ELEPHANTS!!!!!!!!!!!

This will be mainly a picture blog - don't need to say much other than the reason we went here.  Elephants are still heavily used in the tourist, entertainment and logging trade.  There used to be 10's of thousands of elephants in Thailand and now there are only a couple of thousand. 

They are horribly abused in order to be trained for riding, circus performing and logging.  This sanctuary, and others like it, buy the elephants out of their captivity and give them a place to recuperate, feel loved and live out their days in happiness. 

Each elephant has a kamut (elephant handler).  These handlers work only with one elephant so they get to know them and their personality quite well.  Their job is to make sure the herd gets along, doesn't get scared and that they feel loved,.  I often saw the kamuts hugging the elephants trunks to soothe them.  It was super sweet. 

There are 6 elephants at the Maerim Elephant Sanctuary.  The oldest and newest is my favorite.  She was rescued 6 months ago from the logging industry.  She still hasn't integrated into the elephant family and is often left alone.

Three of the elephants came from the riding parks - where tourist pay money to ride them.  It sounds fun, but think about the abuse the elephant endures to be trained - with big huge metal hooks that break into their skin if they don't do what they're supposed to do.  Think twice before ever riding an elephant.  Plus, they're big, but they're backs are weak - it's bad for them to have "saddles" on.  I had no idea until I started researching.

The last two elephants came from the circus.  Yep, it's dumbo and his mom. :(

We had a chance to walk with them, feed them, love on them, swim in the mud pit to rub mud all over them and then swim in the river to wash them off.  They love it and so did we! It was our chance to show them there are good humans too.