Bathing with Elephants!

That afternoon we had an excursion we will not forget.  Elephant trekking.  We were leery of elephant trekking at first.  We read that tame elephants aren't always treated well.   Training can involve starvation and beatings.  We were assured the Thai Government is regulating this, and that the place we chose was of the highest standards.  Even so, we learned domestic elephants do not have the life span of wild.

After doing research to make sure we found a humane place, we picked our tour.  The trekking itself was nothing to write about.  Annie and I sat on top of a bench perched on the elephant while a little Thai guy "drove" by using voice commands and rubbing his feat on the elephant's ear.  The trek was pretty uneventful.  We went in a large circle in the rainforest.  Maybe the length of a high school track (1/4 mile).  The trek ended withe the elephant, named Mo-Mo, getting a snack and climbing into a river.  It was memorable, but not the best part of the trip.

The next stop was a baby elephant show.  Frankly the show sucked.  It was long, and we felt bad for the baby elephant.  Elephants aren't supposed to do hand stands, dunk basketballs, or put hats on people.  The best part was getting to feed the baby after the show.

The baby elephant putting a hat on Annie.

Annie feeding the baby elephant

The last part of the excursion was the most memorable part.  It is why we picked this one.  Bathing with the elephants.  This is only done once a day, after the last trek of the day.  We weren't sure what we were in for.  As mentioned above, the trek ended in the river.  We kinda thought that was the "bathing" part.  After the baby show, we found out otherwise.  After the show they loaded up our group (about 10 of us) into two vans, and took us to a nearby river.  We walked down to the river to see the elephants bathing.  At first we all stood there not sure what to do.  After they said "get it,"  Annie and I were the first two to dive in with them.  The next 20 minutes were totally awesome!  We swam around with the elephants, washed them, climbed up over them, and even played.  We splashed them, they sucked up water in their trunks and sprayed us.  It was so cool.  The elephants seemed to enjoy it almost as much as we did.

In the water with the elephants.

I'm glad we did the elephant trekking.  The trekking and show was so-so at best, but the interaction with the elephants was unforgettable.