Gentle Giants

Did you know that elephants only sweat through their toes?

(If you didn't, you do now)

Thailand is known for its accessibility to ride elephants

and as many people would assume most are mistreated.

This is not the case at the Patara Elephant farm, the farm aims to

rehabilitate elephants who have the potential to breed. 40 years ago

there was 6000 elephants in Thailand, today their is only 3205. The farm

not only educates tourists but also gives them the opportunity to 

bond with their elephants during a one on one session.

We began the day by meeting their new baby calf which was

40 days old. It goes to show that the work they

are doing their is seriously making a differnce as last

 year they bought 5 new baby elephants into the world.

(Which are seriously so cute)

 We then moved onto the main part of the experience.

We were each given an elephant to 'make friends with', Robyn's

was called Punchan, Megan's Menoey, and Erin's Menoi.

(that's probably not how you spell their names)

We were taught how to feed and brush them, turns out

elephants don't stop eating ALL day (which just goes to

 show they aren’t that different to Robyn and Megan)

 It was bath time next.

(que the rubber ducks)

We made our way down to the waterfall where we

all clambered onto the back of our new found friends and 

gave them a good scrub down.

 Which they seemed to thoroughly enjoy as they

flapped their ears and wagged their tails.

 (Apparently they seemed to think we needed a scrub down too)

 Finally, we ended our trip on a road side stroll down the mountain.

You know at home when you see a horse

trotting down the road and you wouldn’t think twice about it,

here it is EXACTLY the same just replace the horse with an

elephant.

 Today has been so surreal and we couldn't be

happier that we've experienced a once in a lifetime opportunity to

learn and ride these beautiful animals.

lots of love

Megan, Robyn and Erin

xx

P.S do you like my new gear?