Elephants!

I would call this one: "Elephants go skinny-dipping." But these are elephants.
Ain't nothin' skinny about that. 

Today's agenda?  Road trip!

And the road trip destination?  The Royal Thai Elephant Conservation Center, about an hour south of Chiang Mai, near the city of Lampang, Thailand.

Why go all that way just to visit an elephant park.  Chiang Mai is lousy with elephant parks.  (Keep in mind that word "lousy" -- it will be used in its more traditional meaning in a bit.)  You don't have to walk more than a few minutes in any direction to see elephants loose in a park-like setting.  (Bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit).

Our trip into the park will be by that blue tour bus.  You can't drive a private vehicle into the parts of the park where the elephants have the right of way.

The wheels of the bus go round and round.

There are multiple reason for going to this particular park.  This one is under royal patronage.  They even have an elephant hospital on the grounds.  (Tourists not allowed inside.)  So you know the elephants are being treated humanely for real, and not just as a marketing gimmick-claim.  And I have the CD released by these elephants.  Seriously.  The Thai Elephant Orchestra.  The elephants in this particular elephant habitat have been trained to do all sorts of things, including musical instruments.  (Truth be told, they are at their best on percussion.)  The CD was released by the Rough Guide travel book people, who, over the years, have curated some great music from various places on the map.  I also have a general Thai music CD they put together and it's great, too.  So this particular park was on my must-see list if I ever made it to Thailand.

Which I have.  And these are the stars of the shows.  The elephants!

 

This is just the introductory part of the program.  But the groupies still can get photos with the stars.

For this part of the program, only the guides are riding the elephants.  Visitors can ride the elephants in the afternoon.  I am actually well under the weight limit for elephant riding (which is 150 kg, or 330 pounds).  But animal riding is not my thing.

First item on the elephant agenda:  bathing.

The elephants love their baths.

The water feels cool.  And it helps relieve the itching. 

In other words, it removes lice.  Elephants can be lousy with lice.  Which surprised me, since I associate lice with thick fur rather than thick skin.

Anyway, back to happy elephant thoughts.

Some elephant parks let members of the tourist-public participate in the elephant bathing.  I've had enough troubles trying to bath dogs over the years.  I don't think I would want to try bathing an elephant.

The Royal Thai Elephant Conservation Center has it right.  Just march 'em into the river.  It's a bath that is more in line with what they like and what they would be used to.

Sometimes the elephants even play in their bath:

OK.  Bath time is over.

Time to toddle off to the next part of the tour.  Work.

It is interesting how the elephants walk, grabbing the tail of the elephant ahead with the trunk.  This is a much cleaner version of the "elephant walk" than the fraternity hazing ritual.  (If you don't know what that is, google it.  On second thought:  you probably shouldn't.)

Here are two short videos of the "safe for work" version of the elephant walk:

Safe for work.  Safe for the Thai Royal Family.

You need some theme music to accompany the elephant walk?  Try this, courtesy of Henry Mancini.

Even the local post office at the Royal Thai Elephant Conservation Center has an elephant theme.

But, alas, nothing elephant about the center's post-Candlemas Christmas Tree.

Time to get to work.

I love hard work.  I could pose in front of it all day.

The elephants are reporting for work under the watchful eye of the King:

The tasks, of course, start out simple.

Sitting down.  Relatively simple.

And here is one of my favorite things to do on the job:

Laying down.

I know how you feel, bud.  This next task will seem very familiar in a metaphoric sense to office workers everywhere.

Pushing a log around in a circle, getting nowhere, just pushing the log for the sake of pushing the log.

We now come to the elephant acrobatics portion of the program:

Balance beam.

OK.  That last one there does require some elephantine agility.

The last "work" part of the program was the elephant painting.

I'm not too sure about this one.  Pushing and pulling logs?  That definitely was the elephant doing it.  But painting?  Looked too much like the elephant holding a paintbrush in its trunk and being guided by the handler.

I'm guessing that if the elephant truly were painting, the "art" would be more "abstract expressionism," sort of like the Arnold Ziffel painting "Nude at a Filling Station," from that one episode of the surreal 1960s sitcom "Green Acres".  Still, it's way better than most of what passes for "modern" art, or, worse yet, "post modern," so if you're into it, you can buy the paintings at the gift shop.

And now we come to what most certainly would be the elephants' favorite part of the program:

Snack time!

You can buy a basket of elephant treats -- bananas, corn on the cob, a stick that might be sugar cane -- for a really low price of 50 baht, which is probably about $1.50, and feed the elephants snacks.

Even the most jaded of tourists find this fun.

True story.  Of course all of the stories on this travel blog are true.  I was feeding a couple of the elephants at the end.  I was having a bit of trouble getting the corn on the cob out of the basket to feed to my elephant friend.  Apparently this was all too slow and the elephant let me know with a loud sound that really sounded a lot like "harrumph."

I know "harrumph" is used in comic strips, but I never actually heard a person go "harrumph."  I still haven't.  But I heard an elephant say it.

And this is me letting the elephant know that the snack basket was empty.

And if I have no snacks left to feed, I am guessing the elephants are thinking:  "well, what good are you, then?"

Check out the website listed above if you're interesting in more things elephant.