On Tuesday, we were excited to be picked up early from our hotel to venture west (~3 hours) to learn about elephants and help them at an elephant rescue/sanctuary. We had researched elephant sanctuaries and booked this a few months ago, and now the day was here. I couldn’t sleep well that morning so I started reading about elephant sanctuaries. There is quite a debate online and amongst animal lovers about the ethics of these sanctuaries. There are definitely some bad ones out there. The more I read, the more I was getting concerned about whether we picked a good one or not. I had some doubts throughout the day, but I’ll relieve your stress so you don’t go through what I did – we picked a good one (I think).

We arrived and joined the rest of our group for the day. We started to learn about what the sanctuary does. It was started by a veterinarian and his wife in 2008. They saw a lot of abuse directed towards elephants (used in the logging industry, entertainment/circuses, and the like). They bought land not far from the famous Bridge Over River Kwai. To date, they’ve rescued 34 elephants and currently are caring for 24, with the oldest being 74 years old (you’ll learn more about her later). They raise money through ecotourism to care for these elephants – and it takes a lot of work, as we would soon come to find out.

Okay, so Asian elephants are actually the world’s second largest land mammals, after the African bush elephant. But you get the idea. A healthy elephant eats close to 10% of its weight, every day. The largest elephant they currently care for is 4,600 kilograms (over 10,000 pounds!). So, he eats close to 1,000 pounds of food each day. Hence the need for help – they have a staff of 130 people, and tourists who come in to help with daily chores to care for and help feed the elephants.

Above, you’ll see a few pictures of Tangmo. She’s the sweetest thing. She’s 74 this year, but doesn’t have any teeth left. They take special care of her, and we helped prepare some of her food. Because she doesn’t have any teeth, she has to eat soft foods – sticky rice balls (filled with protein pellets and sweet potato), watermelon with the rind cut off, and she LOVES bananas. And she can sniff them out, as you’ll see her almost attack Andrew because we brought bananas in the red bag – she was on a mission!

After feeding the elephants, it was time to bath them. Some of them, due to abuse, age, or physical challenges, need some help. They normally are quite capable on their own, but they seemed to really enjoy the interaction. Andrew braved the river to help, while I took pictures safely (and dryly) from the shore.

We really had a nice time helping the staff take care of these amazing, giant, smart, and kind animals. And, it’s not just an old wives tail – they really do have great memories. It’s a shame that places like this need to exist, but it was an enjoyable day helping to take care of them. And, not just the elephants. They love all animals and had several cats, dogs, and an entire litter of new puppies who enjoyed naps and eating watermelon scraps.

While we met several new four legged friends, we also happened to hit it off with several two legged friends too! We met a group from Hawaii who in our group throughout the day, who were also staying in Bangkok. Later the night after dinner, we met them out in the gay district, got to see some drag queens, and had a very fun night (and morning – we got back to the hotel at 5:00 a.m.!).

It was so great meeting you Kaysha, Keoni, Chad, & Rod! Enjoy the rest of your week in Bangkok and maybe we’ll run into you somewhere else in our travels of the world!

Apologies that Andrew and I have been a little behind with posting – it’s been a busy last few days! Tonight we leave on a train for Chaing Mai. We may do another post about meeting our G Adventures group that we’ll spend the next ~29 days with, our last day in Bangkok, and the start of our journey together. We’ve already met some new friends from all over the world – our group is made up of 6 Irish, 4 Aussies, 3 Brits, and Jeff+Andrew representing the U.S.A., along with Chit, our guide for this trip who is from Myanmar (Burma). Happy 4th of July to our friends back home!

Write to you all soon,

Jeff

P.S.: Great news! I didn’t lose the international charging adaptor kit after all!! So ecstatic and my record of not losing items on airplanes is restored! Somehow it got wedged deep in an internal pocket of my massive Tumi backpack. Yay for finding it! Boo for now having additional adapters that we bought! 🙃