elephants can remember

Ah, Chiang Mai.  What a breath of fresh air.

Actually, the air is quite polluted, just as it is in Bangkok, but it isn't humid.  Hallelujah!  The weather here is quite like Los Angeles - warm and dry.

Chiang Mai is located in Northern Thailand and has the beautiful nickname Rose of the North.  If you have been to or heard of Chiang Mai, then you must know about the elephant rides.  Many tourists consider this exotic activity in which elephants also perform tricks a must-do.  I wonder if these people ever asked themselves how wild animals such as the Asian elephants became domicile enough for riding and trained enough to play musical instruments.

If these tourists were to do some research, they would learn that training for these elephants begins at age four and includes centuries-old methods that I can only assume were created alongside the so-called Chinese torture methods.  To initiate these elephants and to render them submissive, they are placed in a wooden cage small enough to prevent any movement, with all four limbs tied down.  Trainers and their young children prod the elephants with wooden sticks which have sharp nails attached at the end.  When the elephants try to fight this off, they are beaten and poked everywhere on the body, including the eyes.  Many elephants survive these days of initiation only to end up with severe infections or fractured bones, not to mention broken souls and hearts.  Of course you know what happens to their tusk.  This is just the beginning.

Since the outlaw of rain forest logging in 1990, which, by the way, was done due to worsening floods from monsoons and not as protection for the elephants, these gentle giants have been used to entertain human beings on city streets as beggars and in tourist centers as clowns and rides.  At the beginning of my trip, I was looking forward to becoming such a tourist.

Fortunately, I read just a week ago an article regarding a Thai woman named Sangduan Chailert, who has been saving elephants all over Southeast Asia by creating a haven for them which she calls Elephant Nature Park.  The elephants she rescues or buys from previous owners come to this park to roam free, far away from human cruelty and ignorance.

It was here that Tony and I spent our first full day in Chiang Mai.

Did you know that, just like their human counterparts, Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants?  What can I say, we're just by nature petite and adorable.  They weigh about 4,000-5,000 kg, with those at the Park somewhat smaller due to the history of abuse and poor health.  Each day, these elephants consume about 10% of their body weight, and since they are herbivores, that comes out to truckloads of produce.

During our day at the Park, we feed the elephants with pumpkins, bananas, and watermelons.  We bathe them in the river within the grounds of the Park.  What we don't do is ride them or watch them perform tricks, the only exception being an elephant named Kiss.  For some reason, she has a habit of "kissing" a person when she is being fed.  I got kissed by Kiss (I just couldn't wait until Valentine's Day), but Tony's photographic skills captured the action five seconds late, when all I had as evidence of the kiss was elephant slobber on my cheek.

Other than our one-day tour, there is also a program for interested folks to come stay at the Park for one to two weeks to work as paying volunteers.  I think that would definitely be an educational experience to remember for a lifetime.

Just like these elephants.

a gentle eye

kissed by Kiss

i wouldn't drink from this river