Thailand: A Day with Elephants at Patara

Heather here with a super quick introduction for this post.  The elephant experience was so amazing and such an incredible experience that this post will be a little different.  Everyone was fighting over who would get to write this post, so I agreed that we would all write our story of the day and we would all get to keep our personal elephant pictures in our writing section.  This was truly an unbelievable experience.  Being up close and personal with the elephants was a chance of a lifetime that I know my entire family will cherish forever and never forget. 

M&M's Story:

This is M&M and I am going to tell you about my experience with the elephants. The elephant sanctuary that was called Patara and was my most favorite part of Thailand. The first part was learning about Patara and the Elephants. 

The next part was feeding and grooming them. The people who were running the sanctuary taught us that one way of learning that your elephant was healthy was looking at the poop. It was really gross, but luckily we didn't have to hold the poop. 

Each person was assigned an elephant to groom and ride to the river where we were going to wash them. Big Sis and I were assigned a 4 year old elephant that was so playful named Arull. We were assigned an elephant that matched our personality. Arull was just like us and was a perfect match. We feed her Bananas and Bamboo. It was so cute watching her eat it then lift up her trunk for more. She even stole one bamboo from another persons basket when they weren't looking! I even got a big dirty kiss from Arull.  It was so weird and cool.

We learned how to get onto our elephants and ride them. Riding an elephant in a saddle hurts the elephant, so we rode bare back. It was a struggle riding the elephant because we had to walk up and down VERRY steep hills. Big Sis couldn't take it, so she walked down part of the hike with the instructors that guided the elephants. I decided to try and stay on the entire time, and I was successful. 

After we got to the river, everyone changed into their swimsuits and got in with the elephants. Arull was so cute when she played down in the water and just relaxed while we washed her. Everyone then spread out and started cleaning all the elephants. 

After like an hour, everyone got out and went up to a little house to eat and watch the elephants play in the water. The instructors had set out a delicious lunch that was filled with amazing food. We settled down and ate while talking with the other people in our group. It was truly an amazing experience and was the best part for me to spend time with the Elephants.

Heather's Story:
When looking into an elephant sanctuary I did so much research.  The thing about animals, is everyone has an opinion.  There are people that just want to see a circus act and think all is fine, then you have people on the opposite side of the spectrum that believe the animals shouldn't have any human contact at all.  I took the good and the bad, and after my own personal research chose Patara.  I was impressed and had such love in my heart for this place.

We started our day by just being with a handful of elephants as a group.  I was terrified!  Like, so terrified that I used Little Monster as an excuse to stay far away.  Little Monster was just as scared as I was and wanted nothing to do with the elephants.  It took about an hour for me to warm up enough to walk in the same vicinity as the elephants.  The large ones just ate food, but the two little babies were running everywhere and just being toddlers.  I was more scared of them.

We were then taken into our smaller groups and introduced to our own personal elephants for the day.  We chose to do the Elephant Owner for a Day program where we got one on one interaction and education.  The elephant Little Monster and I were given was named Gwama.  She was an older and super gentle elephant.  We were told that in the big group setting they were observing us to see our comfort level and personality with the elephants.  Since I was timid, I was given an extremely gentle elephant.  Little Monster griped onto me so tight when we first met Gwama.  He just dug his head in my shoulder and was stiff as a board.  I was also feeling anxious.  Little Monster started crying, so one of the elephant trainers took him to the trees and played with him, so I could get to know Gwama better.  It didn't take her long to win me over.  One look in her beautiful eyes and I knew I was looking at a majestic creation of God.

After introducing ourselves, I was then given the opportunity to feed her.  She chomped down on bamboo and bananas.  I didn't realize I was feeding her too fast until I noticed her put her trunk in her mouth and dig out 4 bananas and place them back in my basket.  It was so funny.  I laughed, apologized and gave her more time to chew. Elephants have their teeth in the back of their mouth, so I didn't have to worry about her bitting my fingers.

After Gwama had eaten all the bamboo and bananas, we then got a lesson on how to care for the elephants.  We learned how to tell if an elephant is distressed, scared or happy and healthy.  We also were able to hear the elephants as they made noises, did you know that elephants roar like a lion?  It was so crazy to hear them in their natural habitat.  We learned about the importance of the texture and smells of elephant poop and how the poop says a lot about the health of the elephants.  We then were able to use palm leaves to brush and clean the elephants.

We then were able to ride the elephants bareback to a river.  They educated us about the way to properly ride an elephant so we don't ruin their bone structure or hurt them.  Riding an elephant was SO PAINFUL for me!  LOL.  It was defiantly a one and done experience.  I got on Gwama, then Little Monster was handed to me.  I kept talking to him how we were going to take a ride ride on the elephant.  He was a littler nervous at first, but them he kept repeating that he was riding an elephant. After a few minutes, Little Monster fell asleep. On me. While riding an elephant.  I held on to Monster for dear life.  I griped my thighs so hard to try to keep my balance because at some points I had to hold onto him with two hands because the movement felt as if he would fly right out of my lap and off the elephant.  I could picture it in my mind, and would just hold on tighter.  I kept looking ahead for any sign of a river, because I legs and abs were working so hard to keep balance that I was beginning to shake.  When I finally saw the river, I shouted with relief.

