November 16- Elephant Training Camp

Like many of our days in Thailand, we were pretty busy on the 16th. I am going to divide the day into a few different postings to make it a little easier. ;)

The Elephant Training Camp was a stop we knew we wanted to make before we got to Thailand. After breakfast we packed up a little covered pick up truck (with all the kids tossed in the back on benches) and headed on our way. The kids had a blast singing hymns and laughing on the way there and the adults very much enjoyed the muffling the separate cab offered. When we got there, a few locals were outside working. When they saw the Farang (Thai term for foreigner or westerner) they came over to the truck to greet us just in time for the back to be opened and as the little blonde farang children poured out, the Thais laughs and oohing and ahhing were at least as excited over them as we were about the elephants!

The elephants were just finishing their breakfast too! You can see the differences between Asian and African Elephants here. The ears of the Asian elephant are much smaller and they have those bumps on the tops of their heads.

Only the males have these large tusks.

These elephants also had a lot of red areas on their skin that I've never noticed on any other Elephants I've seen. We were all mesmerized by the feel of their skin. It's not what I would have expected. It was very warm, thick and kind of hairy.

Even though they just finished their breakfasts, they were still in the mood for some sugar cane!

Laura and I laughing after an elephant tried to steal my camera... making for a picture that was funny, but one I'll keep for myself. ;)

I love their eyes. They definitely are thinking animals!

And those eyelashes! Looks like it would be hard to see through them.

5 of the kids decided they wanted a ride on the elephants, so they climbed up on this deck and the elephants pulled right up to them.

They hopped over into the baskets on the backs of the elephants and rode off into the jungle.

Sweet little Madeline was the only one who chose to stay back with Ryan, Laura and I.

We got some extra sugar cane for her to feed while we waited for the rest to come back. At first she wasn't convinced it was something she wanted to do.

But it didn't take too long before it just looked like too much fun and she gave in.

The Training Camp is lots of fun for visitors, but they actually train the elephants to work here. This one had chains on its feet and was pulling something behind. We heard the noises of some trees being pushed over, but couldn't see it from where we were.

After about 15 minutes, they popped back out of the jungle where we could see them.

I think they were pretty happy!

This was a great experience and certainly set us up well for the Elephant Round Up in Surin that we attended later in the week.