On the drive to the ENP, our guide, Em, told us a bit about the park and she showed us a video. She said the elephants here are uncomfortable around humans because they were abused by them in the past. The video was about the history of elephants in Thailand and why the park was set up. It also gave us some rules about interacting with the elephants. In 1989 Thailand made logging illegal. This was good for the wild elephants, but very bad for the captive ones because their owners went out of business, and it is very hard to take care of an elephant with no money. Many elephants ended up begging for food in the concrete jungle. The only way some owners could afford the elephants was to use them as tourist attractions. With little food, dirty water, and no elephant friends, this is a very depressing life for elephants. At the ENP, they try to rescue these elephants by buying them from their owners, so they can have a better life there. The ENP is concerned with conservation of wild elephants and the treatment of the captive ones. The video also told us we were not supposed to stand behind the elephants, or touch the elephants, because they might get upset.

As we entered the park, we saw lots of dogs. This park also rescues dogs and cats from the streets of Chiang Mai, to live among the people and elephants. I saw lots of dogs walking right next to the huge elephants. The dogs and the elephants did not seem to mind at all! Elephants are very friendly creatures, they will be your friend, and be so gentle, despite their massive size.

The place where we observed the elephants was a huge platform made of of wood covered with a roof and supported by huge pillars. It was high enough so that the elephants could walk under the platform, right under your feet. I thought that was very cool. Em told our group to sit down at a picnic table, and she once again went over all the rules about the elephants. She then told us a very important one, do not step over the yellow line on the edge of the platform. There were fences to stop us from falling, but the elephants don't want to be to close with us. 

She then told us we were going to feed the elephants, although these elephants ate differently than the elephants of the previous elephant parks I went to. These ones did not eat sugar cane. A lot of elephants here are super old, and have lost all of their teeth. In the wild an elephant would die with no teeth, because they would not be able to eat. Here, they make special foods for the old elephants. Tamarind is these elephants’ favorite food, and it is like a natural medicine for them. One of the foods they give them is cooked pumpkin flesh. At the park there is a whole room filled with pumpkins. The pumpkin flesh is soft and filling. The elephants with teeth ate lots of watermelon. If I was an elephant I think I’d like it, because it would keep me hydrated. The elephants we fed were all moms and babies, and these elephants seemed a bit more plump than at the other sanctuaries, maybe because their bodies were not fit for exercise.

After feeding the elephants, we took a little walk around. Em showed us some of the places where they kept all the food. In one room, they must have had 2,000 bananas. Now it was time to go see some of the other elephants. My mom and I noticed that in the distance there was an elephant all alone, and her leg looked as if it was dislocated very badly. We asked Em why she could not be with the elephants, and she said she was a bit mad. Apparently she kept whacking all of the other elephants with her trunk. 

There were a couple different groups of elephants, some with three elephants, some with ten. One of the groups contained of a mom, an older daughter, and a baby boy around two years old. The mom and the older daughter were having a bit of a fight. The daughter would keep reaching in to her mom’s mouth, and try to get the hay out. Whenever she did this, the mom would slap her on the head with her trunk. The baby boy stood there, eating grass calmly. He had a huge left foot, all swollen and cracked. I asked Em why and she said that he stepped in a trap in the jungle, and it was stuck on his foot for a long time. I asked her if it would stop swelling, and Em replied no. 

Another group of elephants, a slightly larger one, had two very special elephants, with very sad pasts. Both of the elephants stepped on a landmine at the same time. One of the elephants had the front of its right back foot blown off, and the other one the back of its left back foot blown off. This is a very common thing with elephants in the jungle on the border with Myanmar, an area with a lot of fighting. A whole leg can be blown off depending on the size of the bomb. A lot of the elephants here had leg injuries.

After looking at all the groups, and hearing tragic stories from Em, we went to the elephant hospital. Around the back there were some diagrams of elephants body parts. Em asked us if we knew the difference between African and Asian elephants. Here is what I answered. 

