We had an amazing day at the elephant nature park today. It was recommended to us by 2 girls from our tour in Africa and we were able to see first hand the wonderful work they do and got to spend some up close and personal time with the elephants. It's a sanctuary set up by a woman called Lek, who takes in and rescues abused and injured elephants. The bus came to pick us up from our hotel early doors so we got to spend the whole day there, on the hour journey up to the park we watched a video about some of the elephants and their stories. This was very hard to watch. One little elephant called Hope was left orphaned at a young age and was too young to take care of herself. Another older female called Loki (eye of heaven) was being used for manual labour and logging, she was made to work right through her pregnancy and gave birth while carrying a big load up a mountain, her baby fell on the mountain and she couldn't get to it to rescue it, after this she refused to work and humans fired pellets by sling shots into her eyes before stabbing them leaving her completely blind! :(( They are such amazing gentle giants I can't imagine how anyone could abuse them in such horrific ways. They also rescue a lot from the tourism trade... Some babies are taken around crowded busy city streets and used for begging. They pick up the smallest vibrations through their feet and are very sensitive to sound and touch even though their skin is inches thick so you can imagine how stressful this environment would be, when they are stressed or unhappy they rock back and forwards- horrible to see! Elephants are also often over ridden and the braces and seats they use for tourists to ride them can crack and break their spines! Too often they can be forced to breed too, this can lead to big fights and injury, alot of females sustain broken hips which is horrible to witness them coping. But the elephant park and their 300 workers do an amazing job at rescuing them and rehoming them amongst such beautiful scenery. I was much happier just being with them, feeding them and bathing them than looking for a tourist ride. It amazed me how gentle they were even after their horrifying backgrounds involving humans.
The centre also helped rescue and rehome stray dogs, they have 500 at the moment living with the elephants! A lot of them were rescued following the floods and from the streets of Bangkok, some very cute ones roaming about the park! All in all a very educational and inspiring day! We were able to feed the elephants, get up close to many, bathe the elephants in the river and watch some family fun time.