Getting into the bus this morning, we were really excited. After our elephant experience in Nepal, we were excited to see the Sanctuary in Thailand, the most famous of all Asian elephant tourism spots. The place we went to today aims to educate people about how to care for elephants, to steer tourists away from rides where the elephants may work 10 hours a day and carry more than half their body weight.
So on the journey, we watched the incredible episode of a wildlife documentary calked 'Caught in the moment' which was filmed here in the park, which told us about the tragic backgrounds of some of the elephants who had been orphaned, blinded and even deformed through cruel pasts, and about the organisation who set them free and aimed to heal them with love and care.
Upon arriving, we were met with three 5 year old young elephants who had been rescued from a circus act down south, and a seven month old baby named Mango, who had been orphaned when his mother died of exhaustion pulling logs up steep mountains in an illegal logging firm. We instantly befriended the little ones at feeding time, where we made mashed rice balls with pumpkin and banana, which we placed straight into their mouths or passed to their trunks.
After the feast, we went for a walk through the jungle, watching them run around and play and use the great trees around us as scratching posts, before coming back to the corale for a good old fashioned mud bath. We all piled in to the squelchy pit, throwing handfuls of thick mud onto the elephants and rubbing it in to their thick skin, and getting sprayed with the backlash from their trunks so that by the end of it we were all covered head to toe.
We finished off with a trip to the river to wash off all that mud, and poured buckets of water all over the elephants who were rolling around in delight and shooting jets of water at each other. We were all sad when it was time to say goodbye, the elephants stroked us with their trunks as we parted. But it was more than just an amazing day for me, it will stick with me always, and has inspired me to get involved in more conservation projects in the future, so that beautiful creatures like these will be around for many years to come.
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