The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary outside Chiang Mai, Thailand was an incredible opportunity to interact with, feed, and bathe with elephants. It is evident the caretakers loved the elephants at this location, but the lack of group organization and direction left us a bit frustrated with the experience. Despite our frustration, I still absolutely loved being able to be close to these magnificent animals and highly recommend you seek out an elephant sanctuary while in Thailand. I will detail out the different activities we did with the elephants but also comment on how being in a large group affected our time and discuss the dilemma of being ethical and interacting with elephants. Keep in mind that I am writing from my perspective – a vegetarian from the United States who cares for animals and prefer small group tours. Here’s the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary website.
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Elephant Jungle Sanctuary
Pick-up and introduction to the Elephants
Our pick-up was about a half hour late because we were the last stop in Chiang Mai. The back was full, so the driver asked us to sit up front. After about a half hour, we stopped at a gas station to use the restroom and grab snacks. It was another hour before we reached the camp. The last 30 – 45 minutes was on winding mountain roads at a quick pace. We passed other elephant sanctuaries/camps/tour companies on the drive. When we arrived at our camp, we saw three adult elephants and one baby elephant from the road. There were already people watching the elephants up close and another truck or two pulled up with us.
We unloaded and our driver told us to walk down to a bamboo structure with a series of picnic style tables with benches. As everyone gathered in, I realized how large our group would be – about 40 or so people. The main mahout (elephant caretaker) made a couple of jokes and asked us to say where we are from. Our group was from probably 15 different countries. The main guy made more jokes and taught us how to feed the adult elephant and baby elephant, Charlie. He made more jokes and sent us on our way. We did not get any information on the adult elephants present. It seemed like the largest elephant could be Charlie’s mother, but it was unclear
At a Glance:
- Rating: 2 (out of 4) stars, interaction with the elephants was fun, but would go on a different Elephant Tour
- Intensity: Casual clothes, stable sandals, and a swimsuit
- Location: About 1.5 – 2 hours outside Chiang Mai
- Cost: $1,700 Baht including transportation and lunch
- Restrooms: We made a pitstop on the way and there were flushing toilets in a rough, shed-like structure near the main speaking spot
- Timing: 6.5 hours with transfer
Highlights:
- Feeding the elephants after lunch
- Walking with the elephants
- It was evident that the elephants were well-loved and given a lot to eat at this location
- Baby elephant!
Lowlights:
- Lack of group leadership and organization, so some people would be more aggressive to spend a ton of time up with the elephants and take photos in front of everyone else.
- Lack of information about elephants. The caretakers taught us how to feed the adult and baby elephant, but we were not told anything about the adult elephants that we interacted with or why the elephants like mud or water.
- Large group.
- We were not given Karen clothing to change into as stated on the website.
Feeding the Elephants
We walked back over to the elephants and sanctuary workers handed a bunch of mini bananas. There was a natural step that everyone stood on to easily feed the adult elephants. It was crazy to see the elephants use their trunks to grab an unpeeled banana out of each person’s hand. You could also ask the elephant to open their mouth and put a bunch of bananas directly into the open mouth. Because the group was so large, it was a little chaotic with people eager to feed the elephants. People would walk into other people’s pictures or try for far too long to get a good picture.
The baby elephant was totally like a rambunctious toddler. He was not interested in the bananas and instead wanted to climb on top of anyone who sat or squatted on the ground. Though he was young, he was already about 400 pounds. The main mahout spent most of his time playing with the baby elephant and not directing the group. Once the bananas ran out, we changed into swimsuits (some people were already in theirs and others opted not to partake in the mud and bathing portion). While we were changing, the main guy told us to watch out for elephant poops and the order that we were about to do things. We were not told why the elephants go in the mud or water.
Bathing the Elephants
The mahouts directed the elephants to walk down a pathway to a large muddy pond. One of the adult elephants immediately began to roll around in the mud. The other adult elephants mainly just stood in the muddy water. The baby elephant played. If one of the elephants tried to leave the mud area, the mahouts got in front of the elephants so they could not leave the area (not necessarily directly the mud). The main guy told us to rub mud on the elephants, but many people stayed on the dry grassy area and watched. It was a bit awkward, but I wanted to participate. The biggest elephant simply watched as we rubbed the muddy water on her or him. The skin is much rougher than you would anticipate and there are some coarse hairs sticking out from the skin.
We then headed for the stream, where we all desperately needed to get washed off. The elephants seemed to enjoy this a bit more with one immediately going into the water. One of the adult elephants kind of wandered off upstream, but instead of making it rejoin the group, the mahout stood by it to ensure it didn’t try to go off into the woods. Baby elephant Charlie loved the water and played around. The main guy told us to splash the elephants all at once. Some people (the same who took forever with the pictures earlier) were the same that were closest to the elephants in the water. I thought elephants would step on someone, but the group usually made room the elephant, when seeing it was going to go in a certain direction.
Lunch…
Eventually, it was time to head back and the elephants lead the way back up the hill. We were not told why they did this. As soon as they were out of the water, they sprayed dirt on their wet backs. Back up the hill at the first bamboo location, there were some basic outdoor showers with soap. I changed out of my swimsuit. We then walked for about 5 or 7 minutes over to another area that had more benches and tables shaded under a structure. Here the main guy told us to have lunch and afterward, we were welcome to feed more adult elephants just down the hill.
