The name of the farm is Patara Elephant Farm and it's located south of Chiang Mai. I booked my trip while I was still in Chicago, picking the second Saturday I was in town so I would have an open weekend when I first got here.
They picked me up this morning at 7:45am in the most comfortable vehicle I've been in since arriving in Thailand. The minivan with padded seats picked me up second, first was a man named Dave who's from Washington D.C. and is here traveling before starting law school. Next we picked up two other Americans, one studying at ITM, and a woman from Canada and then made the 40 minute trip to the camp located at the base of the mountains.
Pat, the owner, and the shirts we all had to wear
The man who owns the farm with his family is named Pat. He greeted our group, which in total was about 14 people, mostly Americans with two girls from Belgium in our group, a couple from Australia and England in the other. We got a short lesson on the goals of the farm, which is to breed elephants to increase the population. Pat told us that he does some elephant rescue but usually only with domestic elephants who are in relatively healthy condition.
Patara hopes to have ten new baby elephants in the next three years. They currently they have twin year old boys and at least two elephants who are pregnant. We got to see the babies from afar, they're shorter than the men who were walking with them, which is pretty short since Thai men aren't known for their height.
Overlooking the camp
We were told that we all had to wear these shirts made by local villagers that they make everyone who interacts with the elephants wear. They also made us wear fisherman pants while we rode the elephants, apparently to reduce leg slippage and, in my opinion, elephant hair pricks. The seven people in my group put on our shirts and hiked down to where our elephants were being kept.
The path that leads to elephants
When we arrived we were assigned our elephants for the day. Two of our elephants were pregnant, one 16 months an the other, mine, something like 5 months. Elephants carry their young almost two years. Can you imagine being pregnant for that long? And carrying a baby that weights about 260 pounds? It's totally insane.
Our elephants
We were taught how to tell if an elephant is in a good mood by watching their ears and tails. If they're moving around and their ears are back, they're in a good mood. If they're ears are out, stay away. They are also supposed to speak when you call their name, but mine would never do that.
Ben, who was our group leader, told us the story of an elephant farm in southern Thailand where the elephants were all upset, ears out, at the same time and kept trying to lead the people who ran the farm out and away from the farm. The people decided to follow the elephants to see where they thought they needed to go. The elephants led the people to high ground and started to calm down. Shortly after,the big sunami hit southern Thailand, wiping out the elephant farm. Those elephants...so smart.
Once it was decided that our elephants were in a good mood we were each assigned one and then given a basket full of treats, bananas and bamboo, to give to them. I guess we were bribing them to like us. I was assigned a sassy 20 year old named Nui. The first thing she did when I walked up to her was spit on me. I'm not quite sure if that's a good sign or not, but it seemed to work out.
My girl taking a break from holding her head up
In order to get them to open their mouths to let us put food in we had to say "bon" (although if we didn't say bon, they would have taken the food out of our hands with their trunks). Once they opened their mouths we were to put the food in there. It's so weird sticking your hang in an elephant's mouth. First of all, they're huge, I mean an animal that size would need a big mouth. Secondly, it's the inside of a giant mouth. They don't have visible teeth just a huge tongue and lips that create a suction when you stick something in there. Their teeth are horizontal and not visible so I wasn't afraid about getting bit, but my hand did get stuck in the suction once or twice. The basket didn't last long so I stood with Nui and pet her trunk, telling her "dee dee" which means good girl. I think we bonded pretty well, although that didn't make her a good listener.
Bon
Next, we were taught how to tell if our elephants were healthy. First sign is if they are moving their tails and ears, healthy means happy after all. Next sign was to look for sleep marks on their bodies. Third thing to look for was sweat, elephants sweat near their toenails. If they aren't sweating then they aren't regulating their body temperature properly and are most likely ill. Lastly we were to check the dung to make sure it was moist, it didn't smell badly, that there was enough of it (at least six piles. Nui had 10) and that it was fiberous. This was the part that I knew was coming and wasn't looking forward to but it wasn't that bad. Elephant poop smells like hay, and sort of feels like it too so it wasn't like sticking your hand in dog feces. It was more like sorting through small pieces of wet hay or damp dried grass.
Smelling the poop
After we all made sure our elephants were in tip top shape, we tugged on their ear and told them to "ma" or come. We were trying to get them separated so we could, basically, beat them with brushes made of leaves. Some of the elephants ate their brushes when they were done. In retrospect, I'm pretty surprised Nui didn't.
