Submitted by Maggie McAfee on the 2024 Winter DIST program in Thailand…
This week, I created one of my most incredible memories yet! I got to spend the whole day at an elephant sanctuary called, “Into The Wild” in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I got to spend time with 5 elephants, two teenagers and 3 adults who were all female. I got to go on a hike in the jungle with them, feed them bananas and watermelon, give them a mud bath, create medicine balls for them, and swim with them! It was one of the best experiences of my life! The best part was swimming with them because I got to play in the water with them and help them clean off all of the mud. To top off this amazing experience, the dogs at the sanctuary just had a new litter of puppies so while we took a lunch break, I got to play and hold one month old puppies. All of the elephants in Chiang Mai are domestic elephants and if you go further into Northern Thailand, that is where you will be able to find wild elephants. It was nice to learn that Thailand has a lot of strict laws in place to help protect the elephants from hunting. Overall this was a 10/10 experience and words cannot express how great it was to be able to hang out with the elephants all day! (Submitted on January 20, 2024)
