Day 9 (part one):
The day spent with ELEPHANTS
Happiness bottled.
The mini taxi picked us up from our hostel at 6am (complete with wet hair!) and we happily met our mini-bus friends. The rest of the day I spent with elephants! Bathing them, feeding them bananas from our hands, getting kisses, riding on the back of their necks and being squirted in the face by my elephant who really loves bath time!
Before booking this day I had to make sure we were supporting an elephant sanctuary that really cared for the elephants. This one gave the elephants enough room to roam and treated them with the care they need. There is a whole little village around the sanctuary that live and work with the elephants. They thrive off the tourism but give the elephants daily baths and walks through the surrounding jungle. They never use chains and only carried sticks in order to make sure the elephants do not hurt anyone, however a tap with a stick to these huge beauties is like a mini pinch to a human - they can barely feel it at all!
We were lucky enough to be paired with a young male called 'a little shy'. He was really well behaved until he got into the water and trying to roll around and squirt us whenever he could. When in the water we had to wear the life jackets as the river was really fast moving and the elephants love to go completely under. We got given this elephant shampoo to wash them with as elephants are covered in little hairs that tickle bare legs! Also, on the land again he seemed to love bushes and constantly walk into them, hence why in a few of the pictures he seems to be eating long leaves! Our elephant carer found it funny when 'a little shy' decided to snatch the bananas out of our hands and spray us with spit!!!
Later in the day we also got to the see the baby elephants who during the day are kept away from the main center of the sanctuary (although on this day all the villagers seemed a little pre-occupied with one HUGE male elephant so it wasn't very busy all day). There were two little elephants that were let to roam in the small wooden pen and a local man put a flower ring on their heads (we think it was some sort of blessing) which made them look UTTERLY PRETTY ha ha. Except there was definitely one who was a rebellious baby, who kept taking the flower ring off his head and trying to put his trunk in RUDE PLACES! They gave us kisses by sucking really hard on our faces!
We were such suckers for them and bought them lots of bananas.
We were lucky enough to be paired with a young male called 'a little shy'. He was really well behaved until he got into the water and trying to roll around and squirt us whenever he could. When in the water we had to wear the life jackets as the river was really fast moving and the elephants love to go completely under. We got given this elephant shampoo to wash them with as elephants are covered in little hairs that tickle bare legs! Also, on the land again he seemed to love bushes and constantly walk into them, hence why in a few of the pictures he seems to be eating long leaves! Our elephant carer found it funny when 'a little shy' decided to snatch the bananas out of our hands and spray us with spit!!!
Later in the day we also got to the see the baby elephants who during the day are kept away from the main center of the sanctuary (although on this day all the villagers seemed a little pre-occupied with one HUGE male elephant so it wasn't very busy all day). There were two little elephants that were let to roam in the small wooden pen and a local man put a flower ring on their heads (we think it was some sort of blessing) which made them look UTTERLY PRETTY ha ha. Except there was definitely one who was a rebellious baby, who kept taking the flower ring off his head and trying to put his trunk in RUDE PLACES! They gave us kisses by sucking really hard on our faces!
We were such suckers for them and bought them lots of bananas.
Later on in the day we also got to visit a National park with stunning jungle and waterfalls, but I will post that later!
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