We were picked up this morning and taken 1 hour out of Chaing Mai to Woodys Elephant Camp. Here we got to meet, feed, ride, wash and swim with elephants!!
First we were taught all about elephants - what they need, how much they eat and what it takes to look after them. We were then taught some Thai commands to instruct the elephants we were with.
We learnt: (these aren't spelt correctly! I wrote down what I could hear, so I could pronounce them correctly)
Yowkaa - leg up
Soown - higher
Uute - stop
Qar - turn right
Sye - turn left
Bye - forward
Tooy - backwards
Bow - slow down
Bon soon - open mouth
It was then time to feed the elephants so they could get to know us. Elephants have a very good sense of smell!!
Then we practiced getting on and off an elephant by saying yowkaa and standing on it's leg - we would then say soown until we were high enough to jump over.
Getting to know the elephants!
Some of the elephants ...
After lunch we took the elephants for a walk.
Then we went down to the river where we scrubbed and washed the elephants.
Then we got to go swimming with them!! 
It was an amazing experience!! The elephants are right under the water and we were on their back!!
At the time we were very scared riding the elephants - but the trainers stayed with us all the time making sure we were safe. Looking back now it was an incredible experience! And we were very lucky to spend the day with these amazing animals!
was it cold in the water
ReplyDeleteNo - luckily the water was nice and warm!
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