Elephant Day in Chiang Mai

Today we got to be "owners for a day" of some great elephants outside of Chiang Mai at Patara Elephant Farm. It was about 45 minutes south of Chiang Mai, next to a beautiful banana plantation. Patara elephant farm was the most expensive and most highly recommended activity that we both decided was a must, so coming in it was hard to not have high expectations. So, after now doing it, I can honestly say I have never done an activity with animals or any kind of thing like this before in my life (and might never do something so amazing with animals again) as wonderful as this. Right away you realize that this isn't some zoo, it isn't some organization out there to get your money but rather this is a small family owned farm that lives to help rebuild elephant numbers in their native land. Pat, the owner gave his little speech at the beginning that was the most believable and real speech about how the environment and how people need to live together and learn from one another that I have ever heard before. So all you green folks out there, you have someone to live up too, but nevertheless, I really understood what he meant by how much elephants in Thailand are in need of help in order to slow the death rate and increase the birth rate. He introduced us to his motto, "extinction is forever" and taught us many things about elephants. Soon after his speech we went right to the elephants; we had to gain their trust and approval, that was pretty easy with about 15 pounds of bananas and sugar cane and a lot of pats to the face and some "De-De's" which means (more or less) "good boy." My elephant was a 12 year old female whose name was Taptow. She was pretty big, maybe 10 feet tall. She was right next to Kristen's little hell-bent male named Gulla-sue. He was awesome. Totally going crazy and was after everything. Soon after feeding him we went to the river, we dove right in and washed the elephants for about 20 or 30 minutes. They totally let us brush and wash em without any hesitation. Except Kristens elephant was all over the place, and wouldn't sit down in the water like mine but would rather lie on its side and completely submerse itself and kick around and spray everyone--i thought it was the cutest and most awesome thing int he world. Kristen, maybe not so much. (Kristen's sidenote: They taught us how to tell the elephant's mood, (ears and tail flapping= happy, ears straight out not moving= not happy.) When we first approached our elephants we had to speak their name and then say jai to see if they responded. I said, "gulla-sue jai?" while holding out bananas, and he gave a small trumpet and ate everything out of my hand. I patted him next to his eyes and said "di-di." Our relationship was cemented with bananas and sugarcane. Gulla-sue is only six years old, one of the youngest ones, and he was non-stop-- much like David. When I was bathing him in the river (throwing water on him and brushing dirt/leaves off his back) he would spray me and everyone around us with water. Then when I was done washing he would immediately roll over into some more mud he found : )
Soon after washing we learned how to get on the elephant bare-back and I got up my elephant by her lifting her leg and using it as my stepping stool, I pushed myself up. We rode them through this AWESOME jungle trail that was out of somekind movie. The elephants ate anything they could find and we had to use our feet against the back of their ears as a way to guide them, and words to reinforce our feet movements. Some word included: "pai" which means go or move, "hao" which means stop (we rarely had to use that), and "yanna" which means don't ((which Kristen had to use all the time because her elephant loved to wander off the trail and rub up on trees and eat everything). We went up and down these steep dirt paths that were set forth by footprints from previous elephants that was very rough. That was maybe an hour or so before getting towards a small pond and stream that we would enjoy a small lunch. Lunch was served on huge leaves and they had all kinds of rice paddies that were served with, of all things, fried chicken. I ate some pretty great rice treats that were native to Thailand and cooked in the villages nearby. While we were eating, the elephants roamed around freely, played and went into the water. After lunch, we were invited to swim with them, only myself and an Aussie girl went in. I never have swam with an elephant before. They pretty much just completely submerge themselves and kick around. I stood on em, moved around on em, played with em and just totally enjoyed the time I had with em while they were in the water. I thought it was funny nobody else was like, sure, why wouldn't i get in. But I sure had a great time.
After lunch and a swim we rode back to camp, took another break, and then Kristen and I rode together down a stream and through the rice fields. It was beautiful. Our huge elephant (Dodo) took us through some amazing scenery as Kristen's feet were on his forehead and I was holding on to her (as her "seatbelt"). Talk about an awesome ride. We enjoyed it very much as our crazy little Thai guide moved us along. At the end of the ride, our elephant gave Kristen a "kiss." She held her arms out as the elephant made a sucking sound and basically blew saliva and dirt all over her arms, it was super funny. We finished up, and we were able to feed all the elephants one last time. I went through 15 elephants and about 50 bananas in about a minute. Trunk after trunk moved towards me as they each wanted their own trunkful of bananas. Like I said, one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Makes the wild animal park and all other zoos seem, well, kinda uneventful. But don't worry mom, we're still totally stoked for the passes you got us!!!