A few ladies served the lunch buffet style with rice, veggies, a curry meat dish, and pineapple. A girl tried to ask if there were nuts in the dish and the main mahout guy kind of laughed at her and said no, which dissuaded us to ask about meat/dairy/fish. There were no labels, so we had the rice, veggies, and pineapple. Though there was no visible meat, I was unclear if the veggies had some kind of chicken stock or fish sauce in the seasoning. I found this odd because when we paid online, there was a question specifically asking about dietary restrictions. I’ll talk more about the website to reality in a later section.
…and More Feeding
Since we didn’t eat much, Rebecca and I hurried over to feed the elephants again. This was by far my favorite part because only about five other people were also feeding about 7 elephants in this area. Here I got to try feeding the bananas directly into the mouth and marveling at the elephants up close. They are so large and cute!!! It was a lot of fun without feeling like I was in someone else’s way or like I was waiting for my turn. We probably feed three elephants like four or five bunches of mini bananas. It was great.
Bring this to thailand!
Website vs. Reality
The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary website promised a lot for an afternoon visit. The website has a modern design with clear images and information. Based on the design, I trusted that the experience was going to be well organized, that we would have a similar experience to the pictures, and we would do the items listed in the itinerary. To their credit, we did do 80% of the listed activity, however, we did not change into Karen clothing (the traditional simple square-shaped clothes) and we were not in a lush jungle surrounding like in the pictures. I was looking forward to wearing the Karen clothing! When purchasing our tickets, the website also asked if there were any dietary restrictions. In reality, there were no labels and no information during lunch.
Of course, I realize that a website will portray the most picturesque elements of anything. I expect it when traveling! However, I do feel like the website misled us a bit. I do want to mention that our Time for Lime cooking class in Koh Lanta was about 40 people, but it was so well-organized that I hardly noticed. Based on our elephant journey, we made absolutely sure we understood the group size when searching out other activities. This research paid off particularly well when we decided to do a kayaking tour from Koh Lanta instead of the Four Island or Koh Rok tours. Thailand has been a worthy tourist destination for years, which puts it back to us travelers to dig a little deeper than surface level research.
How Ethical is Elephant Jungle Sanctuary?
Elephant treatment in Thailand is going through a bit of a renaissance. Originally, mahouts forced elephants to do heavy labor and logging. When logging became illegal, may elephant owners turned to entertainment and tourism. Within tourism, elephant rides became extremely popular. Only recently are we seeing disapproval of elephant riding. Can riding an elephant be ethical? There are now a number of elephant “sanctuaries” that do not allow elephant riding. But is it still considered a sanctuary if you are still touching and bathing an elephant? The Elephant Nature Park no longer does bathing with the elephants to allow them to enjoy themselves without the presence of humans. So what is ethical the most ethical option?
I researched different elephant sanctuaries in Chiang Mai for weeks before leaving for Thailand. I tried to read reviews to find out elephant treatment at each place. The reviews were all over the place for almost all of the elephant sanctuaries – some people absolutely loved the same place that others were horrified to have gone to. The different reviews might have been partially cultural in that in some countries/cultures, it is seen as perfectly fine to ride or bathe an elephant. So what you think is ethical seems to be a personal opinion and very much in the grey area. The ethicality of an activity is not black and white. I think of it as sliding scale with one act being slightly more ethical than the other. But how ethical one thing is could change in the future based on more research and changing ideas.
Where does Elephant Jungle Sanctuary fall on the ethical scale?
The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary likely falls somewhere on the positive half of an ethical scale, but not the most ethical. It cares for the elephants without forcing them to work, perform, or give rides, but the large groups and designated bathing times seemed unnatural. Their website tells a little history of the harsh conditions that each elephant came from, so it does sound like this is a much better life for most of the elephants.
From my initial research, it looks like Elephant Nature Park is leading the way by eliminating bathing and letting the elephants behave as they would in the wild. Another sanctuary I researched limited the number of guests that would come in contact with the elephants each day. The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary seemed to have different camps to break up guests, but in our group alone, there were about 40 people, which felt like a lot. However, when looking into things to do in Thailand, I saw many tours featuring elephant rides as part of the tour, which I thought was interesting. It makes me wonder what the Thai people and elephant caretakers think of these sanctuaries.
Overall Thoughts: Elephant Jungle Sanctuary
Overall, I enjoyed being able to be up close with these elephants, but the large group experience fell short of my expectations. I chose to go with Elephant Jungle Sanctuary based on price, generally positive reviews, and a personal recommendation from someone living in Bangkok. If I were to do it again, I would spend the money to go with Elephant Nature Park or another sanctuary that limits the number of people on a tour. The large group size was my main frustration during our experience. With a large group, everything takes longer and yet you have less time doing the main activity. I found myself getting distracted and people-watching, instead of attempting to engage with elephants. I also started to feel bad for the elephants having so many hands touch and trying to feed them. This is the same feeling I got at the Caturday Cat Cafe in Bangkok.
What are your thoughts on the ethical treatment of elephants at elephant sanctuaries in Thailand? Is riding elephants ethical? Or have you gone to an elephant sanctuary in Thailand? If so, what was your experience? Leave a comment below as I would love to hear from you!
Happy Travels,
Hanna
