How can anyone not love elephants?

I took a trip to the Elelphant Nature Park which is probably an hour or so outside of Chiang Mai and it was awesome.  The park is home to 35 elephants, 31 females and 4 males.  The oldest is over 80 years old and the youngest is just two and a half months.  

Each of the elephants has a mahout who takes care of them.
Traditionally mahouts use spiked sticks and brutal training
to control their charge but at the park they believe in positive
and don't try to break the elephants or harm them.

Elephants use dirt and mud as a sunblock and to protect
them from bug bites.

It was great being able to see the elephants interact with each other

The park's founder, Lek, is the granddaughter of a hill tribe shaman and has dedicated her life to rescuing elephants.  There used to be over 300,000 elephants in Thailand.  They were used extensively in the logging industry until logging was banned in 1989.  Today there are only about 3,000 elephants.  Elephants are very important to the culture but they are also treated poorly.  When they are initially trained they are forced into tiny cages and beaten until they become submissive.  The park rescues elephants who once worked in the logging and trekking industries, or who may have been used to beg on the streets or became sick in one of the remote villages.

We got to feed the elephants!  They eat almost 10% of their
body weight every day.

35 elephants means a lot of fruit!  The watermelons and
bananas are picked up daily from farms nearby.  It costs
$250,000 to feed the elephants each year.

 The park is supported mainly by donations and eco tourists.  (And considering how busy it was even now during the low season, and that it costs 2500 baht / person, they seem to be doing pretty well)

We got to bathe the elephants at the
river which flows through the park.
Although they can squirt up to 2
gallons of water with their trunk so
they probably didn't need the help. 

Mud bath!

Mom and baby

Elephants nurse too (never occurred to me)

The whole herd