The elephant nature park is about an hour away from Chiang Mai and we visited after our stop in Pai.

We had decided on getting to Chiang Mai that we wanted to see some elephants. We had also decided we didn't want to spend a fortune on the usual tour that is sold everywhere in Chiang Mai. These tours usually involved an hours "trekking", a 30 minute ride on an elephant and a sail down a river on a bamboo raft. We did this last time and whilst we enjoyed it, this time we wanted a bit more time with the elephants.

So after a bit of research we found The Elephant Nature Park, a conservation based park located just outside Chiang Mai that takes in old or mistreated elephants and gives them a happy home for their remaining days. This seemed to be a bit more interesting and where we chose to spend a couple of days.

The park was founded by local hero/conservationist 'Lek'. Realising that so many elephants were being mistreated, abused or poorly looked after in Thailand her plan was simple. She would simply raise the money to buy them and then give them a proper home and experience freedom in her reserve. Every elephant had a backstory as to how they ended up at the park, some more horrific than others, where most elephants had either been used in the tourist business or in the logging industry.

Logging was stopped several years ago so a lot of elephants became out of work, however some were either made to carry on working in illegal logging operations, sold to neighbouring Burma or ended up in the tourist trade smack bang in the over populated and polluted cities (not the most ideal place for an elephant). In the tourist industry, elephants are often used as 'rides' with metal seats attached to their backs for people to sit in. Other uses include street begging, where the elephants mahout takes them into the cities and asks people/tourists to pay for a small bag of elephant food.

The reserve itself is just a large piece of grassland and it currently houses around 40 elephants. There is a raised wooden platform area that served as the base of our visit which is where the kitchen, seating area and elephant and human feeding area is. Over the 2 days we learned a lot about the park itself, the owner, and the elephants. We also watched a very hard hitting documentary called The Power of One. If you find this on the internet, we definitely recommend watching it - but be prepared for some upsetting scenes.

It tells the story about Leks mission. Lek was born into a hill tribe and was brought up to respect and cherish the elephant. It shows how she bought her first elephant, a baby at the time who had lost his mother after being born and had nobody to look after him. She raised the elephant and he is still living at at the park now and very protective of Lek.

The documentary also reveals the darker side of the industry and what elephants go through to become 'trained' for tourists. All 'trained' elephants have been through the phajaan (translates as the 'crush'. This is an old custom that has been used for centuries in the villages of Thailand to create the working elephant. The idea behind the process is to make the elephant submissive of humans, which enables them to obey commands in order to work. The process which is fully filmed in this documentary is awful. Elephants are forced into a small wooden cage that offers no movement. Each leg is then shackled and tied down. During this process the elephant is clearly distressed trying to break free and making horrific noises. Once fully shackled the villagers then jab and stab the elephant with sharp metal hooks constantly for at least 3 days, specifically aiming for areas that are most sensitive to the elephant. They do it for as long as it takes for the elephant to become submissive and dosile, deprived of sleep and no longer able or willing to put up any fight. Once 'trained' the elephant will be put to work, either logging and manual work using its strength or possibly being fitted with a seat so that it can take tourists on trips of the jungle.

Elephants in Thailand have no rights. They are simply treated as livestock and are thus pieces of property. Though the culture and history of Thailand reveres them and it is said the country has been built by elephants, the treatment they get is disgusting and very undeserving.

Here are just a few of the back stories about how the elephants have ended up there...

Forced mating.
One young lady elephant had been forced to mate with a male elephant. The owners had tied her up and though she didn't want to, the owners made a male elephant climb aboard. Her leg broke and her hip dislocated, yet her mahout never took her for treatment so she now walks with a very slow limp and looks very deformed. Fortunately on arrival at the park, she was taken in by two healthier elephants and now the three of them are inseparable, always in the same place everyday, chilling out by the river and no doing whatever happy elephants do.

Poor care by mahouts
Elephants are used generally throughout Thailand to carry and give 'rides' to tourists via a metal seat. One day, after many years of wearing one of these seats (it was never removed, even at night) an elephant was noticed by her mahout that she wasn't walking very well and when the owners eventually took the saddle off they realised that her back was broken. Again Lek came to the rescue and brought her to the park where she remains today - unfortunately her back had broken and healed with the seat in place and so is now very misshapen, but she remains kind, gentle and now happy.

Road Traffic Accident.
Working in the city begging is far from ideal for an elephant. There isn't enough food, it's hot, it's polluted and it's cruel. On top of that, one of the elephants there had the misfortune of being hit by a car. The owner had been walking her on a busy road so she could beg from nearby tourists. The car hit her and broke her hip. Again, although limping she is now much happier doing her own thing in the park.

Land Mine.
Illegal logging in areas with history's of war had other dangers for the elephants. There were 2 elephants that had stood on land mines whilst being forced to work. Fortunately other than a black foot and a slight limp they seemed to be fully recovered.

Pure ******* Like Cruelty
After being over worked, and due to nothing but fatigue an elephant simply refused to move or work any longer. In response the owners saw fit to punish her. They used slingshots to fire at both her eyes which in turn blinded her. It was reported to Lek via a local village where she managed to find her, rescue her and brought her to the park. On immediate arrival at the park another healthier elephant (one of the first ones that Lek had ever taken in and practically raised) came over. The healthy elephant felt the blind one's face with her trunk and realised she couldn't see. Since then these two elephants have been side by side as the sighted one guides the blind one all around the park, to food, to water and protects her.

It's when you see these relationships between these magnificent animals that you learn to really respect and understand why they need to be treated better. Nearly all the elephants had had some trauma in their past which made seeing them now, being happy and free more rewarding. There are also a few baby elephants that had been born in the park. These elephants will never work a day in their lives.

During our stay we we got to meet and feed all of the elephants as they approached the raised platform area. Each elephant in the park knows when it was their time for treat and so heads to the feeding area. We took guided walks around the park and got up close to meet the elephants who had now formed into their own little families. We learned their back stories and began to understand that each one had their own personality and character. They don't allow riding of any kind at this park due to the fact of their already troubled past and Lek wanted them to be happy and free now. We visited the elephant medical centre and spent time in the elephant kitchen preparing the food buckets for them - from picking simple bananas and chopping watermelon and pumpkins, to actually making balls of mashed up banana and oats for the elderly elephants who could no longer chew! Bath time was the best though. For an elephant, bath time is not just simple, but luxurious and lots of fun. They slowly make their way down to the river absolutely filthy and covered from head to toe in mud and wade knee dip into the water. They then stand in the river chomping on all the lovely fruit provided by the park, whilst all the visitors get in the water with them and chuck buckets and buckets of water over them until they are nice and clean. If it's hot they will sometimes go a bit deeper and have a little swim, roll around and play in the water. Once clean the elephants leave the river and immediately find some mud, roll in it or pick it up with their trunks and shower themselves with it. Your welcome.


The park gave us a great insight into what goes on behind closed doors in regards to elephants. It's also been great to get so up close to them and get to know them. We will never ride an elephant again and we won't eat them anymore either.

Things we have learned
1. Elephants don't like being clean
2. Elephants belong in the wild


Planes used - 2
Buses used - 16
Trains used - 9
Metros/subways used - 17
Cars used - 5
Minivans - 6 (+3)
Russian Campervans used -1
Horses used - 1
Camels used - 1
Taxis used - 5
Cable cars used - 1
Bicycles used- 1
Tuk tuks used - 4

Scooters used - 1
Elephants used - 0