Elephants throw dirt onto their backs in order to keep away bugs and stay a little cooler. The whole time we were checking to make sure they were healthy, they were getting themselves nice and dirty for us to clean off. Elephants, obviously, are much taller than we are so in order to get their backs free of loose dirt we had to tell them to "nan long" or lay down.
This was my introduction to Noi's defiant side. She did not want to lay down. She wouldn't listen to me when I said it (which isn't surprising), she wouldn't listen to my trainer when he said it. She just wouldn't lay down. We eventually got her down and I got to try to beat off most of her dirty before we went into the river for a bath.
Brushing my girl with leaves
Next my trainer led me and Nui to the river. I wasn't really sure what was going on because my trainer had us go but none of the other elephants went in the same direction. It ended up being just the three of us in this one part of the river, which was pretty nice. We used buckets covered in bamboo to get her wet and made her lay in the river we so could wash her and brush her with a proper brush.
Bath time
Apparently Nui is known for her water antics. She has no problem getting into the water and is the elephant they call upon to spray unsuspecting "owners for the day" while they're trying to get their pictures taken. She did it to me and the Belgian girls while we sat getting out picture takes (on my trainer's command of course) and then when it was time for the other section of the group to get their pictures they brought her over there to do it to them too. Little devil.
Post cleaning we got to learn how to get on our elephants. There were three ways that Ben showed us. The first way, or the hard way as he puts it, is to ask the elephant to bend her front leg but patting it and saying dee dee. Once she lifts her leg you hold onto her ear and step up her leg using her ankle and thigh and then swing your leg over her. It isn't easy, but it gets you up there. The second method is to have the elephant put her head down and then jump up onto the top of the head/neck. Ben seemed to think this way was easy, but I don't think anyone even tried. The third way, or the easy way, was to have the elephant lay down and then just get onto it while it's down there. The lazy man's version.
I chose the leg method. There's a video at the end of this post if you'd like to watch. I think I did an ok job, although as the day went on it got harder to do.
No hands!
The actual riding of the elephant is easy enough. You have to sit close to the head with your knees bent and just over the ears so you can give the elephant commands with your legs. This works in theory, but Nui wasn't having it. The command for go is "bi" and stop is "how." She did how just fine but bi, not so much. She stopped to eat constantly, which is good because they're supposed to eat a lot and she's pregnant so needs to more, but she was holding everyone up and would stop all the time to rip trees out of the ground and get all ear flappy when we made her go. No matter how many times I said bi and deedee she just didn't care. My trainer had to tap her with a bamboo stick and pull on the rope that was around her body to get her to go. She was hungry. She was bigger than me and my trainer. She was stopping.
This caused some hold up as we rode our elephants through the camp and then down the road to the small trail that led to the waterfall where we would be having lunch. The only place she didn't walk slowly and try to eat everything was when we were approaching the other half of camp where the rest of the day's guests were. My guess is she knew that she got fed there and was in a hurry to get some bananas.
My knee, Nui's ear. The view from an elephant
The first elephant in line was afraid of water and would stop before each stream or puddle, but not Noi. She was fearless when it came to water and obstacles, they were just something between her and the next branch she was going to eat.
Anyway, we rode our elephants in a big, slow line to a waterfall that wasn't far from the camp for swimming and lunch. The waterfall itself was quit small, as it's dry season, but there was enough of a pool of water for the elephants to play. Play they did. Most of our elephants absolutely loved the water. When we first got there about half stayed on the rocks and just rested. The very pregnant girl never got in, but, you know, she's about to give birth. The ones who did get in dunked themselves, twirled around, sprayed water. They were just loving it.
loving the water
I know someone who went last week and she said that no one from her group got in. Not ours, we all got in, even if we didn't all try to get on the elephants in the water. I actually slid into the water. The rock surrounding the water was pretty slipper when it got wet, especially the rocks under the small stream of water that led into the pool. Well, I totally slipped on it as I was trying to get to the dryer rock and ended up sliding all the way down the rock and into Cat, a woman from our group, and the water. She was fine and I was fine, but everyone thought it was pretty funny.
The elephants were already laying down in the water so you'd think it would be pretty easy to get on them, but it wasn't. They were moving so much that it was like riding a bull. The trainers wanted us to stay on top of the elephant no matter what direction they went, which involved trying to slide you body over them as they turned. Elephants aren't slippery though. Their hair is like little quills and the water doesn't change that. When I got off of the first elephant my thighs were quite red from the rough skin and hair. We each got on at least once, but I did it twice. One of the Belgian girls got to stand on the elephant, which made me really jealous.
It was sort of chaotic while we were in the water if more than one of us were trying to ride the elephants at the same time. One time I was getting on mine and someone was on the elephant next to me. His elephant was trying to stand up while mine was still laying down and my leg got caught between them. Luckily, though, elephants are squishy and nothing was hurt.
