were each given a bucket filled with rice, and bananas.  The goal was to squish the bananas up, mix with the rice, and then add something that looked like sawdust but apparently is very healthy for elephants and roll it all into a baseball to softball sized ball.  Alex had a good time squishing it all together and make the balls, and since we had extra buckets, the guys who worked there gave extra balls to Alex’s bucket to let him give the elephants. Alex was the youngest one that day by far, so he got some small preferential treatment.

After we were done making the rice balls, and had throughly washed our hands, we went over to cut more watermelons.  Since Alex wasn’t allowed to use the machete-esque knives they had, he was designated as my watermelon delivery boy. He would bring me watermelons to cut and then take the cut ones and put them in our baskets.  He was very helpful.

We fed the elephants the rice balls and more watermelon- I happened to be standing right next to a red ant hill, so when the watermelon came out, my feet and legs were getting eaten up my ants- Alex had a similar problem later in the day.

Then it was time for a walk through their jungle area.  It was a bit like walking with the elephants from the Jungle Book, where they suddenly stop to scratch against a tree, or find some leaves, or brush their teeth with the bark from a log.

 

The guide in the picture above knew how to say don’t worry in languages that he had picked up from people visiting the haven. He sang don’t worry be happy to the wrong tune and Hakuna matata to the wrong tune, but the elephants seemed to like it. He got a kick out of Alex and always tried to make sure Alex was where the action was.

The elephants decided their path while we were walking, we stayed on one main path and the elephants would head off to do their own thing and then come back.

At the almost end of the walk, there was a hut that we could climb into/sit on and the elephants knew there would be more food there so they came by to visit too.

This was a good resting spot for us, and the elephants went to graze in the field across from the hut. Mark and Alex went to go walk out in the field with them, but to be honest, I was very hot and enjoy a sit in the shade between the two elephants pictured above.

And this is where the pictures stop for this adventure. I had broken the camera strap at this point, and we were going to be getting muddy next so I figured it was better to go without the camera. You will have to just picture some of the mayhem.

We went back and changed into our swim gear, and went for another walk to the mud pit. Elephants use mud to protect their skin from the sun and we got to help with that process. They turned the hose on and the elephants (one in particular) got right in the middle and started digging around with their feet and trunks to make more mud.  In the beginning everyone just stood around and watched, until one girl finally went in and got a handful of mud and applied it to the elephant’s trunk right between their eyes. A few people got involved, but Alex stayed on the sidelines with me saying things like “yuck, I don’t want to get all dirty” (whose child is this? he normally rolls in dirt). Eventually he got up the courage and went over to get muddy. He climbed on the top of the dirt pile so that he could reach the elephants face and sides.

As soon as he did that, the elephant took a bunch of mud and water and sprayed it backwards over herself, and getting half of Alex in the process.  He had mud in his hair, all the way down to his shoes. And at that point, he decided to go all in.  The elephants got a good coating of mud and so did Alex.

From the mud pit, we went to the river (shown above with the elephants) and went swimming with the elephants.  We washed off all the mud we just helped them put on (yeah, we don’t really know why this is the order of things) and then just floated along with them, getting to pet them and be at eye level with them in the water.

Alex had a blast swimming in the river, and even went underwater and scooted around the elephants.

It was such a fantastic way to round out the time we had at the haven. I could have stayed swimming with the elephants for much longer, but they had decided they were done.  Alex was the last one out of the water, and I know that he would have stayed in if we let him.

We walked back to the main area, and most people started changing, but while I was waiting they brought out more watermelons, so we got to feed the elephants again. Alex missed about half because he was changing out of his swim stuff.

And that was it, we had to get our stuff together and go back on the bus back to Kanchanaburi and wait for our ride back to Bangkok.

When we got back into town, we headed for a main strip hoping to find some dinner, or at least some where to sit inside until we could meet our ride. We walked for a bit before finding a cafe, where we got Thai ice teas and Alex had an italian soda.  While we were sitting inside, we heard a ton of loud noise outside and what sounded like a marching band. 

It was a fun finale to our time in Kanchanaburi. We waited until the parade was over and walked back to our hotel to meet the driver.  Another 2 and 1/2 hours back to Bangkok.

Across from our hotel in Bangkok was a Chinese BBQ, with our limited Chinese we knew that it was called Big three money something. We got in so late from elephants that we just went there hoping to find something Alex would eat.   It was great, we picked out some skewers and they grilled them up for us.  Can’t wait to have that again here in China.  While we were there, there were a group of Chinese guys in the back of the restaurant, who stopped Mark and asked him if he liked the BBQ and of course he replied yes.  Then they asked if he liked other Chinese food, and he said yeah, I like it a lot, I live in China. So Alex was sent in to speak some Chinese with them (Hi my name is Alex, what’s your name?) and the guys thought it was great.

 

The whole mini trip to Kanchaburi was fantastic, we had a wonderful time, met great people, ate good food, and hopefully made memories that Alex will have for a lifetime.