Updated from
http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/281.html
Elephants have had a long history in Thailand, and not exactly a happy one. From very early on, they were captured and domesticated for military and logging use. But in 1989, due to rampant deforestation, the Thai government banned logging, which put many of the elephants out of a job. This coincided with the rise of tourism in the country, so these unemployed elephants were retasked and put to work in camps as entertainment.
Neda has done a lot of research into this because this is something we both wanted to see while we were here. We discovered that elephants in these camps are horribly tortured to break their spirit in order for them to be obedient enough to train. Baby elephants are taken from their mothers at birth and are confined to a tight space, like a cage or hole, so they cannot move. They are then beaten with clubs, sticks and bull-hooks, deprived of food and sleep until they become broken. Then they are trained to allow people to ride them and perform acts which are unnatural to them ie. circus tricks like painting.
Everyone wants to ride elephants, thinking that they are large creatures and they should be able to bear the weight. After all we break horses and ride them, right? This is only partially true, though. Mahouts (elephant trainers) ride their elephants on their neck where there is less strain. But the elephant in the tourist work camps are forced to carry tourists in a saddle right on their back, which was never meant to bear that much weight. This puts considerable strain on their spine and causes irreversible damage over time.
"How do I make myself irresistible to elephants?"
We've decided to visit a rescue centre called Elephant Jungle Sanctuary. Their mission is to purchase elephants from the surrounding tourist work camps and provide a safe place to live out their days. Their number one rule is "no riding elephants". We like this a lot better, despite knowing that these are "broken-in" elephants that have been mistreated in a past life, that we are not causing further harm to them.
The most popular elephant at the Sanctuary is baby Ni-Na. She's only three years old. Neda fell in love with her
Ni-Na's mother died so she was being looked after by her aunt. She worked at two tourist camps before being rescued by the Sanctuary. There were five elephants at the location we were at. Elephant Jungle Sanctuary owns three locations with about 17 elephants in total.
