Photo Essay – Elephant Nature Park

I stayed as a volunteer in the Elephant Nature Park which is situated in Mae Tang Valley, about 60 kilometres north of Chiang Mai. The elephants in the park are encouraged to live as natural life as possible, only eat, sleep and play. All the elephants are rescued from different places where they didn´t have a good life, mostly from logging, trekking or street begging. Most of them have a traumatic past, and are off course not able to live as the wild elephants. Each of them have their own mahout who follows the elephant all day, since there is so may elephants in a limited area and a lot of people around they have to be controlled in some point. The difference is that they are controlled without the hook, only by orders.

Getting to know more about the elephants and getting so close to them for an entire week was a lovely experience, I loved the ambience of the whole park – and I´m so fascinated by these big heavy animals which to my surprise are so careful and gracious in their movements. This photo essay is an attempt to give you an impression of the park and the elephants.

In the end of the post you will find two videos of the baby elephants playing in the mud – they are so cute!

Videos of the baby elephants. Both videos by Harald.

MVI_4317

MVI_4318

Thanks to Harald for letting me use your videos on my blog.

Make sure you check out my other blog posts from the park as well!

Have you ever been to the Elephant Nature Park or worked with elephants in other countries? What was your experience?

—
If you want to follow my adventures around the world, subscribe to my travel blog and get my news direct to your inbox – and remember to follow Taste of Slow on facebook and twitter!

If you love the taste of travel, please use the bottoms below and share the love.