The Maesa Elephant Camp

When I first heard that my Chiang Mai tour involved elephant ride and performance, my heart sank cos I've never been an advocate of keeping wild animals in a confined place...I'm quite the opposite in fact, championing for the release of wild animals and my mom told me that my soft spot for animals started since I was little. She told me when I was about 3 years old, she brought me to a local circus and whilst all the kids were cheering for the bear to perform, I started crying and throwing tantrum saying that it's so cruel to chain the brown bear and whip it and I was the only child crying and screaming in horror, my mom was naturally embarrassed, trying to silent her crazy child...the rest just cheered and got excited....So you can imagine how I felt when I heard that my Chiang Mai trip included a visit to an elephant "camp"....the only elephant place I ever wanted to go to is the elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai where I wanted to volunteer (didn't go in the end cos couldn't find anyone to go with)...elephant camp was a big no no....but then in order not to upset my dad who organized this family trip (it's our first family trip in the last 20 years.....), I went ahead to the Maesa Elephant Camp....well, only to be surprised that the elephants are indeed quite happy and well taken care of as the tour guide mentioned...

I didn't believe her at all initially but then at Maesa Elephant Camp, the 78 elephants are indeed in their natural habitat. They DO live in the forest (it's even got a river!) with their mahouts and the camp doesn't tolerate abuse of any sort cos any mahout suspected of abuse will be fired. They also have vets who regularly check on the elephants and they breed the elephants for conservation too. So I felt better there and then...and guess what? I was totally blown away by the amazing performance they put up...they looked genuinely happy unlike the elephants in Phuket who were in the hot sun on the street or on the beach away from their natural habitat...those poor pets....sigh....

Anyway, the elephants at Maesa are such intellegent bunch!!! Not only can they dance, play harmonica, play soccer, they can even PAINT....yes, no joke, these gentle giants PAINT...like a PRO!!! I'm not kidding you! See for yourself....

The elephant painter carrying its little painting kit...awww...

The Mahout preparing the paint (non toxic...yeah I asked)

Starting.....

Ohhhh what's that? Looks like a plant of sort?

Wow...it is a plant....

OMG....he's painting flowers!!!!!!!! A proper flower plant!!!

OMFG!!!! The elephant paints better than I do...despite my having 10 fingers...

Voila! The final product...available for sale and I immediately bought 2!

An abstract piece done by another elephant....nice..

This is by far the most amazing thing I've ever seen in Thailand!!!! I'm so impressed I bought 2 paintings back cos I was literally speechless....They apparently handpick the smart elephants for painting class and training starts when they're about 4 years old and it'll take at least 3 to 4 months to train them before they can get decent....they're so smart!!! Ridley's Believe It Or Not actually did a program on this....and they were even on the Guinness World Record! The tour guide said the most expensive painting was sold at $4 million Thai Bhat which is about $250,000 SGD....now that's something....it's truly amazing and if you have the chance to go Chiang Mai, it's worth a visit....here's their website

I LOVE elephants!!!!!