Traditionally, elephants have played an important role in Thai culture. For centuries they were captured and trained to drag logs in the forests, but as machinery began to replace them, they became a popular attraction offering rides to tourists. Many of the elephant camps that offer rides keep their animals in poor conditions, chained up for hours while the special chairs that are used to carry tourists cause permanent injuries to their backs.
At Anurak Community Lodge, we do not support animal cruelty in any shape or form and striclty do not work with elephant camps that offer regular elephant rides using these chairs. During our ethical Elephant Experience we take a different approach by providing guests the chance to interact with these gentle giants directly; helping the mahouts (elephant handlers) to feed them their favorite snacks and bathe them in the river before taking a stroll through the palm tree plantations and back to their grassy paddock for another fresh-fruit snack.
