Elephant Park

All the volunteers
Do I really need to say how amazing this place was? As soon as they INVENT words to describe how incredible and fantastic this place is, I will use those words.
Our daily routine consisted of, getting up listening to the roosters crow, the dogs bark, the birds sing... and the elephnats trumpeting good morning.

Crawl out of our little bamboo hut and fight our way out of our mosquito net. Breakfast.

Then it's off to do whatever needed to be done that day. We shoveled poo into the compost heap off the walkway, dug post holes for a observation deck they were building, fed the cats, dogs, and cows. Then the day tourists get there with two truckloads of ood to be prepared for the elephants. (that takes some time, trust me.. feeding 26 elephants!)

Then while the elephants were off enjoying a tummy full of fruit we had our lunch. Then it's down to the lake for some cool water and bathing the elephants. (SO MUCH FUN to watch the babies play in the water and the big 'uns roll around on their back kicking up their feet like dogs rolling in dirt) The pics below is Hope and Jungle Boy wrestling in the water.

After their bath was the obligatory scratching session bellies, ankles, you name it they would either rub it against a tree or pick up big sticks and use it to scratch themselves and it's time to let the big guys go back to roaming around the park and eating greens.

This is Bu Pha, they called him my Thai boyfriend. He followed me around like a puppy all week long.

He wouldn't let any of the boys walk near me, he would always push his way in between. (Trust me when a 4000 pund elephant wants to walk in between you, you let him) The workers there said they had never seen him take to someone like that. It was hard to leave him.

It wasn't, however, hard to leave this guy...

the bane of my Elephant park existence. I found one or two of these in my room EVERYDAY! UGH! I even went to put a bucket of water on my head in the shower and luckily I looked because there was one of these floating in the water! I was NOT sorry to leave those behind!

Well, we are resting in Chiang Mai for a couple days, seeing if we want to do a White Water rafting trip or not and then we are off to Laos!