Surin, Thailand: Elephants
The moment you’ve all been waiting for…
ELEPHANTS!
Even though I have my [other] favorite pictures towards the bottom of this post, I can’t wait to share my ALL-TIME favorites of the entire trip. They encapsulate the beauty of me and my experience – love love love these!
I am not even sure where to start, other than “THEY WERE AMAZING!” I remember being so excited to see and meet the elephants on the project. I wondering what they’d feel like. Would they show excitement or stay calm? Would they even be phased by us? Would they approach us or try to touch us? The excitement had been building…and the time was here!
Since we hadn’t explored much on Day 1, Sey walked us through the village…or what was left…to get to the “forest”. R mentioned the families and homes that were once present, but the village looked deserted. Most of the families had been displaced or they were living in storage-like containers. Pretty devastating to see. Along the way, we passed some shops, construction and an elephant graveyard.
As we came around the corner, we saw the first elephant on the project! Below is the FIRST picture I took. A little far away, but I couldn’t wait!
With a little bit of instruction, we got to have our first interaction with the elephants. The day before we picked up bags and bags of cucumbers from the market. So each of the volunteers grabbed our own bag of cucumbers and made our way to a different elephant. I can’t tell you what their names were, but I can tell you … they were gentle; they were graceful; their skin was tough, but not rough; they were persistent – they wanted those cucumbers and they wanted them fast; they were big, but not HUGE; and you could tell there was soul and personality behind their eyes. Check out their first feed from the new class of volunteers 🙂
Since I explained a lot about the life on the project in a previous post, I don’t want to get too much in the weeds about what we did. I really am interested in sharing mostly pictures for this post – some of my favorite moments and some I didn’t even realize I documented. I feel the best way to share my experience with the elephants is to show you pictures. I took so many, and since this trip turned into many more posts than I expected, I think this post will be primarily pictures … of the gentle giants we spent a week with <3
As I mentioned in previous posts, we walked the elephants, we took them to the river, we fed them, we gave them baths. And sometimes we just kicked back and took in the atmosphere of being about these incredible creatures. They were absolutely fascinating!
// MY FAVORITES //
I hope y’all enjoyed all the elephants pictures. Posting this reminds me of how much fun I had while I was in Thailand and how I can’t wait to find the next big adventure. I would love to continue to volunteer and seek out new experiences. The idea of learning about other cultures, people and creatures keeps my drive alive!