Today, we visited the Elephant Nature Park, 1 1/2 hours north of Chiang Mai. There are many elephant parks/camps but this is one of the few where they are not ridden or made to perform tricks for humans. Here, the 37 elephants, who are mostly rescues from very sad backgrounds, live a carefree life being loved and protected by workers, volunteers, and visitors. Elephants that are ridden and do tricks were put through a training process called phajaan (means crush), which breaks their spirit. We learned about the history of each elephant and how they came to be here. One of the females we met was completely blind. She used to work in the logging business high up in the mountains. While there, she gave birth to a baby. Baby elephants are born enclosed in the sac, which usually breaks upon impact with the ground. In this case, it didnt and the baby rolled down the mountainside, out of reach from its mother and dying in its sac. No one bothered to help. After this, the mother elephant was depressed and refused to work. Workers shot objects at her eyes to get her to cooperate, which lead to blindness in one eye. One day, she retaliated and swung her trunk at one of them. The man was badly hurt and in anger stabbed her other eye. Regardless of being completely blind, she was forced to work until the day she was discovered and rescued by the founder of the Elephant Nature Park. If youd like to learn more about the elephants or how you can help, please visit their website. Today was an eye-opening experience. We had fun watching, feeding, and bathing them. I am grateful, not only for having met these majestic creatures, but for knowing there is goodness out there.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 18:37:48 +0000