ELEPHANTS, BAMBOO RAFT & SNAKE FARM (Day 6 - part 1)

We did another day tour along with six other tourists. It was about a 40 minute drive to Maetaeng Elephant park. We first walked around the pens.

The mahouts or kwan chang in Thai (elephant trainers) seemed to have genuine affection for the animals.

Elephants (or chang) are held in very high regard in Thailand for their strength and dignity. Statues and images can be found essentially everywhere. Even the shape of the country looks somewhat like an elephant head!

As with the zoo, we could buy some sugar cane to feed them.

We then made our way down to the river to watch them bathe. As an elephant lay in the water, its owner would walk all over it, from one side, across its back and to the other side... as the elephant rolled over! An elephant could be almost completely submerged except for its trunk.

The mahouts could get the elephants to spray a trunk full of water on cue.

We then walked back up for the show. An announcer began by telling us a bit about elephants. They live 50 to 60 years and begin work at 4 to 5 years old. Asian elephants have been tamed for about 4,000 years to do work. They are are currently endangered in the wild.

Asian Elephants (which these are) are very different than African Elephants, so much so that they cannot be interbred. Asian Elephants are smaller, have their highest point on their backs (not shoulders), have smaller ears that don't cover their necks, have large lumps on their foreheads, and have a one-fingered trunk (instead of two). In Asian elephants, only the males have large tusks. In African elephants, both males and females do.

There was a demonstration of how elephants could haul lumber, either by carrying or dragging. Several elephants worked together to stack several logs.

Elephants can use their tusks for a wide variety of tasks such as digging, foraging and defending. Tusks are basically no different than ordinary teeth and are the elephant's upper incisors (not canines).

Next they put on some music and had the elephants dance... kind of a wild, head tossing, foot stomping ordeal. They kicked a soccer ball, played some basketball, and even made a painting.

After the show, we took a ride. Our female elephant was extra big and tall. We climbed into a seat while our mahout sat on her head, kicking her behind the ears from time to time if she wanted to stop to eat or didn't go.

We joined a long row of elephants and headed across the river. And then a second river. In the jungle, the buzzing, humming sound of cicadas was quite loud. The gentle rocking motion of the elephant was quite soothing.

We then transferred to an ox cart. The creaky wooden cart was pulled by two, very slow and plodding oxen. Our driver was wonderful and played a lute like instrument along the way.

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