We also saw some elephant teeth at the elephant hospital. They were huge! About as big as my hand. In its mouth, an elephant looks as if it only has four teeth, but elephants have 26 teeth, 24 of them in their mouths (their tusks are incisors). They have six sets of teeth. That means after their first set falls out, another grows back five more times. When an elephant loses all of its teeth, or as the last set begins to break down, it becomes very difficult to chew and digest food. This is why at ENP they give the older elephants pumpkin flesh.

We then headed to the tables to eat some lunch. It was a full Thai Buffet, entirely vegetarian. I got some Thai noodles, spring rolls, and salad. It was very tasty. The elephants enjoyed a nice snack of watermelon from another group who had arrived. After lunch, we took one more walk around to see the elephants. Just looking at all the animals, not petting them, or riding them. Just watching them made me realize how truly beautiful these animals are.

The next part was very sad. Em asked us all to come to the theater, where we watched a video. She told us this video is a bit disturbing, and so some people decided to leave. I stayed, because I want to know everything I can about elephants. The video was about the treatment of elephants in Thailand. In the video, they showed us how lots of places train their elephants to work for them. They use a process called the “phajaan,” which literally means “breaking the spirit.” This process usually takes place when the elephants are very young. This process breaks the elephant’s spirit so that the elephant will be scared into doing what their owner says. The young elephants are put into a small pen and beaten with sharp bull hooks, which look like scythes but with a tiny, but very sharp, blade. The people who do the phajaan make large gashes into the elephant’s hide and beat them for hours on end. The elephants are tied up by the neck and feet to the ground, with constant thrashing. This process is used on both male and female elephants, but males are much more disobedient, which is why they get beaten, long, harder, and in an even more cruel way. 

The other part of the film was more uplifting. The founder of the Elephant Nature Park, is named Lek, and she absolutely adores elephants. Even more than I do. In the film, she was the one who told us about the phajaan, and she often watched it happen in real life in the villages. She said that we need to treat elephants with more respect, because they are so huge to Thailand's culture. Her grandfather was a shaman, and she feels like she has a spiritual connection with the elephants. Her love for them started in the village, when she rescued a very sick elephant who had lost his mother. The elephant followed her around everywhere, and she helped him get over his depression. She stayed up days and nights on end, with the baby elephant, and one night she could not take it anymore, and she fell asleep. But in her sleep, she felt the baby’s soft trunk on her cheek, and then she truly fell in love with elephants. Lek also created a sanctuary in the hills for elephants, called Elephant Heaven. She cares so much about elephants, and she says she will help the elephants until she dies. She wants people to understand the horrible things that happen to elephants, and understand that we can still have elephants work with and be with us, and still have the elephants happy.

After the film, we walked out to wash the elephants in the river. I did this with Puh the elephant at the Patara Elephant Farm, but we were not scrubbing the elephants here. We were just splashing them with water. While we were walking, a huge herd of water buffalo came walking by. I asked Em where they came from, and she said they rescued them from a slaughterhouse. She also said that for the 100 buffalo they had, they all only had one buffalo “mahout”, but each elephant needed a mahout for themselves, and some even needed two. We laughed. We laughed a lot that day.

Bathing the elephants was so fun. Em told us not to get water in the elephants’ eyes, because it could give the elephant eye infections. Every time I splashed the elephant, her body unstiffened, relieved from the hot sun. People on the other side of the elephant would throw the water too far, and it would splash me. 

The last thing we did at the park was say goodbye to the people and the elephants we had met. They let my mom and me sit next to one of elephants and get our photo taken. We were not allowed to touch the elephants, but the elephant looked so happy, I didn't even need to. And even though leaving the park was sad, because I would not be able to see elephants for a while, I knew I would be back to all three of the sanctuaries again. Next year I am going to be homeschooled, and part of what my mom wants to do is visit lots of wildlife sanctuaries in Southeast Asia to learn about animals, especially elephants. Also, we just found out there is an elephant sanctuary in Cambodia about 200 miles away from where we live, called the Mondulkiri Elephant Sanctuary, and we are going there really soon. I will definitely write about that. I think any of you out there would love to be with these elephants in Thailand. They are so gentle, loving, and are some of the best creations of nature I have met.

