Day 26 - A Day With Four Elephants!

Today we had a very special adventure to the "Sunshine Elephant Program" which was about an hour drive north of Chiang Mai. The experience is basically to "spend a day" with the elephants. Fortunately, we were the only ones who signed up for today, so we ended up with a private tour!

The elephants were Indian elephants, mostly rescued from when they were used/abused in the logging industry here. The Sunshine program prides itself for visitors to have an ethical interaction with the elephants and educates them about the importance of respecting the elephants' boundaries both for our safety but more so to enable the animals to live as natural a life as possible. We could certainly appreciate that. Sadly, this wasn't true for some of the touristy "elephant experiences" we passed on the way.

The Sunshine program currently has 4 female elephants in their care ranging from 20 to 50 years old, all huge (as elephants are of course). Our guide for the day was Waroon and he and the elephants' mahouts (each elephant had a dedicated carer) all clearly knew and loved the animals as individuals. The entire team were dedicated to their well-being and creating as natural a life as possible. The elephants were never chained or tied and had an enormous area of forest to explore and feed in. A sensitive subject clearly but we felt both comfortable and confident this was a much more appropriate way to get an up-close and have a personal interaction with such impressive (and large!) animals.

Here we are at the beginning of the day. You can see the names of the 4 elephants on the wood sign. I promise Puipui was not posing!

The visit started with us getting a thorough grounding on how to behave around the elephants and then preparing a special salad to feed them their morning snack. We cut up watermelon, gourds, sugar cane and bananas.

Then our diners arrived! Lauren was a little disappointed there were no baby elephants and despite her usual large animal anxiety did extraordinarily well around and up close to the well behaved but sometimes eager elephants. Being in their presence was intimidating for sure!

We'd cut up a lot of food but with 4 elephants it disappeared very quicky. The experience of being that close and them taking food from your hand with their trunks was unforgettable, we learned fast that they have an incredible amount of dexterity and control.

After their snack, the elephants were led up into the forest with us following along. This was a surreal experience as we felt we were really "in their world". Stops along the way included some more snacks of sugarcane, fed by us, and a super fun mud wallow! The elephants used the wallow to cool themselves off by throwing mud on their backs. Now covered in mud, our new friends caught us out with some serious collateral damage. Not sure if those stains are coming out of our T-shirts. Nope, definitely not!

As we walked along, we got to watch the elephants wander where they wished, feed on bamboo, drink from streams and scratch every part of their bodies (head, legs, butt etc.). They seemed extremely gentle, peaceful and right at home!

Following a yummy lunch buffet (this time for us) in the jungle, we prepared afternoon snacks (rice balls) for "the girls" made of rice, salt, tamarind and bananas. It was like making giant meatballs! The girls arrived right on cue and gobbled them up from our hands (sorry no video).

After afternoon snack, we watched the elephants wander around on the property doing what elephants do: feed and scratch! Sadly, it was time to say goodbye to the elephants and The Sunshine project. But we were in great need of shower and a swim in the pool!

Day 26 was unforgettable!!

Thai Fun facts:

• Elephants only sleep about 4hr a day, the rest of the time they're eating nonstop. A trunk has over 40,000 muscles and can lift enormous weights or delicately pick apart foodstuff.

• Confirmed today by our guide Jee, Thai people do not cook at home. They have no kitchens in their houses.

• We are finding the food to be delicious, but it seems as though the same type food is eaten for all 3 meals: curries, rice, noodle, meat and fish and desserts are very minimal.