The morning with the elephants

Today we visited an elephant sanctuary for fourteen lucky elephants who have retired from carrying lumber. The visit started with a short boat ride across a swift and very wide river to the sanctuary. Then we rode in a jeep over extremely muddy roads, very fun. When we reached the interaction area, we started off by " helping" to bathe an elephant in the river. Two men vigorously scrubbed the elephants while they rolled in the mud. Our job was to pet the elephant, splash water on them, and marvel at their magnificence. After we had our fill of the washing procedure, we went up to watch them feed the elephants. The men prepared huge millet balls the size of soccer balls to feed them. The procedure was simple, they placed the food balls directly in the elephant mouths. It was cool to see this up close. Then we took an elephant ride, Brian sat this one out.