The elephant

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock. - Aristotle

We are doing 7 day cruises at the moment which means less shows and more other stuff. My Boss let me off the ship for the morning to go and help on a tour for the guests, you're basically there to make sure they don't get lost and to be a face if they have questions, other than that you're doing the same things they are without the price tag. I was really keen to experience this tour, and happy to put in overtime hours elsewhere as a trade off. The tour I signed up to help on was a day at an elephant sanctuary in the jungle, we set off around lunch time and took a small boat to the pier where we got on a coach, the journey to the jungle took much longer than we expected because we were such a big vehicle we often had to wait until both sides of the road were clear, Thailand's not really built for coaches. When we arrived at the edge of the jungle we then split the group into various different types of vehicles to get us closer to where the elephants were, 6 of us sat cross legged in the bed of a pick up truck, which I found hilarious and really good fun, not the sort of thing I'd expect guests on a fancy cruise to do. On the way in we saw a lot of wild animals as well as water buffalo and chickens and lots of remote cottages that made me lust for a life in the wilderness, especially with the view that they had, everything was intensely rich green.

Once we arrived we saw elephants roaming free all over the land which was incredible. We were led to a large shelter furnished with long tables, the host sat us down and explained some ground rules, and the story behind the elephants that had been rescued and brought there, it was horrible to hear what they had been through. Some came from a logging background where they had their ears pierced in order to steer them through the trees by tugging at the piercing, when the piercing ripped out they would re pierce elsewhere and eventually the ears of these elephants would be ripped into ribbons as they were steered around and made to pull down logs until often their backs eventually gave up and they were left to starve and die. others came from the circus where they had been stolen from their mother's at a few days old and beaten burnt and abused until they learned to perform, and lastly were the elephants forced to give rides on the beaches, these elephants were forced to endure ride after ride without a break and cut and burned in less obvious places so that the customers don't notice the abuse, then after a full days ride they are usually forced to walk to the other side of the mountain to sleep as there is no affordable land big enough to house elephants in the tourist heavy locations. They told us the backstory of each of the elephants which instantly turned me against elephant rides, then they asked us to wash our hands so that the chemicals from our sun cream etc didn't harm the elephants. We were asked to carry huge baskets with a variety of foods up to where the elephants were to feed them. There was sugar cane, watermelon, rice and pineapples, Some of the elephants were happy for you to put the food right into their mouth and others had a hard time trusting anything you tried to feed them and preferred to feed themselves, feeding them by hand was the strangest experience and the elephants have huge plump tongues that I was honestly expecting to be corse but were actually incredibly smooth. once they were full we got to put on our swimming costumes and wet the elephants and cover them in mud to cool them down and ward off insect bites, again the skin was completely different to touch from what I imagined, I knew they'd have thick skin but I expected it to be soft and leathery but actually they were rough and hairy. After a while in the mud we led them to a huge outdoor shower and hosed the mud off, all in all we spent 6 and a half hours there and it was great to see that the elephants are left to roam free and not overfed or mistreated, the volunteers looking after them were passionate about what they do and about spreading awareness of the right way to treat them and not endorsing beach rides etc. Spending time with them was incredible, each elephant had its own personality and way of behaving and I can honestly say it's the only animal of that size that feels really approachable, when you make eye contact with an elephant there's an understanding or an awareness there. This is the sort of place it would be great to go back and do some work for and I would definitely encourage anyone who's interested to go and visit, also they made us lunch out there and that was hands down the best thai red I've ever had, they cooked it all from home grown ingredients down to even the chicken they used, I'm still vegetarian but the chunks of meat were so big it was easy enough not to serve myself any. In the end it was an amazing experience and one I'd happily re-live or recommend to anyone.