Today I did one of the best things I've ever done in my life! Elephant Training! Or technically, being a Mahout for the day or really just feeding, bathing and walking your own elephant with their real Mahout alongside you every step of the way. After hours of careful research, I decided to go with Baan Chang Elephant Park, a non-profit organization. To be fair, they were my 2nd choice. Patara was booked til the end of the month. But I'm so glad I did Baan Chang!! All 43 elephants in Baan Chang were all rescued and they don't make the elephants do shows because they consider it to be abusive (it is).

There were 11 of us but only 10 rode the elephants. Our guide was Aof (off) and he was hilarious and really good. He seemed to get along with ALL the elephants even the one he was scared of. He named this elephant "Gangster" because the elephant tried to hit Aof with a giant rock once. haha Gangster was also showing off his elephant bits for all to see...
The course I did was the Elephant Mahout Training Course and that was from 8:30am - 4:30pm. First off was changing into our Mahout clothes which we got to keep because they were soaking wet in the end. Aof told us a few things like elephant preservation, eating, sleeping, bathing and exercising and why they still chain and use the bull hook (safety reasons). In the middle of feeding the elephants, there was a helicopter flying nearby and the elephants got scared. We were told to get away from them because the elephants didn’t know what the noise was it could become dangerous. The really scared elephants became fidgety and their Mahouts ended up having to get on top of them and only then did the elephants calm down.

Our first interaction was feeding the elephants bananas and sugar cane for their morning snack. Aof told us that they only need about 4 hours of sleep. The elephants sleep at 10pm and wake up around 2am. The oldest elephant there was a 60 year old female. She was their first rescued elephant and now is blind because she's got cataracts in her eyes. The youngest is a 9 month old baby. They have 2 baby elephants; 9 months and 4 years. We didn't interact with them because they were held in a different area with their mothers. I did see them when we were riding our elephants though.

The guy sitting is my Mahout.

I tried to feed the elephants that were in the center and the chains helped because every time I tried to get to the center, the larger elephants would stick out their trunks and try to get the food. There were 2 elephants that we weren’t allowed to touch. This older male because he had giant tusks. He wasn’t dangerous, just that if he turned his head, you might get hit with his tusk. The other elephant we weren’t allowed to touch was this older female one who had a giant scar on her head. The scar was from her previous captivity and she doesn’t trust anyone except her Mahout. We were still allowed to feed them though. We feed them until all the bananas and sugar canes were gone.

Learning the commands was easy. Aof brought over two elephants and their Mahouts for us to practice on. There was an older and larger female and a younger smaller female. Later on, I ended up riding this smaller female elephant. I like to think that she liked me so she came back for the walking part. Haha The commands we learned:
Lay down – non long
Go – pai
Turn – kuey + kicking the elephants opposite ear to which way you want to turn
Stop - how
Learning to ride was a bit harder to do. Right after learning the commands, we were instructed to ride one of the 2 elephants using the commands. One by one we took turns riding the elephant and going around the practice area with the Mahouts. Super freaking cool.
Lunch was pad thai, pineapples and this soup thing. It was good.

Then it was time to ride bareback and barefoot. It was so much better riding barefoot. I ended up being the ONLY one riding solo. I rode the 5 year old and she was so cute and playful! All throughout the walk she would try to mess with the elephant in front of us. At one point she ended up sucking dirt in her trunk and spraying it to the elephant behind us. Haha Her Mahout was really cool and chill too. I think we were the chilliest group since I felt like I was Mowgli from the Jungle Book and I wasn’t freaking out or hunched over like the others haha!
We walked around the forest area and ended up at the watering hole where we got off. Riding the elephants uphill was more difficult than going downhill. When we got off the elephants, I thought I had peed myself because my pants felt damp. Aof joked earlier that it was ok to pee on the elephant but no way did I do that. Turns out everyone was checking their pants. Haha! Guess we were sweating a lot while we were riding. It wasn’t elephant sweat because elephants sweat through their toenails…At the watering hole the elephants were just lazing in the water. Some laid there, some just submerged their bodies. It was nice to watch. We stayed under a hut and my elephant kept trying to get inside. She ended up trying to scratch her butt on one of the poles which made the whole hut shake. Haha! All the while, her Mahout was just lying on his stomach on her back like she was a bed. Couldn’t help but be a bit jealous of their relationship! There were these long concrete blocks that the elephants used to scratch themselves. It was pretty funny to watch. After they were almost dried, we got back on top and started the second walk.


The second walk was the same trail and it ended at a bigger watering hole. During the walk the elephant in front of us probably had enough of my elephant messing with her so she decided to fart. It was pretty funny. My elephant ended up trumpeting. Haha At the watering hole, we got off and grabbed a bucket and scrubber while our elephant and Mahout went in the water. My elephant stayed at the shallowest part and that went up to my stomach! We bathed our elephants and scrubbed them. I could tell the Mahout didn’t want to get wet, he kept moving away from the water every time I splashed the elephant. I also noticed the elephant sucking in water from her trunk. Aof told me earlier that my elephant likes to spray things out of her trunk. So I braced myself. It wasn’t until we had to get out that I felt this huge spray of water. I turn around and I see my elephant and Mahout smiling and laughing! I was being double teamed! So before the elephant could spray me again, I filled the bucket and splashed them both! And then the elephant sprayed me again. And it was just a spraying/splashing warzone that ended in all 3 of us super wet! In the end my Mahout said he was cold. Haha it was so much fun!
We said our thank yous and goodbyes to our elephants and Mahouts. Super sad. I wanted to stay there forever! Headed to the showers/lockers and changed into dry clothes. Got back on the minivan and headed back to the city. When I got back to my hostel, I went in for a massage since my body and hands were still sore.