Patara Elephant Farm
We can both comfortably file today under top life experiences. We were not sure what to expect as we boarded the van slightly behind schedule. We met a couple of girls who knew each other from Yale - Sara who witnessed the woman getting killed at the 2011 Harvard/Yale tailgate who now worked for Google, and her friend Camille who worked for a hotel chain in NYC. They forgot bug spray, we kindly obliged.
We arrived to the elephant farm after a 30-minute journey, given bananas as a morning snack just upon arrival when getting out of our transport. On the way out of the vehicle, told we could feed our peels to the elephant. Enter massive elephant beast stage right. I decided to feed him my peel after watching our driver do the same – the beast was intimidating at first, and his tongue disgustingly slimy. One man’s fruit trash, another beast’s breakfast treasure.
After a short orientation on elephants in Asia, our own elephant for the day was assigned. At the start, we would try to get on their good side by feeding them a basket of elephant treats, consisting mainly of banana bunches, pumpkins, and sugar cane. We would feed them some, rub their cheeks and say ‘Dee-Dee’ aka good boy/girl.
My elephant’s name was Ma-Mei, pronounce as a young British boy might say mommy. She was a bit old, seemed like the washed up grandma of the bunch. She was grumpy at first but would eventually warm up to me. Katherine got the stud – a 17-year-old male named Poon-Jen with big tusks – rambunctious, playful, and certainly a crowd pleaser. He was a recent father of one of the baby elephants, though his fatherly duties seem to have run their course. Fun fact: female elephants are pregnant for just under 2 years before giving birth.
After we fed our elephants some treats, we gave them a quick bath. Here is Katherine washing off Poon-Jen’s back, because a) who doesn’t like their back scrubbed? and b) who wants to ride on a dirty elephant’s back? During the day they sometimes throw dirt on their back to keep themselves cool, and some lucky tourist like us wash it off in the morning.
Here is couple of shots of Katherine bonding with Poon-Jen:
Taking care of an elephant all day is not all fun and games. Here is Katherine cleaning up some fresh poo:
After the ride down to the waterfall, Poon-Jen in his crowd-pleasing manner posed for a few photos. Katherine and he had become quite good friends:
There were baby elephants too! A little less predictable, a bit wild, but they stole all the girls’ hearts. Us posing with a 1.5 year old, note the adult elephant trying a reach around to steal Katherine's banana bunch:
Here is a close up of some elephant skin:
A candid of Katherine riding Poon-Jen:
Candid of Ma-Mei and I climbing some terrain that she had no problem with:
A perspective shot from atop my elephant:
Lunch at the elephant farm!
Surprisingly good – and this fried chicken was by far the most Americanized food we had eaten thus far. The meal itself was spectacular – the amount of mosquitoes less so. What was even better was that we could feed any leftovers to the elephants (except the chicken bones and plastic bottles but including the banana leaf tablecloth.)
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| Baby with Mother |
Overall, an awesome day, and if in Chiang Mai we would recommend to anyone. We fed the elephants, washed them, gave them some water, rode them to the waterfall to give them the full spa treatment, had lunch, rode them to where a bunch of other elephants and babies were hanging out so they could wander the jungle the rest of the night and do something similar the next day. The only thing more amazing than the experience itself was the relationship between the elephants and their respective elephant guides. There were no gimmicky elephants painting pictures or doing tricks; we rode them bareback as opposed to with saddles, and you could tell they were happy and all treated well.
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