One thing on our bucket list was to ride an elephant. It’s tricky to know which elephant centre you are visiting, and we were at the mercy of the booking agent we used in Chiang Mai. Daniel didn’t like the use of the thotti (stick with the metal hook on the end) that some of the Mahouts used.
All this passed over the heads of the kids, and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
So off we went on an elephant ride – pretty scary at first being so high up and unsure how secure the seat is. Rules and regulation are pretty relaxed here, so health and safety is a personal responsibility……and how can we be responsible for something we know so little about?!
Ilona and I rode together. Our mahout was young, and proudly from high in the cooler Burmese mountains. He told us he came to Thailand 2 years ago with his uncle, who is working in a bigger elephant park. He boasted that his grandfather is a great elephant handler, skilled and adept. The Burmese elephants are bigger, and only his uncle handles the 5 largest elephants, using the skills of his grandfather.
Our mahout was very gentle with the elephant, had a thotti but didn’t use it, had respect for the elephants (excitedly telling us about a newborn calf, born the previous day, and showed us photos from his phone).
Only downside was that he carried a little mobile music player, playing Katie Perry!
Daniel and Tadhg travelled together. They fed their elephant some bananas. It was amazing to watch the pincer movement of the trunk as it deftly picked the banana from their hand, without seeing.
We went into the river with them.
Up close and personal with these beautifully mottled elephants:
(All African elephants have tusks, whereas only some Asian elephants have tusks).
Then began a visit to another section of Chockchai elephant park, which was not so nice as it was more circus oriented. However, the kids loved it, and were oblivious to any issues of animal cruelty for these fabulously intelligent animals. I was reminded a bit of the book “You’re an animal Viskovitz”, which is a series of short stories, with a different animal as central character in each, explaining their particular unique trait (e.g. The praying mantis biting the head off the male, after mating) from a human perspective, in a sort of attempt to describe the human condition with faults and blunders. My friend Su had given me the book, and thought if anyone would like this book, it would be me…..which after reading it I found somewhat perplexing……as I had gone through three or four years of reading kid’s bedtime story books repeatedly, which strongly feature animals behaving like humans.
Anyhow, they got the elephants riding a bike, playing golf, playing 3 pin bowling, kicking a soccer ball, painting a picture, collecting a tip from a person in trunk, and stomping off to a stall to exchange it for bananas…..ad nauseum.
The kids were enchanted by it all, and full of awe. They got to ride one of the elephants while it went up on two legs and got lifted up by the elephant using their trunk, and put sitting on the elephant’s head. Despite being heaps of fun for the kids, the ethics don’t sit comfortably with me, but I realise I am part of the problem, so will leave it at that.