When we got back from the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang, we checked into a new hotel. But the very next day my mom and I woke up bright and early. We enjoyed a nice breakfast of tea and fruit while we waited for a van to pick us up. When the van arrived, I saw that printed on the side was a logo that said Patara Elephant Farm. Patara Elephant Farm is a place where you go to be an elephant caretaker for a day. You take care of and bond with the elephant you are assigned.

After we left Chiang Mai, the drive became very scenic. We headed into the mountains. We drove by lush forest and villages. We also passed by something quite interesting. When I was around 2 1/2, our family traveled to Thailand and stayed in a guesthouse in these hills. There we met a little yappy white dog named Rat. Now we passed by this very same guesthouse. I would not be surprised if Rat was still alive today. Down the road from the guesthouse was a family who owned two elephants, a mom and her baby. We would visit them every day. On the day we had to leave, we went to say goodbye to them, but then I refused to get into the taxi to go to the airport, because I wanted to stay with the elephants. We passed by that same place on the drive to Patara, and I could sense the elephants were near. Driving into Patara was magical. I saw elephants roaming around a field and on the hillsides. Mahouts were riding them bareback. We kept driving and we saw more elephants. We got out of the van, and standing before me were six elephants, three of them moms, three of them babies. We met our guide, who was a Karen man named Gao. The Karen people are a hill tribe from this area. Gao first introduced us to the moms and baby elephants. 

The first elephant mom and baby were standing in a little gazebo, eating sugarcane. People sat on the sides of the gazebo and pet the elephants. Gao said that the mom would give us a hug and a kiss, so I volunteered to go first. She came right next to me, lifting her trunk up, and wrapping it around my chest. She then put her wet trunk on my cheek and sucked in. An elephant’s kiss. We all had a good laugh. My mom received the same treatment. Elephant mom and baby number two were very nice, but the baby was very rough. The mahouts called him “Naughty Boy,” because he kept butting people with his hard head, and chased us around. He was truly a naughty boy. 

The last mom and baby stood far away from the gazebo, and this mom was eating sugarcane. Gao told us that we could eat some of her sugarcane, but mom and I were the only ones out of our group who decided to. I did not like the taste of it too much, mostly because it was covered with mud on one side. The elephants did not mind though. This baby was even more playful than the last one. She charged almost everyone she saw, and I had to run away really fast to avoid being knocked over by her. She pulled on my mom’s scarf and tried to teethe on it. I did something that I kind of regret now, but the mahouts asked me to ride on the baby elephant, so I did. I don’t think it hurt her, because I’m only about 31 kg (68 lb), and this elephant was about 150 kg (330 lb). And she might have thought I was just playing with her. It was only for a few seconds, but it was an experience that I will never forget. 

Gao then took us up the hill, where we gave the elephant moms some water. We poured the water into the elephants’ trunk until it was full, and then the elephant sprayed it into her mouth. The babies didn't drink at all, but the mahouts played with them by spraying them with water. The babies ran away trumpeting excitedly. After we gave them some water, the moms and their babies walked down the hills with their mahouts. 

We went to a different gazebo, about 200 feet away from the elephant grounds, and we all sat down. We met one of the owners of Patara, named Pat, and he explained to us all about the farm. He talked to us about the elephant population going down in Thailand, and how this park was dedicated to breeding elephants and raising the population. He said this park is different from the others because instead of wanting to show you the elephants and how cute they are so you can just ride them and take photos, here you really get to learn about them and how to help them. You learn about them by spending time and getting to know them. Patara has 32 elephants, mostly moms and babies. The most important thing the owners have to think about is the elephants’ diet and making sure they have enough food. They grow their own food and they also have to buy food from the villagers and the market. Patara is a non-profit organization, and they don’t get money from the government or corporations. All the money they have is from visitors and their donations. They only take very small groups of visitors because a they want to have more elephants than people at the farm. There were 6 other people in our group.

