Three years ago when I was travelling through Southeast Asia, I made a point that I would have an elephant experience. They had always been my favourite animal — intelligent, majestic, and so much more in tune with their emotions than we can comprehend — and yet I had never actually seen one outside of a zoo. I had been trampled by a horse (another story) and had hugged a cheetah, but I had never spent time with an elephant.
So as I made my way through Thailand, I kept an eye out for elephant sanctuaries. And let me tell you, they aren’t hard to find. There’s brochures at every guest house, local salespeople trying to get you to come to their camp, and mahouts everywhere offering elephant rides. To the first-time traveller, finding elephants is easy. What isn’t easy, is finding the elephant sanctuaries that don’t ignore that second word: sanctuary.
In Thailand, Mahouts are the keepers of elephants. They often use their animals in the tourism industry for rides and shows to help the mahouts earn an (extremely low) income, and are often controlled with the use of bull hooks and chains. While we cannot entirely blame these people (who many of which don’t have other employment options and aren’t even properly trained), it is useful to note the conditions that these elephants are kept in. The sad truth is, you can ask a lot of people how the elephants are actually treated, and all of them will tell you that they’re well treated, even when they’re not.
I made such a mistake my first time in Thailand, and it was a shocking realization that made me feel both sorry for the animals and ashamed for having contributed to their pain. I had booked it in Bangkok, at a time when a tuk tuk driver took me to a local travel booking agency instead of to the market that I’d requested. It’s a common tactic in the city, and being a foreigner who felt pressured and unfamiliar with my surroundings, I bought a small package. Among other things, it included an elephant ride.
As the van pulled up to the loading area where the elephants were, I felt genuinely excited. I timidly approached a smaller female elephant and stroked her trunk and side, trying to connect on a level that, realistically speaking, I knew I could never reach. The elephants had their saddles on and were chained to a fence, but were in the shade and eating leaves so I didn’t think too much of their possible discomfort. What I didn’t realize, was that these animals were giving back-to-back rides to different tourist groups all day long, and only had short breaks to eat very little food in between.
-
- Elephant tourism
When it came time to ride, myself and two other travellers (four people, including the mahout) were loaded onto the back of a particularly huge male elephant. It was actually scarier than I had anticipated, being that high off the ground, and the uneven trail caused the elephant to wobble from side to side as his weight shifted. The result? My sweaty ass sliding out of the saddle like nobody’s business. I was clutching the handles for dear life trying not to fall off, and could hardly enjoy the ride as it was.
Then the elephant did something unexpected. He must have been starving, because he went off the trail into the bushes and tried to eat. We were all caught off guard and the mahout reacted angrily, driving the bull hook into the side of the elephant’s head repeatedly, with such force that it caused the other three of us to shout out for him to stop. I was scared about falling off and possibly being trampled, yes, but in that moment I actually felt that the bull hook could only make things worse.
I was lucky that was not the case, and that the elephant retreated back to the path, but I wish I hadn’t felt that way. I had actively participated — and paid money into — animal tourism. I had added another 135 pounds to that elephant’s back, and because of me, a paying customer, the mahout hit him when he simply wanted to eat. I shouldn’t have felt satisfied with the relief of my own safety — I should have fought for the elephant’s safety, too.
So it begs the question — how on earth do you choose which sanctuary to visit? Firstly, read what the brochure and website advertises. If elephant riding is at all included, stay away. True elephant rehabilitation centres will be helping the animals recover from tourism like this, and will not allow riding of any kind (even without a saddle). Other performances like painting or posing are also red flags to be aware of.
Secondly, do your research. Don’t just trust the website, as a lot of them will lie to you. Read reviews instead. What other travellers have to say about it will tell you a lot, and will hopefully lead you to the right place.
Eventually, I did find a sanctuary that truly helped elephants to rehabilitate. I spent an entire day there, learning about the animals and their habits, and taking an elephant for a walk down a trail as I fed her fresh fruit. It was an incredible experience, having her trunk greedily prompt my hands to reach into the bucket faster than I could keep up with. She was happy, and so was I. It hadn’t undone what I had inflicted onto that other elephant, and for all I know he could still be there now, three years later. It did help me to gain a lot of insight, though, and I want to share that with others looking to make the right choice.
If you’d like to ask questions about specific elephant sanctuaries or would like for me to share some trustworthy centres with you, please let me know in the comments! I’d love for your elephant experience to be a positive one, and for these elephants to be supported and receiving the kindness they deserve.
