There are any number of elephant parks in the north of Thailand offering a 1on1 experience with an elephant. I've always wanted to do it as Elephants fascinate me. We were picked up from that well known Thai restaurant McDonald and driven 30 miles north to the park. The park hosts 22 elephants which have all been saved from begging, working or been orphaned. One of the reasons we visited was because it was a conservation park and did nothing else.
Each elephant has a mahout.
After an explanation of what the park does, what we needed to do to stay safe it was feeding time:
then we were shown how to get on the elephant - they are big buggers and very hairy.
Then given some basic instructions on riding ( no pictures we videoed this). You get the impression when sitting on top that you have no control at all and are merely there as a passenger hanging on. They are beautiful animals , very calm and gentle but so powerful.
After a home cooked lunch we then went for a ride in the park. Not a huge walk - Ang and I shared 1 large elephant called BanWat who was big and very gentle. Oh and very bristly - rubbed the skin on my thighs red. We have to download some photos from the website of the walk - I did some videoing on the elephant , other times just hung on as we went downhill. We stopped at halfway to swap over driving . One of the mahouts was training one of the young elephant orphans and it was fascinating to watch. The elephant wanted to play with the mahout and he was using playing to train it. This is him getting it to lie down - and in case you're worried it's not hurting the ' baby'
Then a walk to the lake for a drink and wash. BanWat is the elephant I'm about to throw water at. She was amazing- just sat there whilst she was scrubbed and washed.
A brilliant day which I would recommend to anyone - £50 each .
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