EFALUMPS!!!!!!!!

I had a lunch date yesterday with a boy by the name of Tong Suk, Thai for "Jungle Boy". He has zero table manners, weighs about 240kg and is only 5 years old. By the end of it I was covered in slobber and watermelon, but it was great.. it was hilarious because he is super independent and a complete trouble maker! Not much different than a human 5 year old I suppose :) The idea was *I* would feed him bananas and watermelon but he was very insistent that he was old enough to do it himself. He wins cause he's much bigger.

Denise and I just spent two days at Elephant Nature Park, located an hour north of Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. It's a safe haven for abused elephants, basically a charity that rescues elephants from all over South East Asia and allows them live the rest of their lives as free as possible and most importantly without abuse. The park is currently at capacity with 31 elephants (AND 36 dogs and 3 cats!!!)

We got to go swimming with the elephants everyday.. we would take a brush and bucket and they lie down and we would dodge elephant poo while we scrubbed them down. Amazing experience in itself.. and the rest of the stay we just 'hung' out with them. Went for walks with them.. fed them and you get the point..just no riding which is not really nice!

We learned that the Thai people have a terrible tradition for training elephants. When they are about 3 years old they are put into a cage and beat with bamboo sticks and terrorized until they become submissive - it normally takes two to three days depending on the elephant. We saw a video (shown on National Geographic) about this tradition and the organization itself and what it is trying to do for the elephants of Thailand.. as a result Lek, the lady who started the organization, had a hit put on her..long story.. it was stopped and she went in to hiding but they ended up poisoning one of her baby elephants as a way to tell her to keep her mouth shut.. it should be the next Hollywood movie..

The point is that they are trying to teach that positive reinforcement is a better training method which needs to be adopted.. read more about it at www.elephantnaturepark.org

See Flickr link for updated pics ...