Elephant sanctuary visit

This was my darkest day away and the first I really felt like I wanted to go home, after a horrible incident at the elephant sanctuary.

I really thought I had done my research into what elephant sanctuary to go to! No riding, no chains, lots of space, feed well and loved. Little did I know until I made a comment on a forum, which I then deleted as I felt stupid that real sanctuarys don’t let you get that close to the elephants where you put yourself in danger. No bathing, either. I think we all forget that these are very large wild animals at the end of the day and many in these sanctuarys are rescused animals, so have not had a great start in life. Incase anyone is interested I was sent this link about real ones to look out got: https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/news/tourists-choosing-elephant-bathing-over-elephant-riding-unaware-cruelty-involved

I’m sure your asking what happened now to make this the worst day of the trip, i’m coming to that. I was picked up from my hotel as planned and taken into the mountains with another 6 people in a van.

It was a large group of us in total, I would guess, 30+ people.
We started with a briefing, which I will come back to the information they gave and were informed how and where we can touch the elephants for photos, etc.
Firstly, we went and fed them watermelon, we had a wooden fence between us and the elephants, and they were taking the watermelon out of our hands with their trunks to put in their own mouths. We had photos here with them, and once all the all the watermelon we split into 3 groups.

There were 7 elephants at this camp, and it was a split-second decision that I made to walk towards the river and see the 3 elephants that were down there. 1 of those didn’t really want to mingle, so we stayed with the other two. They gave them piles of leaves (sorry, not sure which, you might be able to work it out from the photos). We were then advised we could have photos and touch them, though in the briefing, we were informed only to touch the trunk and sides of their faces and front of their sides nearest the head. Never the legs or to go behind them.
Suddenly, we could hear two elephants that were up where we started under the wooden cover start making alot of noise and then screaming from the people there. We looked up to see a woman on the floor being kicked around by both elephants. The keepers were trying to get to her, but the elephants were moving to not allow it.
With all the noise from both the elephants and people, the other elephants started to get agitated, and we were advised to run to safely.
For me, that meant across the mud, and I lost my shoe and went back once I felt safe to do so. We could hear the woman crying, and then she calmed, not sure if that was from drugs or passing out as we were too far away to see. An ambulance arrived maybe 20 minutes later, and they straped her in and took her away. I was shaking from the adrenalin and shock of it all and telling myself I wasn’t allowed to cry as I wasn’t the one that was hurt. The time we spent waiting felt like ages, but in reality, it wasn’t.
After the ambulance had left, they announced they were ending the activities for the day, and if the van we came in was there, we should leave straight away. Mine wasn’t but arrived 10 minutes later, and we were taken back to our hotels.

It was definitely one of the scarest moments of my life as with all the elephants agitated and making loud noises and running around, to people screaming to me trying to stay upright and move across the mud as quickly as I could, while feeling guilty for being grateful it wasn’t me under those elephants.

I was glad they did that as I wouldn’t have been able to go near them again. The experience I booked was 2 days and an overnight stay.

It turned out the two elephants that trampled the women had only been there 1 week! Which in hindsight how was that even allowed!

I’ve chosen not to put any of the photos on social, as I feel guilty to have them when I don’t know what life changing injuries that poor women has, but secondly I feel stupid that I thought it was safe and it clearly wasn’t. I’ve added the photos here as it was part of my experience and certainly one I will not be forgetting in a hurry!

On the way back to the hotel I booked myself into a nicer one. The one I had been booked in at was a cheaper one as I wasn’t suppose to be there for 2 days, just a place to leave my bags safely. I was grateful to video chat my friends when they were up.

I emailed the company to ask for an update on the woman and got two responses, this was the second one:

I also had someone reach out to be on fb messenger for the details, as she campaigns for better treatment of elephants, I’ve shared why I thought it was ethical and the details of the incident.

In the briefing, they gave us some of the following info:

Elephany Jungle Sanctuary has 86 elephants across 20 locations. Elephants eat 10% of body weight a day, and they have an 80-100 year lifespan. An elephants pregnancy lasts for 18-24 months and they said the babies only stay with their mothers for 2-3years (I’ve found out since that is not true but the time they allow them to stay with their mothers before they separate them). On average, elephants could have 3-4 babies in their lifetime.
Asian are smaller than African. Males have trusks, not females. Also asian heads are bigger but smaller ears. Elephants only sleep for about 5 hours a day on their sides.

There were 7 elephants at this Chiang Mai camp 2 and they were rescued from riding camps and elephants shows.

This experience has taught me not to put myself in unnecessary danger, especially with animals, and especially for a bloody photo!