 While Pat was talking, we saw two elephants on a little hill about 10 feet away. The younger elephant had her head stuck in a tree, and the older one looked at the younger one disapprovingly. Pat told us that the old one was the younger one’s grandmother. He also said when an elephant loses its mom, another female will come in and adopt the young elephant.

 Then we were given Karen mahout ponchos to wear, and we headed down to meet our elephants.

 Gao told us the first thing we had to do when approaching our elephant was give them food. He said if you give them food, they will be your friend your whole life. He asked my mom to demonstrate on her elephant, which was a huge, pregnant female named Mae Khwan. He taught us commands in the Karen language to give to the elephant when feeding. “Boun,” means “open your mouth.” You have to say this very sternly and say the elephants name afterward. “Dee dee,” means “good job,” and you pat them on their head to reward them. When you want the elephant to go forward, you hold their ears and say “Ma,” and tug. The elephant will go where you want it to. 

We were assigned our elephant, but Patara does not just randomly assign your elephant. Instead, it is based on your personality and age. I got a young, fit elephant, who was named Puh. He was a sevenyear-old male elephant, and he had tusks. Most of the other people there were in their twenties on their honeymoon, but my mom and I were the only younger and older people. That’s why my mom got the oldest elephant, and I got the youngest. This was a very cool way of assigning your elephant. My elephant, Puh, obviously loved to eat, because he ate about 11 pounds of bananas and sugar cane, and then I dragged him huge bundle of bamboo leaves, which he very quickly ate. He was a very obedient elephant, so I said “dee dee” a lot. Gao then called us back, and he told us we were going to give the elephants a health check. He said there were several steps to this, and some were a bit gross.

If an elephant is healthy, it needs to be wagging his or her tail, and flapping its ears every few minutes. If this is not happening, the elephant is likely stressed or tired. Puh was neither of those things. He was restless. Item of business number two, see if the elephant got a good night’s sleep. A lot of people think that elephants sleep standing up, but that’s not true. An elephant needs to be sleeping down on the side of its body to be healthy and active. So if there is dust on the elephant’s stomach, ears, and cheeks, then you know it’s had a good night’s sleep.

For the next part of the health check up we had to look at the elephant’s eyes. Elephants often look as if they are crying, but they have no tear ducts whatsoever, and their eyes only produce liquid to clean out dirt. But if you see an elephant with one eye more runny than the other, that means that it probably has an infection. But luckily none of the elephants here had any eye problems. The next thing you need to check is the elephant’s sweat. Elephants, like dogs, pant to reduce body temperature, but there is one place on an elephant's body where they do sweat. Above their toenails. We had to check for sweat above our elephant’s toenails. Puh's were very sweaty, which meant he was healthy. 

After the health check, I washed my hands thoroughly. We then had to clean our elephant’s back of dust. The reason we needed to do this was because of mites. Mites will often get stuck under the folds under an elephant’s skin, so a cleaning is not just brushing the back to get the dirt off. You need to brush really hard to brush off those mites. To do this, we got a bunch of bamboo grass tied together, acting as a huge whacker. To get the elephant to lie down, you say, “Nolo.” You say “nolo.” Puh liked the back cleaning, because for him it was like a back scratch. After the cleaning for mites, I gave the brush to Puh, which he gladly ate. We headed over to a concrete circle, where we gave our elephants a shower. The transformation of elephant color is amazing. When an elephant has nothing on its body, it is grey. Some are light grey, some are dark grey. After a dust or mud bath, they turn brown. But when they get wet, they turn pitch black. Some Asian elephants, unlike African elephants, have pink spots on their forehead, trunk, and ears. I used the hose to wash Puh and get every bit of dirt off. This was pretty much useless, because as soon as he got out he threw dirt on his back and rubbed his body in the mud wallow. But it was time for lunch, so we said bye to the elephants, but we told them we’d be back in an hour.

