DO NOT GO: Elephant Jungle Sanctuary

DO NOT RECOMMEND:
in a few words, our visit to the elephant jungle sanctuary was confusing and emotionally draining.

The journey started with a 1130 pickup at our hotel. We were picked up in one of the open back red cabs, and while these are a fantastic mode of transportation around the city, they are not made for a two hour trip along relatively rough terrain and steep hills, not to mention the excessive amount of exhaust that we breathed in during our drive. Our driver had no idea where he was going, as it was his first time driving there. He first drove us to the WRONG ELEPHANT PARK and then just left us on the side of the road in a Karen village. We very luckily ended up finding another car to drive us to the correct place, but we would have been SOL if we hadn’t had a fluent Thai speaker with our group.

I would’ve had less issue with the rough transportation experience if the elephant sanctuary had been satisfactory.

Once we arrived at the correct sanctuary, we were greeted by the staff, given the “tradition karen clothing” to put on (red flag) and told to join the group of ~40 tourists (red flag) The elephants were behind a wooden fence in a relatively small area (red flag). The people at the sanctuary gave us a quick run down of the agenda for the afternoon (feeding and bathing the elephants) and some basic rules when approaching the elephants. They did limit the amount of fruit given to the elephants which is a good sign, but the staff were not good enforcers of the very loose rules they set at the start of the afternoon. People were approaching the elephants from behind, touching them when we were not supposed to, and feeding them incorrectly. The staff were not correcting any of these behaviors and were more focused on whether everyone had gotten “enough photos with the elephants”. A sanctuary with the elephants interests in mind would have very little human interaction and would be more focused on watching the elephants do their natural behaviors. Upon asking the staff a few questions, it seemed that the elephants worked every day and rarely had full days to themselves. The elephants were not completely at ease, performing anxious and repetitive motions. While this sanctuary does many things right (no riding and relatively open spaces), if you would like to see elephants on your visit to Chiang Mai – I urge you to do more research than we did. We booked this tour only one day in advance, as it was one of the few with last minute availability (red flag).

we chose to leave the “sanctuary” early and they had pre-written “early departure release forms” at the ready, as we were clearly not the first to look for an early escape.

In general, we left the sanctuary and returned to our hotel feeling sad for the elephants, carsick, and sad for an afternoon wasted in Chiangmai. The elephants were quite majestic to see and we wish we could’ve seen them in a more ethical setting. I appreciate that the karen people have a deep historical connection to the land and the native animals that inhabit it, and also that as a foreigner i may not fully understand this complex relationship, but at the end of the day Elephant Jungle Sanctuary is a business and this customer was not happy on multiple levels.

View Reddit by SpecificVast6178 – View Source