LAOS: ELEPHANTS!

I had been looking forward to this part of our trip for a while....elephants! We both wanted to make sure that we found a place that wasn't the typical tourist riding overworked elephants on baskets. We wanted to be able to experience something more and also make sure we were giving money to a good cause. Elephant Village in Luang Prabang is an eco friendly organization that buys overworked and abused elephants and rehabilitates them. They literally have to buy the elephants from the businesses/people who are abusing/overworking them. Each elephant costs around $20,000 to buy...not a cheap operation. So all of the money spent at Elephant village goes directly to what it should be going to...the elephants!!

They offer a few different packages. We decided to do the 1 day mahout training experience (a mahout is the elephants trainer. They are basically with the elephant all the time.) We were picked up by our guide who gave us a few fun and serious facts about elephants. Laos was once called "The land of a million elephants". Now there are only about 3500 elephants left. Once we arrived at the village, we learned the basic Mahout commands to use with the elephant. Then we learned how to get onto the elephant's neck for riding (you kind of have to be a monkey). We took a ride down to the water and around the village. When we got back to the village, we were able to feed them some bananas for treats. After lunch it was bath time. Our elephants clearly were excited and you could tell this was there favorite part of the day! We each rode our own elephant down to the river with the mahout and we were given a scrub brush. The elephants submerged their heads and bodies into the water so we could wash them... also splashing with their trunks for fun!

It was a great day and a great cause that we got to support. We really got to experience how giant but gentle these animals are and it was one of our favorite moments of the trip!