Maesa Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai’s tropical Maesa Valley, was my first up close and personal encounter with Elephants in their natural environment. They are impressive, sensitive, strong, wise creatures. Upon arrival we were greeted by a spunky young female elephant with a hot pink flower garland around her neck. She turned out to be my favourite of the 50 elephants, she was just simply silly! I have to say when she put her snout around my neck for a photo opp, I was afraid that she was going to strangle me! Ironically enough, I also hesitated to sit on her leg, afraid to crush it!
We watched the Mahouts (elephant trainers) bathe, ride and “perform” various activities like soccer, darts, painting and harmonica performances with their elephants. The shows are at once impressive but sad too... these large, powerful, intelligent, majestic creatures seem so diminished when reduced to performing circus acts. But it was comforting to see that the elephants did seem well taken care of, happy, healthy and sincerely loved by their Mahouts!
Here are a few of the hundreds of shots Hadi took to try and capture their very impressive every move:
Like most of the visitors, we couldn’t resist our own private elephant trek through the jungle! The views are breathtaking (the terrain a little smelly) and we got to ask the Mahout many questions about our new elephant friend.
But the most memorable part of our expedition was our visit with the 1 month old new born baby elephant Meena and her mother. She was 85kg at birth...and I was afraid to hurt the leg of a full size teen elephant!
Did you know an Asian elephant is more closely related to the extinct mammoth than to an African elephant?
Wow that is amazing! Really interesting creatures!
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