Elephants

I love elephants.

Lizzard Loves feeding "my" elephant a basket of bananas

After a recent visit to Thailand, this love was reignited at Patara Elephant Farm located just outside the city of Chiang Mai.

Chris getting to know "his" elephant

A few fun facts we learned while at the farm:

-Elephants only sweat in one place. Can you guess where? Their cuticles!

Lizzard Loves elephant feet and facts

-If an elephant is healthy, it will sleep laying down on one side for about 35 minutes, stand up for about 10 minutes, then shift and sleep laying down on the other side for about 35 minutes. It doesn't sound particularly restful to me...but it seems to work for them.

Lizzard Loves elephant wet nurses

-Elephant babies (calves) will nurse from their own mother, but also other mothers in their herd. Other mothers will function like wet nurses if a calf's mother is not immediately available. Talk about teamwork.

Lizzard Loves Chris riding "his" elephant!

Chris & I thought this farm was incredibly well run, it was working on conservation/increasing the elephant population, education and FUN. Well, maybe fun isn't in their mission statement- but spending an afternoon at the farm was easily one of the highlights of our trip! How could feeding, washing, and riding on elephants be considered anything short of awesome?

Lizzard Loves getting a shower from elephants

Oh, and a shower. I forgot to mention that the elephants got a chance for payback! We had spent sometime scrubbing & rinsing them off in the river, then the staff told us to line up for family photos. Which was their excuse to have the elephants spray water all over us. I couldn't stop laughing, it was such a silly thing really. To have a river water shower from the trunks of elephants?? Likely a once in a lifetime thing for me :)