A "Typical" Day

You can't really call any of our days at the Elephant Nature Park “typical.” But as far as days living with elephants go, a typical one might be something like this.

You wake up pretty early because you're out in the middle of nowhere. If you open the window to your raised wooden hut, you'll see a family of elephants in their shelter just outside, taking a morning dirt bath. As you head toward the center of camp, you'll see other elephant families waking up in the shade, chewing on sugarcane. Breakfast is the first huge buffet of the day, with eggs and toast as well at Thai-style breakfast, rice soup with pork and noodles with spicy greens.

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After breakfast, you'll split up for morning chores, which could be cutting banana trees, planting corn, or the even-popular scooping of elephant poop. Then comes the best time of day, when you can spend time with the elephants. Raised bamboo structures over the field allow you to watch the elephants up-close. Their mahouts, and the ENP staff, are on hand to answer any questions and introduce you to their elephants. Or you can catch a nap in the sun with one of the park's many dogs, who've grown uncharacteristically fond of bananas.

If you're looking to work, there is elephant lunch to be prepared, and that's a LOT of food. Heaps of squash taller than you, trucks full of corn and bananas. There are usually fences that need mending or other jobs around the park too.

After your own delicious buffet lunch of Thai favorites (and sometimes French fries if we ask real nice), you'll feed the elephants their lunch. Over a few days, one of the elephants may get to know you and come running to you at feeding time.

Then we take the elephants down to the river to wash up and cool off. You can get right in the river with them and see them eye to eye. It's really amazing to feel their ears and feet, let their trunks curl around your fingers.

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Once they've washed in the river, the elephants head to the field to cover themselves in dirt to keep off the sun and bugs. Or, they head to the mud pit to play. Once again, you're right there. Watching them interact, just like they would in the wild, playing pranks and lounging around, is a bit surreal.

In the afternoon there is usually a project to do, such as helping with a new building or spending a few hours on a nearby farm.

Before dinner, we have time as a group to get to know each other and set ourselves up for the weeks ahead. Dinner at the Elephant Nature Park is spectacular. Sitting cross-legged on the floor around long tables in the raised dining hall, you can hear monkeys and birds calling and see the elephants settling down across the fields below. They move in packs, slowly, across the grass, until it grows to dark to see their huge shadows.

Some days after dinner will be all yours to explore the park or hang out. Other days, you'll spend a little time learning about what has happened to elephants in Thailand and what's being done to rescue them. One evening, Lek, the founder of the park, will come to speak with us about her story as a leader in conservation. Her amazing journey from a small tribal village nearby to becoming an international spokesperson who has met with everyone from Angelina Jolie to Hillary Clinton is inspiring to say the least.