After lunch, we changed into our bathing suits and headed back to our elephants. We were now going to ride the elephants bareback on their necks, a process that does not hurt the elephant. At Patara they don’t think heavy elephant saddle, or, “howdah,” is good for the elephant, but they have nothing against riding elephants bareback. They said it’s only okay to ride on the neck, because if you ride on the back your legs dangle in the way of the leg joints, making it hard for the elephant to walk. 

Gao told us there were three ways to get on an elephant. For the first way, the elephant raises one foot slightly, you put one foot on the elephant’s foot, the other on the elephant’s leg, you hoist yourself atop the elephant back, and then you scoot up to the neck. This is what I did. The second way is for the elephant to lie down completely, and you get on to the back from there. The third way is the elephant brings his head down, and you step lightly on the upper trunk, and when the elephant lifts its head up, you scoot up to the neck. My mom did it this way, but she got stuck on the way up. My mom was suspended on Mae Khwan’s forehead. She eventually got on the neck, but she was facing backwards, and struggled the whole way around to face forward. When she did, everyone cheered.

Up on the elephant was really high. When I looked down, I felt a bit scared of falling off, but my mom was on an elephant 3 feet taller than mine. Yikes. Gao told us some commands for the elephant when riding. “Pai,” means “go forward.” “How,” was “stop.” You had to say “dee dee” a lot to let the elephant know he was doing a good job. “Janna,” was very important. It means “do not eat that,” because the elephants would constantly eat during the walk, stopping the elephants behind them from moving, and some plants aren't good for them. When we learned all these commands, we said “Pai,” and we were off into the little forest. The elephant ride was about 1 hour. I prefer this to riding in a car any day. The elephants were slow, calm, and made journey so much more interesting. On the ride one of the baby elephants that followed the elders ran around, knocking over small trees and uprooting them like it was nothing. In some places the hillside was very steep, and some trees were hard to squeeze through. The height of the elephant helped me reach up in the trees and get a nice ripe branch of leaves for Puh. At the bottom of the hill, there was a road we had to cross to get to the river. The mahouts directed the traffic, and when the elephants crossed all the cars had to stop. I waved to people in their cars from on top of Puh.

When we got off our elephant, my legs were sore and stiff. We left the elephants with the mahouts for a while, while Gao showed us to the river. A different group was with their elephants, washing them and splashing them, and we watched them take a group photo. While their backs were turned, the elephants sprayed them with water. Now we knew what was to come. I dipped my foot in the water, and it was freezing cold. My mahout and Puh were already in the water like it was nothing. After getting used to the water it was not that cold. My mahout told me to get on Puh’s back and start scrubbing behind his ears. But as soon as I got on his back, he turned over and lay on his side under water, which pulled me neck deep in the water. Puh was very playful in the water, and he would spray me and pull me under water. I washed his head, eyes, tail, and even his tusks. I took some sand and rubbed it up and down his tusks, making them gleam like marble. Being in the water with the elephants was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. And sure enough, the elephants sprayed us with water at the end. 

 It was time for us to leave, but before we left we had a four-minute elephant ride to the van pick up. I thanked my mahout very much, and gave Puh a big hug and kiss. I would miss him, but I’m going to come back next year. Gao gave us a DVD with all the pictures on it. It had been a great experience that we will have again. But our Thai elephant expedition was not over yet. We still had one more sanctuary to go to. As we drove back to Chiang Mai, I saw all of the elephants waving at me, and I saw Puh giving me a huge smile.