Once we got off Gwama, Monster woke up nice and refreshed.  He was excited to get into the water.  We all got our swimsuits on and headed down to the river to join the elephants.  We were able to scrub and wash them down.  After a walk in the jungle, there was defiantly some scrubbing that needed to be done.  Monster even had fun washing Gwama's head.

It was so fun having water fights with the elephants.  We would spray water on them, and they would flick water back at us with their trunks.  We were able to laugh and splash together.  At one point they told us to line up in front of all the elephants for a group picture.  We smiled and as they counted to three, we got sprayed by the elephants.  It took everyone by such surprise.  I was not expecting to get completely drenched, and the water was cold.  It was so hilarious.  We laughed about that for the rest of the day.

After we got dried off, we were all starving.  Patara had laid out the most amazing lunch spread.  It was fantastic.  We had rice rolls, sticky rice and dessert rice, and fruit.  Oh sweet delicious fruit.  There was at least 5-6 different fruits.  Since Korea is lacking in the fruit category, I ate so much fruit.  The pineapple was divine, and the passionfruit was so delicious.  The lunch was perfect because Monster loves fruit and rice, so he ate an entire meal plus seconds for the first time during this entire trip.  We finished lunch, then took a short 5 minute walk with our elephants to the van pick up.  It was a sad good bye.  After just a day with Gwama, I was so sad to leave her.  This was a top 10 moment in my life.  

Big Sis's Story:

Riding an elephant was the biggest interaction towards an animal I have ever done before. Elephants are very gentle creatures that behave just like human beings, and just like us, they too have personalities. We got to see huge elephant and new borns that where as big/tall as Little A. What I thought was very interesting was that elephants don't sound the way you really think. They sound like very loud trucks or a very mad dog with one bark. They were so loud when they made those sounds and they were so fun to watch and feed. We got the chance to be paired up with an elephant that matches our personalities. My elephants name was Arull and I shared her with M&M. Like I said before, it is a her, and she was  4 years old and she was perfect for us. She was so nice and small, just like us. Elephants like to eat bamboo and bananas, so that's what we got to feed them. We each got a basket filled with bananas and bamboo pieces and feed the elephants from the baskets until they were empty. After feeding them, they took a break and we just hung out with them. As I was picking up some more pieces of bamboo, the trainer said something to Arull and all of the sudden, her trunk wrapped around me and she gave me a hug. It was SO cute. Then, after she let go, she put her trunk on my cheek and kissed me! It was a little slimy and muddy, put I thought it was the CUTEST thing in the world.  After that, we learned about how elephant poop was used for paper and how to know if an elephant was or wasn't healthy by the amount of balls that they disposed. A healthy elephant should have 5-7 pieces. If not, then that elephant wasn't healthy. All of our elephants were healthy though. After that discussion, we then learned how to communicate with the elephants and what to say in Thai for them to understand. We learned how to say "go, follow, lay down, come up, open up(for eating), hug, and kiss"! We then put these words to good use by saying "lay down" in order to brush off the dry mud on them. After we did this, they got back up and started the next part, riding. 

I was really nervous to do this because I thought that this was going to hurt Arull but her trainer said that the head area was the safest place to ride her and that it doesn't hurt the elephant. They did warn us that it might hurt us a little but I didn't think it was that big of a deal. After me and M&M got on the elephant, I soon realized what the trainer meant by "your butt will really hurt after a while"! An elephant's back bone is very large and it hurt SOOO bad. It was massively uncomfortable for me. We rode the elephant into the forest to the waterfall, but about half way, I couldn't handle the pain anymore, so I said that I wanted to walk the rest of the way. Luckily, another really nice lady was walking too, for the same reason, and we had a nice conversation till we got to the waterfall. As soon as we got off, the elephant went straight to the waterfalls and started to play with the water. We got in with them. The water was cold and really refreshing since it was really hot that day. The trainer gave us a small bucket and a brush to clean the elephants. The elephant, when they saw the brushes, did something really funny, Arull fell down in the water and had the look in her eye of "please, clean me. I love being washed!" We started to wash Arull and soon, had her clean and completely wet in no time.

I soon saw Gwama(mom's elephant) lay down and since nobody saw, it went to go wash her. The trainer told me to get on top of her, and almost the second I got on, she stood up. She was 3x's the size of Arull, and I felt like this was the best thing in the world. I felt so tall, and very nervous that I would fall off, and if I did, since the water was only 1 1/2 feet deep, it would hurt really bad. What the most cutest thing was, was when I was brushing her, I accidentally dropped my brush next to Gwama and she noticed I dropped it and she grabbed the brush with her trunk, and reached over her head and dropped it back into my lap. It was so cute and nice. Gwama also was hungry and stood up on the side of the rocks and he rose up another 5 feet.  I was really scared to fall off more then ever now but soon realized that this was the coolest thing ever. I enjoyed my time so much with the elephants. We were able to feed them, talk to them, ride them, wash them, and ride and wash them at the same time. This was, I'd say, the main highlight to my adventure in Thailand.

Kevin and Little A's Story: