Elephant Experience

December 29

This morning we learned how to handle elephants. The hotel has a program to rescue mistreated elephants. When tree logging was made illegal in Thailand, many elephants (and their handlers) were out of work. The program "rents" the elephants and their handlers by paying them to give hotel guests an experience with the elephants. The handlers, called mahouts, are provided a place to live with their families at the elephant camp as well as health care, food for the elephants, and vet service. In return, they provide elephant training.

We each had our own elephant. We were shown how to get on and off by having the elephant lower down. To make the elephant go you say "bye" and kick behind both ears. To turn you say "ben" and kick behind the opposite ear from the direction you want to turn. To go backwards, you lean back. It really works, but then again the mahout was right there saying the commands. My elephant was a 53 year old female and a little slow. We got along well. Lexi's was a 17 year old female named Jenny, short for Jennifer Lopez. She is a star in Elephant Polo, no joke. Chris's was Lana and Ryan's was Bo.

After about 2 hours with our elephants we rode them back to the hotel. It was a very cool, one of a kind adventure.