One of the favorite things that we did on the trip was going to an elephant sanctuary. As I stated earlier, there are elephants all over Thailand. In Phuket there are elephants all over, most of them geared towards work or tourism. We specifically chose a place that rescued elephants and had ethical treatment of them.
We went to the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary in Phuket (they have other places throughout Thailand). They take rescue elephants and give them a safe place to live. We were able to learn about each of the elephants and their stories. One of them was from the circus and would sway. They told us the reason she sways is because she was always chained up and cannot move. They said that elephants are constantly moving to help digest all the food they eat and when chained up they cannot move far, so they sway. It was sad to watch her. They also showed us the pink pigmentation spots on their heads, trunks and ears are not natural and are scars from being beaten for forced labor. In that moment I was glad we chose a place that does not allow you to ride the elephants.
Instead we spent the day learning about elephants--including all of the differences between Asian and African elephants. I knew about the ears, but I did not know the other features that make them different. African elephants are larger, they have one done for a head and Asian elephants have two. They have different numbers of toe nails, and the Asian elephant has one "finger" on its trunk to grab, while an African elephant has two and pinches.
We fed the elephants. They are eating all day--over 10% of their body weight. We were able to feed them watermelon and vitamin balls that we made from fresh fruit. We were able to feed an Elephant named Natalie (probably spelled different in Thai, but that is what it sounded like). She was a tourism elephant and had signs of whips etc around her temples and top of her head. They told us that she was giving rides to tourists when the big tsunami hit in 2004. She took off and went up into the mountain with the tourist still on her back saving them and herself.
The caught a green tree snake and Lucky Dragon wanted to hold it!
This little elephant is 6 years old and they two Muggles loved it. When they were posing with it, the elephant seemed just as interested in getting to know them better too!
We scrubbed the elephants with mud--which they do naturally for sunscreen. Then we went to another pond and scrubbed them with brushes. Their skin is tough and thick so the brushes feel good. they would roll around in the water while we scrubbed. It was funny to see all the poop just plop out and float around haha. I guess when you eat so much, you poop so much!
Making the vitamin balls. It had pumpkin and several other fruit and vegetables for the elephants to get their nutrients.
They then fed us some AMAZING thai food to eat after we had done our work.
They showed us what they do with all of the poop they collect. They wash it and bleach the fibers and make paper! It was such a cool process to watch.
They loved the watermelon and we had fun feeding it to them. Each of them had a different way to eat it. One of them would squeeze the flesh out and eat it and throw away the rind. HAHA. Others would eat it all so fast and then beg for more! They are such big and gentle animals, but you can see the power they hold as well in their size.
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