Review of Elephant Jungle Sanctuary, Chiang Mai

I thought I’d share my experience and thoughts on Chaing Mai’s popular elephant sanctuary experience, Elephant Jungle Sanctuary, to help other people with their decision making!

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A bit about the company…

Elephant Jungle Sanctuary pride themselves on being an ethical and sustainable eco-tourism project which provides as many {often rescued} elephants with the good treatment that they deserve, as well as teaching people from around the world about the correct elephant care.

This sanctuary opened in 2014 and has 5 elephant ‘camps’ which are home to roughly 30 elephants, most of which had been formerly mistreated and are now free to enjoy their lives.

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Searching for an ethical sanctuary…

I arrived in Chiang Mai in November 2016 with a trip to an elephant sanctuary high on my to-do list.

Like many other people I was adamant that I would stay away from an excursion that involved any mistreatment of elephants.

There are many different companies to choose from in Chiang Mai and many had elephant riding on their schedule – I still don’t understand why anyone would think this a good idea!

After a little research into the available trips I ended up booking with Elephant Jungle Sanctuary which doesn’t involve riding, and had also been recommended by a friend. At £40 each it’s pretty pricey, but you’d probably expect to pay a bit more than your average excursion to spend half a day with elephants.

How our day went…

This experience was pretty amazing.

Our day started by being picked up bright and early at 6:30am to be taken around 2 hours to Elephant Jungle Sanctuary’s camp 5.

Excitement building…

On our arrival the group immediately saw the 5 elephants, including an extremely cute baby, that we’d get to meet soon.

We were given traditional mahout clothing to wear and had an information session to learn about the mistreatment of elephants and  their history in Thailand, as well as how to behave around them, before getting hold of bananas and sugar cane to meet and feed the elephants.

This was a lot of fun and it was amazing to be up so close to these giants {especially the baby who was really cute}. We had a cheeky teenage elephant in the group which provided a lot of laughs as he stormed around the area in an attempt to eat all of the bananas for himself, often pushing the others out of the way.

After a little more feeding & getting to know the elephants, we got down into our swimwear to give the elephants a mud ‘spa’. This took us to a couple of mud pools where 2 willing elephants had been chosen to get a massage by us.

This part of the experience was kind of gross. A bunch of people got stuck in straight away, whereas a few stood on the side and refused to get involved because it was pretty much a bacteria breeding ground – I think the moment that topped it off for them was when both elephants pee’d and pooped into the mud bath we were expected to stand in. I was a little reluctant to get in too, but was soon covered in the mud/poop mixture thanks to Joe. One of the elephants had decided he didn’t want to take part and was allowed to leave without the mahouts making him stay, which was a definite positive as I would have felt very uncomfortable if the elephants were forced to take part.

To wash off the mud we all headed down to the river with the elephants and cleaned ourselves and the nellies. This part of the morning was probably the best so I wish it had lasted a little longer! We were each handed a bucket to help to wash the elephants {and ourselves}, which I thoroughly enjoyed – and the elephants appeared to too.

Then it was goodbye to the elephants and we walked to a beautiful nearby waterfall where we got to enjoy jumping in.

The morning ended with a really yummy buffet lunch which included rice, curry, watermelon & biscuits, before being taken back to our hostels for around 12 midday.

On top of this, we were each given a colourful bag and a new mahout top to take away with us as souvenirs to remember our morning with the Elephants – a really nice touch!

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Final thoughts…

The day was pretty amazing & being up close to these beautiful creatures was an amazing experience.

But the morning had a couple of negatives.

The first was that our camp felt overcrowded. There were around 25 people taking part, which was a few too many. Some of the elephants were rescued from institutions that mistreated them {riding, forcing them to do tricks, etc.} for tourism, and although I’m no scientist, I feel like the amount of people constantly surrounding the elephants for a couple of hours could have potentially been a bit overwhelming for them, especially considering their upbringing.

It also meant that we didn’t get the quality time with the elephants that we hoped for, as there were a lot of other people to take their turn {our British good manners set us back a little here…}.

None of the activities seemed to put the elephants through any stress or harm and it was clear to see that the elephants were enjoying the activities. However my second negative made me a little uncomfortable. The elephants had bells around their necks, I assume so that they don’t creep up on people without them noticing {as they could definitely do some damage if they stepped on your toe}. But I noticed that one or two of the elephants also had a stick studded with nails next to the bell – it really didn’t look like the friendliest accessory and I have struggled to figure out exactly what it was for, but I can’t imagine that it’s a good thing. You can kind of see it in the photo below –

{If anyone does happen to know what this is for, please let me know!}

This definitely made me realise that although this sanctuary {along with all of the others in Thailand} is a huge step in the right direction away from elephant riding & preaches the correct treatment of its inhabitants, at the end of the day these elephants do still become a tourist attraction.

So although we really did have a great morning, I would say to make sure you do your research online to be 100% sure of what your excursion will include – and definitely make sure it doesn’t include any riding!

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You can find out more about Elephant Jungle Sanctuary here.

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Here’s a few photos from our day…

I hope you enjoy my discoveries ♡