Trying to stay on
The water was pretty dirty, and probably full of elephant poop, so Ben suggested we go to the waterfall to rinse off in clean water. It was quite refreshing but was so small that it was tough to actually get clean. Me and Cat tried to change out of our suits behind the towel I brought, which was pretty interesting while surrounded by all of our trainers. We did it though and then went up to this little tree house-like structure for lunch.
Lunch looked beautiful. It was fried chicken legs and many different varieties of sticky rice. There was plain to eat with the chicken, there was sticky rice with custard, sticky rice with coconut, sticky rice with banana, with potato, with beans. A lot of sticky rice. There was so much food that we couldn't eat most of it and got to give the leftovers to the elephants (but not the chicken or oranges).
lunch for us and our elephants
While we were eating the other half of the original group showed up and almost all of our elephants got into the water with their elephants. As far as I could tell, none of the humans got in the water though. They were missing out.
Elephant party.
After lunch we got to ride back up the hill and across the street, over the guard rail (which you can do when you're on a giant elephant) and into the foothills that were covered in trees. We were to follow a narrow, somewhat treacherous trail that seemed to be carved out be elephants. Nui didn't hesitate going over the rail, but did at times when we were going down hill. She did a little better going forward on my command this half and only seemed to balk at going when the trail got more difficult. She still stopped to eat, but I learned that if we were close to a tree I could push against it and make her go.
When going up hill you're supposed to lean forward and lean backward while going down. There was a lot of both on this section of the ride.
When going up hill you're supposed to lean forward and lean backward while going down. There was a lot of both on this section of the ride.
Over the rail and onto the trail
Going up hill, leaning forward
Everything was going pretty well on the trail and we had been riding for a while when we heard, what sounded like, steel drums being played. We didn't know where it was coming from, our elephants didn't know where it was coming from, and the first elephant, who was already a little jumpy, bellowed and lifted her head and started to turn, which caused my elephant to turn and the elephant in front of mine to turn and the next thing I knew I was being taken off the trail at running speeds going who knows where.
Nui was the first elephant to run. She knocked past the elephant that was behind us and into the trees. I held onto the rope as tightly as I could, figuring it was better to stay on her than to come off and possibly be trampled. She couldn't have been running that long before my trainer caught up to us and put his arms out and told me to fall backwards. It took me a second to register what he was saying because I was still holding on for my life and had no idea where we were going or what you're supposed to do when you're the leader of an elephant stampede. I did let go and fell back onto him and we layed on the ground watching as two or three other elephants ran past our heads.
It was kind of surreal to watch from that angle as giant legs passed at a distance of about a foot. Movies get the sound of running by large beasts pretty spot on. I'm pretty lucky we fell off to the side, or I probably wouldn't be writing this entry.
After it was quite we both got up, he handed me my shoes (you ride barefoot, which I forgot to mention) and I looked around. There were maybe three elephants on higher ground who didn't run. Down the hill closer to the trail were people who had come off their elephants. Closest to me was one of the Belgian girls and her trainer. Down by the path was another trainer and another woman. We all started yelling, asking if everyone was ok. The woman on the path said she had been cut and it was pretty bad. Her husband was on one of the elephants that hadn't ran and he was franticly trying to get off his elephant and to his wife.
My trainer left me once he knew I was ok to try to find Nui. The other elephants involved in the incident had stopped but she had kept going. Someone on a higher ground elephant said she saw her down in a ravine but I couldn't see her.
I walked back to the path to see what was going on. The woman (I wish I was better with names) was laying on the ground with some sort of gauze on her foot. There was a lot of blood and someone said later that her cut started from the inside of her big toe and went to the middle of her foot. One of the trainers called Ben and arranged for the vans to come get us and bring her to the hospital. She wasn't freaking out, she just said she thought she needed stitches and that maybe her foot had gotten stepped on by an elephant during the chaos.
She was pretty tough, though, and walked herself down the rest of the hill. She has lost her camera during the incident and her husband looked for it upon her request. One of the trainers found it.
We all just stood there for a while, pretty stunned. The trainers made everyone except for Cat get off of the elephants, although there were only two people left on elephants. I guess Cat's elephant wasn't even phased during the whole thing. Other people said that their elephants just moved up hill a little to get out of the way.
They decided that we had to walk back down, that our elephants were too spooked to get back on. I was totally bummed, although at that point Nui was still missing so I couldn't have gotten back on her anyway. I'm glad my trainer made me fall, otherwise who knows where I would have ended up or if I could have kept holding on.
