Day 5 - Patara elephant farm

There are a number of elephant parks where patrons can see the elephants perform tricks or can take a ride on one. This particular one was rated as the no. 1 attraction on tripadvisor and by the end of the day i had to agree it was a well deserved mantle. This place sets itself apart from the others by pairing you up with an elephant for the day and allowing you to take part in the daily routine of looking after and maintaining one. Of course you also get to ride your elephant but the clincher for this place is the close interaction you get to experience (though no spooning here!) and the strong education about elephant conservation. I know I know you must be thinking al's gone all david attenborough or Steve Irwin within the last 2 days but its just that this stuff is unique to the region. The owner of the park, Pat, is a super passionate guy towards his work and you get the impression he puts most of the money back into the maintenance and continuation of conservation programs. Luckily his english is also very good and the educational talks he gives us are well structured and informative.

I got paired with a 24 yr old female elephant named Sai-tong. (There was only one elephant with tusks, and thankfully i didn't get him! ) Before we even interacted with the elephants, Pat briefed us on how to form a strong bond with u'r elephant, and that first impressions are vital i.e approach with a basketful of food! we were also told to never approach them from the back as it may startle them (leading to being squished). The head minder, Ben paired us carefully with each elephant as each had it's own character. Ben only met us that morning so i'm guessing the elephants are basing impressions on our physical appearance or emitting vibes. The elephants are fed with small bananas, sugar cane and bunches of tamarind seeds. The elephants are continuously eating throughout the waking hours so we just stood there continuously hand feeding them until the baskets were empty, breaking up feeds with a pat on the trunk calling out Dee-dee (good boy/girl). It was pretty cool to see them picking up food that would fall on the ground with their trunks and shoveling it into their mouths! After this we performed the daily health check

1 - happy? Elephants will show happiness by flapping their ears and swinging their tail. All our elephants (11 in total) were in good spirits that day. I'm not sure what it would mean if they weren't. i'm guessing its cuz they're physically ill and not some sort of psychatric or social problem with the other elephants. Don't think they make 10g doses of prozac anyway!

2 - sleeping well? elephants will rotate their sleeping position from side to side throughout the night every few hours. If they're not rotating it's not a good sign of health. We check this by seeing if dirt is smuttered on the top and both sides of the elephant.

3 - Sweating properly? elephants sweat through their toenails so it's a simple process of swabbing your finger across their toes to see if its moist.

4 - digestion. and ah yes the invetible yuck factor. There must be at least 6 pieces of poop (they're shaped and sized like lawn balls). They look like moist and mulched up balls of grass so we also had to pull apart one chunk and make sure the strands weren't too long and that a trickle of moisture came out upon squeezing. I forgot to mention this but we each had a trainer with us and our elephant so they were helping us out with this part.

Health inspection was then followed by a dust off with branches and a bath in the creek. Once they were in there we had to use small wooden pails to cover our elephants and then scrub with a brush. This was bloody hard work since elephant skin is so rough and hairy not to mention the pail and brush are tiny compared to the area we had to cover.

the riding part came up next but before this we were shown the 3 different ways to mount the elephant.

The first one was mounting from the side. You tap on the elephants leg and they bend slightly while keeping the foot on the ground allowing you to use the elephant's heel and knee as foot holds. once your feet are in position the elephant then lifts the leg to help bring the rider up to their backs. so cool! the last 2 were mounting from the front. You tap on the trunk with both hands calling out tum yong and they either lower their trunks allowing you to use it as a ladder, or they lower their head to the ground allowing you to jump straight on. i wouldn't try the front mount technique on an elephant with tusks though!
once up on top there are 2 riding positions - legs bent (hands free) or legs straight down. however both proved to be equally straining on the thighs. There is no saddle for us to sit on, just a rope behind us with a loop to grasp when coming down inclines. although cheezy the 'traditional outfits' they provided us with also provided protection against the rough hairs on the elephant's back.

We were also told how to direct them
forward - bai (and tap both feet to the backs of elephants ears)
turn left - bai (only tap right ear)
turn right - bai (only tap left ear)
stop - how
don't do that!(for when they stop to eat along the trail) - yana.

however we were told not to use 'yana' too much as it can upset them and cause them to become unresponsive, much like a small child. we were encouraged to always throw in a 'deedee' (good boy/girl) esp after saying 'yana'. Unfortunately our minders were always there leading the elephants along so was a shame we didn't get to try to control them ourselves from the saddle. Perhaps there was a real danger of one going AWOL or freaking out at something and throwing us off.

So we rode to the nearby waterfall about a kilometer and a half away taking the long route up and down a hill. I must say with the extremely slow speed of the elephants and the occasional one stopping in protest of the climb we could've gotten there faster walking ourselves! They'd also stop to drop a poop and urinate and when they urinate it's like pouring out water from a bucket over 15 seconds! Once we got to the waterfall we disembarked for lunch. Disembarking is much easier since they just bring you upto an elevated piece of ground for u to jump straight across onto. After lunch we had a swim with our elephant which is basically sitting on it's back while it immerses itself into the water and rolls around. This second part was a bit dangerous since there was a real chance of your leg getting pinned between the elephant and the ground! We finished the day by returning to the camp to check out the baby twin elephants and then another shorter ride along the creek to the endpoint. In all, although it was physically tiring and strenouus it was an amazing experience interacting with these beautiful and intelligent creatures, and as a result i've developed a greater respect for elephants.