Happy Elephants

Visiting a wildlife conservation project is always rewarding for you and the animals...or is it?

When we decided on visiting northern Thailand and the beautiful city of  Chiang Mai we immediately came up against a fist full of leaflets for elephant homes. If you are planning on visiting Chiang Mai then it can be very useful to give it a little research before you leave. Hopefully this article will give you some  non-bias info on the more friendly places to visit.

Many elephant homes and wildlife projects all over the world are widely publicised for miss-treating and over working animals for financial gain. These places rely heavily on tourism, so its important your money goes towards making the animals life better and not lining the pockets of an abuser. 

**DO NOT RIDE ELEPHANTS**

Trek elephants are among some of the most abused animals in the world. These elephants are forced to carry people for 10+ hours a day and are attacked with spikes and whips when they collapse from exhaustion. Don't get me wrong elephants are incredibly strong animals, but when they are under fed and forced to carry heavy loads for an extended amount of time it can have deadly consequences. Many people believe that because of their thick skin these animals are not being hurt by the spikes and continuous abuse. This is a very dangerous assumption, elephants actually have very sensitive skin. While at the Happy elephant home I met a recue elephant that had permanent skin damage on her back due to carrying heavy loads. These animals should be appreciated for the incredible creatures that they are and not used as a toy.

As a result of the mistreatment of these animals many Elephant rescue and rehabilitation homes have been set up to help. We collected and reviewed dozens of leaflets and spoke to a lot of tour guides and eventually decided on Happy elephant home as it ticked all the boxes for us. This might not be the case for you. Have in mind what you want you from the day before you start talking to tour guides. Many tour guides work on commission so don't be tricked into buying the most expensive place if its not what you want.

Happy elephant home have rescued and rehabilitated circus and trek elephants. One of the elephants under their care was mistreated by its previous owner and became ill. The animal was then sadly cast away to die. That was until Happy Home found her and brought her back to full health.

Some of the main selling points that attracted us to this place was the way it was run. The home operates one group a day consisting of a maximum of 15 people. This reduces stress on the animals. For me this really showed that the home cared about these animals and weren't using them to make a quick fortune. They also offer half a day for people on a tight schedule. A full day at the home will cost 1800THB which is roughly £40 or $51USD. For this you get a taxi to and from the hill based elephant home and a beautiful home cooked meal.

Once we were given some local clothes with familiar smells that made it easy to socialise with the elephants, we were shown to a large paddock where 5 elephants were frolicking in the mud. You are able to fully socialise with the elephants and feed them from a bag that you prepare on arrival. After lunch you walk the elephants down to the river and get to wash and play with then in the water. At no point throughout the day did we feel that these elephants were being forced to do anything. The local guides talk to you about the importance of supporting the right animal homes and tell you a handful of stories that really opens your eyes to the abuse these animals suffer.

For more information regarding the Happy elephant home, and how to help the Elephants visit the links below.

http://www.happyelephanthome.com/

http://www.responsibletravel.com/copy/animal-welfare-issues-in-tourism

"If we want to see animals, it should be us in the cage not them"

  

็Happy elephant home

The Handsome Buddha...

I think its only fair to start with an explanation. Why the Handsome Buddha. Well it originates way back at the start of my first visit to northern Thailand: more specifically the beautiful northern city of Chiang Mai. while exploring one of the MANY old temples the city has to offer we came across a small but very intricately decorated room containing a large golden statue. Now due to the well known temple fatigue that had already set in, we would of just taken a quick look and moved on. This monument was a little different. 

During our first few weeks in Asia we expecting to see a million and one shrines to the holy Buddha, but this wasn't the case. We actually saw zero. This is because it is seen as an offence to the Buddhist people to profit or even display the sacred Buddha (as we recognise him in the west). So when we came across this statue we were a little relieved to have finally met the guy.

Turns out this wasn't the guy...

This was actually Monk Tan Pra Maha Kajjana, to give him his full title. And basically he is the handsome Buddha.

**Quick warning. I'm about to butcher the poetic way in which this story should be told** 

Tan Pra is an arahant or enlightened one, but it is made very clear that he is not the lord Buddha. What my poor man was unfortunately burdened with was impeccably good looks, so good infact that a lot of monks mistook him for the lord Buddha himself. One man said, and I quote "Once a man saw Tan Pra Maha Kajjana and said if Tan Pra Maha Kajjana was a women he would take Tan Pra Maha Kajjana as his wife." That's one Handsome Buddha. These were very strict times and thoughts like these were not allowed so the man was forced to live the rest of his life as a women.

Tan Pra didn't like that he was causing trouble for the other monks so generously decided to ugly himself up a little.

I admit this story seems a little too much to handle but here it is...

This story really stuck with me during my time in Asia and what best way to pay homage to such a brilliant piece of history than to make it the name sake to my blog.