Ben met us when we were close to the road and was freaking out. I don't think this happens very often. What I understood from his distraught broken English, the people in the village know when the elephants are out and keep quiet because if the elephants can't see where the sound is coming from they get scared and, well, do what ours did. They run. He thinks it was a car with a loud stereo going by and not the villagers.
He asked if we were alright and apologized at least five times. We insisted we were fine and that they are animals and get scared and it was ok. I asked if we could get back on but he ignored me.
Nui was found and the trainers rode the elephants back.
Nui was the first elephant to run. She knocked past the elephant that was behind us and into the trees. I held onto the rope as tightly as I could, figuring it was better to stay on her than to come off and possibly be trampled. She couldn't have been running that long before my trainer caught up to us and put his arms out and told me to fall backwards. It took me a second to register what he was saying because I was still holding on for my life and had no idea where we were going or what you're supposed to do when you're the leader of an elephant stampede. I did let go and fell back onto him and we layed on the ground watching as two or three other elephants ran past our heads.
It was kind of surreal to watch from that angle as giant legs passed at a distance of about a foot. Movies get the sound of running by large beasts pretty spot on. I'm pretty lucky we fell off to the side, or I probably wouldn't be writing this entry.
After it was quite we both got up, he handed me my shoes (you ride barefoot, which I forgot to mention) and I looked around. There were maybe three elephants on higher ground who didn't run. Down the hill closer to the trail were people who had come off their elephants. Closest to me was one of the Belgian girls and her trainer. Down by the path was another trainer and another woman. We all started yelling, asking if everyone was ok. The woman on the path said she had been cut and it was pretty bad. Her husband was on one of the elephants that hadn't ran and he was franticly trying to get off his elephant and to his wife.
My trainer left me once he knew I was ok to try to find Nui. The other elephants involved in the incident had stopped but she had kept going. Someone on a higher ground elephant said she saw her down in a ravine but I couldn't see her.
I walked back to the path to see what was going on. The woman (I wish I was better with names) was laying on the ground with some sort of gauze on her foot. There was a lot of blood and someone said later that her cut started from the inside of her big toe and went to the middle of her foot. One of the trainers called Ben and arranged for the vans to come get us and bring her to the hospital. She wasn't freaking out, she just said she thought she needed stitches and that maybe her foot had gotten stepped on by an elephant during the chaos.
She was pretty tough, though, and walked herself down the rest of the hill. She has lost her camera during the incident and her husband looked for it upon her request. One of the trainers found it.
We all just stood there for a while, pretty stunned. The trainers made everyone except for Cat get off of the elephants, although there were only two people left on elephants. I guess Cat's elephant wasn't even phased during the whole thing. Other people said that their elephants just moved up hill a little to get out of the way.
They decided that we had to walk back down, that our elephants were too spooked to get back on. I was totally bummed, although at that point Nui was still missing so I couldn't have gotten back on her anyway. I'm glad my trainer made me fall, otherwise who knows where I would have ended up or if I could have kept holding on.
Ben met us when we were close to the road and was freaking out. I don't think this happens very often. What I understood from his distraught broken English, the people in the village know when the elephants are out and keep quiet because if the elephants can't see where the sound is coming from they get scared and, well, do what ours did. They run. He thinks it was a car with a loud stereo going by and not the villagers.
Arm wound from fall off the elephant
He asked if we were alright and apologized at least five times. We insisted we were fine and that they are animals and get scared and it was ok. I asked if we could get back on but he ignored me.
Nui was found and the trainers rode the elephants back.
Cat, our lone post-mini stampede elephant rider
We got back to the camp and fed our elephants some more bananas to thank them for the day, but we were all pretty ready to get back on. We asked Ben if it would be alright if we rode some more. He seemed pretty surprised but said yes. So we all got back on and rode our elephants through the creek and to the village, where I'm guessing we were supposed to see some sort of small performance but because of the agitated state our elephants had been in, we had to cut our ride just a little bit short.
End of day ride through the creek
We got to give our elephants one last basket of treats and say goodbye to them and our trainers.
my hero
me and Nui
Nui
Cat and her calm old lady
Overall it was one of the best day's I've ever had and would recommend it to anyone coming to Chiang Mai.
I was thinking about the elephants on my way to dinner last night. They're just so amazing. They're beautiful creatures that are so wise and caring. They're enormous and yet delicate. I thought about the sounds they make, and how they sound like dinosaurs out of Jurassic Park. If I come back, I'll do it again. Even with the stampede, it only made my love of them grow.
This is me getting on Nui.
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