Day 221- Chiang Mai, Thailand

September 15^th, 2019

Today was awesome!  Four of us from the slow boat group went to an elephant sanctuary where we got to feed, bathe, play and interact with elephants.  It was so cool!  They are such amazing creatures.  Many elephants are mistreated, worked to death, and abused to be ‘trained’ to do things like circus or elephant riding.  This center rescues them from those situations and gives them a much better life.  Some of these elephants were rescued from local tribes who use them for work and can no longer afford to feed them (they eat about 600lbs of food a day!). 

Elephants in these abusive situations often are blind or have trouble with their eyes as that is where they have been repeatedly hit or beaten.  Many who have come from riding situations have broken backs.  It is so sad to see the mistreatment of these magnificent animals. They are very smart and sensitive.  I have been really shocked at how many tourists and other people are still riding elephants in Asia.  I thought the mistreatment of elephants was fairly well publicized at this point and people knew to not be supportive by riding them, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  When I was a child, I don’t think we really knew the unethical training tactics that were being used to make elephants rideable.  But now we know, so I would please tell anyone not to do this kind of activity.  There are many sanctuary’s like the one we went to which is a much better way to interact with elephants.  This way your tourism dollar goes towards feeding and ethically caring for the elephants.  The sanctuary then turns around and buys food from the local farmers so it is good for everyone (elephants favorite snacks were watermelon and bananas).  For those who would like to visit a place like this, I would also encourage you to do the research on the sanctuary.  There are some out there who have caught on to this.  It is a good way to bring in money but they do not actually use it to care for the elephants properly, and still keep them chained up etc. 

We had an amazing time, and were provided lunch at the end of the activity before being brought back to Chiang Mai.  Once we got back to town we showered and rested before going back out to the “Sunday” night market.  This was a huge market!  We walked around for about three hours and as the night went, the market got more and more crowded.  By the end Brendan and I were really “night marketed” out and went back to the hostel.