Elephant Nature Park

This weekend we visited the Elephant Nature Park in Mae Taeng District. It was an incredible experience! The Elephant Nature Park is a conservation park that rehabilitates elephants who have been abused or disabled. The elephants roam freely inside the park and can choose to do whatever activities they would like. All the elephants do have a mahout near them at all times, though, to make sure everyone is safe.

Our amazing day started with a walk through the park and meeting several of the elephant "families". Most of these families aren't biologically related, but they have chosen to live together as a herd. Then we fed an elephant a snack of watermelon, corn, squash, and cucumber. The kids loved it!

 

After lunch, we gave an elephant a bath! Since many of the elephants are disabled, they aren't able to go into the river on their own for a bath. It was a much muddier experience than we were anticipating, but still unbelievable!

It was such a great day observing the elephants and getting to interact with them. If you're ever in northern Thailand, this is a must-see!

This is the park's oldest elephant---she's 90!