One of the things we wanted to do in Thailand was to get closer to some elephants. After a bit of research on ethical elephant parks we chose to do an overnight stay at Elephant Rescue Park just outside of Chang Mai.

It’s hard to say exactly what determines “ethical” – while everyone agrees that riding elephants is a no, some claim that zero interaction should be allowed, others say some is ok. The park we went to had rescued elephants (from circuses or farm work for example), rather than wild elephants. Some of them had been badly treated in the past and none were going to be suitable for going back into the wild. Because of this, we were ok with interacting with them (e.g. feeding, bathing) but I realise that some folks wouldn’t be.

And, to add to the fun, there are some very similarly named elephant parks, so just because you think you have chosen an ethical one, you may end up at a different park 😬 We avoided that scam but only because I doubled checked things carefully!

We started with getting into our bright red park uniforms (good to protect your clothes from elephant slobber) and boots. We made some elephant food from bananas, seeds, salt and dried fruit and fed them to a couple of enthusiastic elephants.

Now as you might imagine elephants eat a LOT (like 150kgs a day for a small adult) and that means a lot of bananas (& other vegetation too). The park we went to sources some of its food from the local farmers as well as its own property.

We did a walk with the elephants (and a few mosquitoes) around the property. Amazing to stroll with them and see them so close. It does mean looking at their butts a bit though 🤣

Sometimes their mahouts help them by getting a tasty tree branch down, but I do think that a lot of the mahouts’ job seems to be more like an extra patient parent – lots of waiting about, feeding, and washing.

We got to help with bathing as well, which the kids opted out of as it was a bit cold. (Yes, it was actually quite cool!) And you did get wet and your wellies full of water but there’s a great technique to empty them 🐕

The two day tour meant we got to see the park in the evening, without the day tour folks. There were only two cabins, so it was just us and the staff overnight. While it wasn’t ever really busy and we didn’t do any extra activities, it was still nice to have a more peaceful time and not feel rushed. The food was pretty good too!

On the way back to Chang Mai, we stopped at the “sticky waterfall” which is a mineral waterfall that makes it much easier than you’d expect to climb up it. There are still some slippery parts though and they ropes in places to help. It was a pretty fun & unique thing to do 👍

We had recently climbed up and down a waterfall in Laos which was not at all sticky and I can guarantee that this was A LOT easier than that one!