The next day after breakfast, we went out to look at some Thai temples. There were more elephant monuments than I’ve ever seen in my life. In Thai culture elephants are very important. It is believed that the Buddha's mom dreamt of a white elephant when she was pregnant with the Buddha, which was a good omen. Also, apparently elephants helped to build the cities of Thailand. They are creatures of good luck and prosperity. There was one monument that was dedicated to elephants. All around the perimeter were statues of elephants.  I spent about 45 minutes sitting sketching it.

The first pen had a mom and her baby, Wassana and Malini. Compared to the other elephants Wassana was a small mother. She was only about 7 feet tall, and she was very dusty. Her baby named Malini was a sweet elephant. She was 1 year and 11 months, the same age as most of the other babies, but she really bonded with us, especially with my mom and me. Malini would reach her trunk out through her pen and kiss my mom’s hand.  

Each of these eight elephants loved food, but some of them were very picky. For starters, the two-month-old only drank milk. The formula was made by the mahouts, since her adoptive mother couldn’t produce enough milk. Most of the elephants loved sugar cane, because it’s like a candy for them. When they bite down on the cane, it makes a huge crunching sound. But because the younger elephants have small or no teeth, it’s hard for them to chew, although greedy Khai Wan loved it. He put the sugar cane under his feet to break off the husk, then sucked the sweet gooey inside. Khai Wan’s mom hated corn, because whenever I handed it to her she threw it on the ground. Khai Wan would then reach his trunk out to grab the discarded corn. He is the greediest elephant I’ve ever met. One time in an attempt to get some food, he stuck his head out though the fence. We thought he was stuck, but his mahout said he did it all the time. When he finally got his head out, it was about ten minutes before he did it again.

On the last day we were there, I gave them one of these elephants their favorite food, sunflower seeds. I asked the mahouts how much these elephants eat, and they said 590 pounds of vegetation a day. They drink 50 gallons a day, and the mahouts give the water in a really cool way. The elephant holds its trunk out and the mahout turns on the hose. Then they pour the water down the elephant’s nostrils, and wait for the elephant to bring its trunk to their mouth and spray. It’s so cool! The mahouts let me do it myself, and when the elephant sprayed the water in its mouth the water sprayed everywhere, including on me.

I really love animals,  especially elephants. I have loved them since I was less than a year old. I enjoy reading about animals, going to places where I can see them, drawing and painting pictures of them, and watching documentaries about them. I visited a sloth sanctuary when we traveled to Costa Rica two years ago.

Last year I was in the Roots and Shoots Club at my school here in Vietnam. We did lots of activities and raised money for Endangered Asian Species Trust (EAST). I did a slide show on elephants and helped to organize a movie night. My dad and I visited the rescue and rehabilitation center for Wildlife At Risk (W.A.R.) that is a few hours’ drive away from Ho Chi Minh City. That’s me holding hands with a gibbon. Unfortunately, most of the animals there are in cages. But W.A.R. and E.A.S.T. are some of the few organizations in Vietnam trying to protect animals. They have a lot of different animal sanctuaries. They have a moon bear sanctuary at Cat Tien National Park. I went there with my class in March. I kept a journal about my visit to Cat Tien. It has drawings of some of the animals. 

I am so happy because this Christmas I am going to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to see elephants. I will visit three different sanctuaries and I also get to go to Patara Elephant Farm, which is a place where you can hang out with rescued elephants all day long. You feed them and play in the water with them. Although I really miss Seattle and all my friends there, the best part
of moving to Vietnam is that I can go to places where I can see animals. I even get to see cool things like blue headed lizards and frogs in our yard. Last week we had three different types of frogs and a toad in our house.

When I grow up I am going to be an artist and an animal conservationist. My dream is to go to Kenya and see wild African elephants. My mom and I are saving up to go there. Right now I’m also writing a graphic novel called Zoa. It’s about a young elephant named Eton who has to go on a quest to save the land of Zoa (which is Latin for animals) from being covered in darkness by his grandfather, who is being used by humans. I also like doing stop motion videos. I have a YouTube channel called LegoElephantStudios.