The Elephant Show

One of the amazing things about my volunteering experience was that I had the opportunity to interact daily with elephants during that 2 week period!! Chai Lai Orchid is known for its humane treatment of their rescued elephants. There are 15 elephants on site and the eco-lodge guests have the opportunity to feed them breakfast, care for them and engage with them. So as I was going about my volunteer work – the elephants were always in the background (and sometimes the foreground) of my daily activities. How incredible is that!!

There are only female elephants at Chai Lai Orchid, and these beauties are constantly eating. They need to eat 300kg of food a day! Their skin in tough and prickly (from their hair) and the tip of their trunks…gooey, sloppy wet 😂

The volunteer guest house (where I slept) was on the way to the river where they bathed, so I would often see them coming down the mountain as I headed up the mountain to get breakfast. What an amazing way to start the day!! The most fun was interacting with the 5 year old “baby” elephant (very mischievous – named Moblay) and getting to feel the tummy of a pregnant elephant and the baby moving around inside. The momma is due in 4 months (the gestation period for an elephant is 2 years!).

I’ve included a handful of photos and videos – since I am sure I would break the internet trying to upload all of the footage that I have (thank goodness for 2 TB of Cloud storage). Hopefully this post loads ok on your phone 😂

Videos