Elephant Conservation Center

This is one of the coolest things I've done while in Southeast Asia. I did a one day Mahout training course at the Elephant Conservation Center outside of Lampang (about an hour south of Chiang Mai.) I put captions on the photos here to tell how most of my day went so you can look at that. We attempted to learn 15 commands, rode around on the elephant, gave them a bath- which was more I think them bathing us, watched the elephant shows, saw how paper was made from the dung, and fed them. It was an awesome day! You can book more than one day- but be aware that it's exhausting and you get saddle sore after just one day. :) My elephant's name was Jan Pen- which means full moon, and her mahout was Peng. He laughed along with me most of the day. I had a big grin on all day! And I got another thing marked off my list of things to do in life!

This center is also great because they rescue elephants from all over Thailand as well as take in any brought from other countries. They have a huge amount of land for the elephants to wander on, a hospital, and even a seperate center for "retirenemt" for those that are older or disabled. The center has a great purpose and I'm really glad we went to them for this experience!