Baanchang Elephant Park

Baanchang Elephant Park.

My time in Chiang Mai is focused on animals. Everyone who knows me, knows how much I care about animals and how I love to interact with them.

The tigers yesterday were amazing so today I learned all about the Asian elephants. Ok, I learnt very little but what I do know is the Baanchang elephant park are incredible, full of people who care a lot for the animals whilst making a living.

After arriving at the park to see maybe 20-30 elephants chained up, I thought what the hell is going on here. But each elephant had someone next to them, always.

We learnt that they need to be chained up, otherwise they may destroy the local villages. The local people work very hard and the elephant park tries to support the local community by buying the bananas and sugar canes from them so it's important the elephants don't ruin the local area.

The elephants go for a morning walk with the keepers, afternoon walks with the tourist and another walking with the keepers in the evening. They also eats lots during the day.

We learnt they can eat around 200kg of food a day and drink over 100litres of water. They also only sleep for around four hours. When they feel safe, they will lay down to sleep.

We also learn that the whole cartoon comic of an elephant being scared of the mouse, is true! They are generally very scared creatures until they learn what it is.

Our guide said that one day a lizard fell on the back of an elephant and she charged into the jungle with eight others following suit (hence the chains).

We fed the elephants some bananas and sugar cane. The females we were able to put the food directly into their mouths but the males we gave it to them on their trucks as they still have their tusks. 

They are greedy big things always wanting more. I tried to walk past a couple to feed the ones at the back and I was robbed of my bananas.

After feeding time we learnt some of the basic commands such as lay down (No long), forward (pbin), turn (qwick) and stop (how). But once your up I. The massive elephant, I forgot them all!

Because I was solo (and reminded several times) I got to ride an elephant all to myself. You ride right up on their necks. The chairs you sometimes see are really not good for their backs.

When we had a little break, my elephant decided it would be fun to dig the dirt and spray it all over her back so when I hopped (or got pushed up by a tiny man) I got very muddy.

I think my favourite part of he day was bathing the elephants. I hadn't realised we were going to do this so when we got into the water with the bucket and brush, it was so much fun.

I had hoped not to get too wet but my keeper had other ideas. I was soaked from the water. And sadly it wasn't just the water, the elephants liked to pee and poop in the water.

So far I've had three showers since we finished, I'm finally feeling clean.

I asked for recommendations as to which park to visit as I understand some of them do not always have the elephants best interests are heart but you could really see the keepers care about the elephants and are also able to earn a living.

The other people on the tour were all pretty lovely. So many of them are travelling around for months, it did make me consider whether I could get away with it again...