A Day With Gentle Giants

When I first started planning my trip to Thailand I knew I wanted to ride an elephant. It had been on my bucket list for as long as I could remember. When I first started my research I was overwhelmed by the number of places in Thailand where you can spend a day with elephants. Many of the places had pictures of happy guests riding through the jungle in baskets on elephants’ back. I knew that this was bad for the elephant’s health so that option was not an option at all. Others promoted a day of just spending time with elephants. Unfortunately choosing that option would mean not being about to fulfill my wish to ride an elephant. I continued my search, determined to find a way to balance getting the experience I desired and the well-being of the animals.


Along the way I stumbled on the website for Patara Elephant Farm, and its Elephant Owner for a Day program. At first glance it didn’t sound promising. The words “farm” and “owner” were far from comforting considering that these are intelligent, wild creatures. After reading through the program my feelings did a 180. Only 12 people are allowed each day, making sure there are always more elephants in the sanctuary than there are guests. Each person is paired with a single elephant and its mahout, the elephant’s life-long caretaker. Guests spend the day experiencing what it means to be a mahout.

There is no online reservation, only an email address to send an inquiry to. A couple days after sending an email I got a response requesting my preferred date and the location I need to be picked up from. I was informed that the cost would be 5,800 Baht in cash at the conclusion of day. At roughly $180 this was by far the most expensive elephant experience I had found. Still, it didn’t take long to decide that a day one on one with an elephant was well worth the money.

Three months later I stepped out of the Patara car and walked over to an elephant and her baby that were waiting to greet us. They took my breath away. From the first time she looked at me I could see the intelligence behind those eyes. While we waited for the rest of the guests to arrive we took turns feed the elephants while the mahouts took pictures with our cameras. When the mahouts brought out sugarcane for us to feed the elephants the mother kept taking it away from the baby. It quite resembled a human mom not wanting her kid to get a sugar high. That or she just wanted it all to herself, hard to say.

Off to the left a mahout dropped a bundle of sugarcane he had been carrying onto the ground. Behind him a male elephant nonchalantly made his way up the hill towards the pile of tasty greens. When one of the mahouts asked if I wanted to go see him I could barely contain my excitement. As we got closer to the male my excitement turn into a slight nervousness. Here I was, a small, frail human getting closer and closer to a huge beast with tusks almost as long as I was tall. The feeling dissipated quickly though. He didn’t even blink an eye as stroked his trunk. I had never seen, let alone touched anything that was made of ivory. I knew it would be smooth, but the feel of his trunk still astonished me. The mahout who had walked me over took a picture.

Once the last of the 12 had arrived and gotten pictures, the lead mahout called us over to a gazebo and gave us a briefing of the day. We were given special serapes so that the elephants would recognize us. We were split into two groups and headed out, each group in a different direction.

Each of us were specially paired with an elephant based on the lead mahout’s perception of our personality. I was paired with Ka, who was my mahout trainer, Mena (pronounced men-ah), my paired elephant, and her baby, Tara. Mena was a sweetheart; however I soon came to realize that Tara was quite the trouble maker.

We started off OUR bonding by feeding them, bamboo at first and then sugar cane. There was another younger baby elephant belonging to the elephant positioned next to us. She was the cutest little thing; quite presumptuous too. I wasn’t expecting or really interested in a full frontal kiss, but got a couple none the less.

We learned the different ways to monitor an elephant’s health, including smelling their poop, as well as the words we would need to know when directing our elephants. The words were simple; the application was not. Directing Mena to the river was a slow interesting process; Ka had to help out quite a lot.

Washing an elephant is much different than washing a dog or horse, the two types of animals I have experience washing. Some of the dirt came off her skin easily, other chunks not so much. When our elephants were nice and clean we took a group picture. The elephants returned the favor of cleaning them by spraying us with water from behind. As if we weren’t wet enough.

There are three ways to mount an elephant: have her lay down and climb on from the side, have her lift her leg and hop on, or scramble up her trunk as she lifts you up. The last one was actually the mahouts’ method of choice. Hearing that made it that much easier to choose the seemingly unorthodox technique. It was a lot harder than he made it look, especially since Mena lifted me up faster than I expected. Then there was turning around since once up I was facing the wrong way. Everyone knows elephants are big. What isn’t as well-known is how much taller they seem when you are up there.

I thought it was difficult directing Mena while I was walking next to her. It was just about impossible to do while I was riding her. Luckily she seemed to know where she was going. Getting the elephants to go when there were tasty treats all around was a futile battle. There’s little anyone can do when a creature as big as an elephant has other plans. We went at a slow steady pace, which was perfectly fine because there isn’t the most stable seating on the back of an elephant. While continuing up the river Tara, Mena’s baby, decided she wanted some attention and threw herself into the middle of another elephant’s path. For several minutes she playfully rolled in the water as our mahouts tried to get her moving.

Lunch was delicious! There were so many tasty treats, some I hadn’t tried before. The array of things was rather amusing: fried chicken, dragon fruit, sticky rice wrapped in leaves, fruit cupcakes, fried bananas, and even donuts. There was so much that the six of us only managed to finish about half of it. None of it went to waste. Once we were finished with our meal, we took out any non-edibles components and had the elephants help clean up. Feeding them was more fun this time because we could only give them small pieces that they have to curl their trunks around.

Before heading off on the last leg of our journey we washed our elephants again, they need it twice a day. This time they laid in the water and we sat on top to get the higher parts. Even though I already knew that elephants can breathe through their trunk, it was still fascinating to be washing Mena while she was underwater for such an extended amount of time.

The ending part of day was much slower going due to a combination of our elephants being hungry and the correlating abundance of food on the side of the trail. My Mahout had the brilliant idea of giving me a bundle of sugar cane to have on my lap for when Mena decided it was snack time. I even shared with one of the other elephants.

The experience I had with Mena, Tara and Ka at Patara Elephant Farm was without a doubt one of the major highlights of my month in Thailand. I recommend this to anyone and everyone going to Thailand. You will need to get your spot well ahead of time because they fill up fast. It may have been the most expensive elephant experience offered, but it was worth every Baht!