We took a daytrip to visit Elephant Nature Park, an elephant sanctuary an hour away from Chiang Mai. We had researched the nature of this park very carefully prior to visiting  as there is an enormous amount of ‘elephant parks’ in Thailand, catering to the many tourists who want to ride elephants and watch them do tricks. We knew this was something we absolutely did not want to be involved in, so chose to visit Elephant Nature Park as it is a real sanctuary that truly has the animals (and NOT the tourist’s) best interests  at heart.  

Elephants were traditionally domesticated in Thailand for the purpose of logging, but when logging was made illegal in 1989 - the huge amount of elephants used for this purpose were suddenly out of work. Their mahouts (keepers) then began to use them for tourist activities such as begging in cities or performing for and being ridden by tourists as a way of generating income and keeping the elephant in work. Elephant tourism is now a highly popular industry in thailand, with huge numbers of tourists coming to the country and visiting elephant parks. Unfortunately the priority is mainly making money in these places, so the standard of care that the ‘tourist’ elephants receive is often not up to scratch with many of them being abused, mistreated and underfed. At the park we heard many horror stories of mistreatment, including the fact that some elephants are fed amphetamines so they can work the tourist camps during the day and then be used for illegal logging at night. Elephants are highly intelligent and sensitive creatures, so they suffer from great emotional damage when they are treated badly. 

Elephant Nature park rescues these mistreated elephants and nurses them back to good physical and emotional health and aims to give them a happy life, in a natural environment as close as possible to what they would live in if they were wild. Since these elephants are domesticated animals it is not possible to attempt to release them into the wild, but at Elephant nature Park they will live their lives in a free and happy way, without ever having to ‘perform’ or be ridden by tourists. While tourists can visit the park and watch and take part in the elephants daily routine, the elephants needs and care is the primary focus of the park. The fee that tourists pay to visit the park helps substantially towards the expensive care of the elephants. The sanctuary is set in some beautiful hills with surrounding forest and there is a river which allows elephants to have their ‘cool down’ baths.