For information about the add-ons we did on the same day in Doi Inthanon Park and the surrounding area, see our page 12 Things to do in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
You are wondering how to find an ethical elephant preserve? Yeah, aren’t we all. It turns out the definition of ‘ethical’ is pretty broad. The first thing you need to do is figure out how you feel about elephants in captivity. None of the elephants you can visit are “wild” (they were domesticated as pack animals basically) and that means (we think) that all of them will have some level of “tricks”.
The elephants we met experienced positive reinforcement for training, as far as we could tell. There was a baby (3.5 years old) who was clearly being trained to “say hello,” sit, roll over in the water, and spray people with water. Each time she did one of these tricks her mahout gave her a sugar cube.
How does that sit with you? Many folks online complain about the tricks and if this is going to bother you, don’t go to the elephant experiences. If you have a giant animal living with humans, there has to be some level of training to ensure safety.
Other “tricks” were: let people give you a mud bath, let people touch you. We were given a bag of bananas and taught the two ways to feed the elephants. Elephants love ripe bananas. They seemed quite fine with us touching them so long as we had bananas. You want to pet me? Where’s my banana! No banana, I’m walking away.
One elephant seemed to be pretty itchy. We scratched it in spots and she stayed near us even though we didn’t have bananas.
We picked our elephant experience because it had good reviews, and it was possible to combine with a hike in Doi Inthanon and to see the twin pagodas. It came with a bonus visit to a Keren coffee-growing village and some waterfalls. We were very happy with the pace, feeling satisfied that we got plenty of elephant time, and still had time for a 2-hour hike and other things.
General notes about picking an elephant excursion
Size of your group matters. You might want to pay a little more for a private tour. We asked for a small group tour, were told the van was full but they’d give us a private tour for no additional charge. GREAT! We arrived 2 hours before the next group (of about 20 people) and so had 2 hours of alone time with 2 elephants. When the big group came, we were taken to see the mom and her baby, who were being fed by a group of 6. We joined these 6 in the mud bath and river shower experiences, which was fine. We had enough 1:1 interactions, especially since we’d had 2 elephants all to ourselves for so long. The feeding part also seems much more natural. They clearly WANT the bananas. We are not so sure they want people helping them with mud baths or river rinsing, but it didn’t seem to hurt them.
If price is the most important thing to you, check out the state-run tourist office in Chiang Mai. Their price was 2200 THB per person (USD$59). We paid 3800 THB per person (USD$102) because we liked the add-ons better: Doi Inthanon 2 hr hike, twin pagodas, visit Keren village and waterfall.
It’s hard to tell the elephant reserves apart. In the Doi Inthanon area alone, there are more than 20 elephant reserves. In this area, they are often (mostly?) owned by Keren people, one of the ethnic minorities in the area. Our hosts said that they cooperate with 5 other families who all have several elephants, and only one male among them. The one male is used for breeding. All the descriptions of these places will sound the same: “we treat our elephants like family!” “no riding!” and the variations on what you can do with them are the same. Obviously, check reviews, but we saw a lot of complaints that were followed up by the owners saying “you have the wrong place” and I think that’s entirely possible. They have similar or the same names and when you get to the actual place they often don’t have a big sign saying the name of the business.
Consider your bias and the cultural history of the area. Yes, elephants are highly intelligent creatures who should live wild and free. This requires expansive forests with no humans and protection from poachers. The Thai people and other ethnicities living in Thailand have a long history of using elephants in the same way westerners use horses, including farming and as tourist attractions. I know, elephants are waaaaaaay smarter than horses; still, consider the local customs. Who gets to demand how land, resources, and people function? If that still doesn’t make elephant captivity palatable to you, then you are not going to be happy on any of these encounters and should vote for freedom by abstaining.
Thinking about an overnight? We did not see any photos of descriptions of lodging accommodations for these experiences, which most places do offer. What we saw made us glad I didn’t stay the night. Toilets are also very basic. There were about ten 20-somethings who spent the night. Perhaps they had more elephant time? I don’t know, but they commented that our shirts were cute — which meant they had not used them so we are guessing they didn’t get extra elephant feeding time. The shirts are the same as what the mahouts wear and a signal to the elephants that the wearer is ok to get food from.
Our particular tour was : Doi Inthanon Elephant Park. We did tour C (Doi Inthanon Elephant Park tour page) but with minor modifications in terms of timing and sights (some our guide suggested and some we requested). As noted above, we paid the small group tour price, which was presumably somewhat less than the private tour price.
To read more about the add-ons we did, which included Doi Inthanon, twin pagodas, coffee in a Keren village, see our 12 things to do in Chiang Mai page.