My Elephant Sanctuary Visit in Thailand

While I was visiting Phuket, Thailand I wanted to visit an elephant sanctuary. I knew that the practice of riding elephants was cruel, so I wanted to make sure I picked a responsible place where I could respectfully interact with elephants. After a lot of research online, I found The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary. 

15 years ago there were over 100,000 elephants in Thailand alone, and likely millions worldwide. The number of elephants in Thailand has dropped to between 2,500-4,000. The main reason for this rapid decline are poaching, habitat loss and elephants dying faster due to mistreatment in the tourism industry. 

The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary, will explain that, "Asian Elephants’ spines are not like horses. Their spines are designed to carry weight below, not from above. Instead of smooth, round spinal disks, elephants have sharp bony protrusions that extend upwards from their spine. These bony protrusions and the tissue protecting them are vulnerable to weight and pressure coming from above. In order for an elephant to be ridden, it needs to be put through a ritual called Phajaan." Below is a video of the procedure, warning, it is graphic. 

The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary was started in late 2014, based in Chiang Mai, which is in northern Thailand. The Mission is to provide as many elephants as possible with the good health, freedom and happiness they truly deserve. They use progressive and ethically responsible approaches to elephant eco-tourism as a platform to raise awareness and educate people from Thailand and around the world. In fact, within the first few minutes of getting to the sanctuary, the immediately begin to tell you all the horrors of how some elephants are treated in Thailand. They even told you within the first few minutes that you should be prepared to hear about some of the horrors. 

In the last 2 years The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary has grown from 3 to 38 elephants. Their is to lead by example, and contribute to a positive change in the perception of elephants; to witness a future where elephants are not ridden, poached, overworked, or abused, and are instead treated with care, love, and respect.

Below are some photos and descriptions of where some of their elephants are rescued from:

The whole day was a wonderful experience.  You start the day feeding the elephants and then you get the opportunity to bathe with them in mud and swim around with them.  You can really tell that the animals are deeply loved and cared for.

You really get to up close and personal with the elephants. 

This is a picture of us making some food for one of the older elephants, below you can see me feeding the elephant!

I highly recommend taking this trip if you are in the Phuket region of Thailand. Another great benefit to this location is that they have a professional photographer that takes tons of photos and provides them to you for NO CHARGE right after the trip!  Not many companies will do that. You can find out more information at their website here: The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary. 

Below are also some books that may interest you on the current elephant crisis. 

Scary Elevator Rides in Eastern Europe

As I was traveling across eastern Europe, I stayed in many Airbnbs that required us to take elevators. Not many things scare me, I have bungee jumped, skydived and other crazy adventures.  But nothing has scared me more than the elevator rides I had to take in Eastern Europe.  I put two videos below, one from Serbia and one from Greece which can show how scared I was!

This first elevator ride was in Belgrad, Serbia.  When my friend Charles and I got into the elevator, we thought it would be just two of us and then all of the sudden a woman and her dog also get on!

Below is a video we took while we were preparing for our Trekr Adventures trip in Athens, Greece! We lived at this place for about two weeks prior to our trip. This one was not as scary as the one in Serbia. 

Running of the Bulls - Part 2

After we ran with the bulls, which you can see here, we decided to see an actual bull fight. The running of the bulls started for transporting cattle from one place to the other to sell them at the market.  So the whole point of run is to move them to the actual arena for the fight. 

Before the fight begins, the bring out all the participants.  It was quite the sight to see and the whole arena goes crazy. 

I didn't know much about bull fighting before Pamplona, so I was in a little shock when it started.  If you are unaware, the fight is actually torture towards the animal.  The animal is actually stabbed in the neck before they enter the arena. This is meant to weaken the bull.

As the fight progresses, the animal is stabbed several more times, until the bull is to weak to fight anymore and then the bull is stabbed a final time.  After the bull is dead, the bull is dragged by the neck by several horses.  Its really quite a sad thing to see.  I was uncomfortable after seeing it.  If you are interested in learning more about helping stop bullfighting you can read this article by the Los Angeles times. 

One warning! If you see the bull fight, plan to get covered in red sangria.  Every few minutes the sangria will come flying at you and there's no way to avoid it.  Here's a picture of my friend covered in sangria. 

After the bull fights are over, the party continues into the streets where people chant, dance and drink.  I have to say, with the amount of partying going on, I NEVER ONCE saw anyone get out of control, puke or seem completely out of it.  I was actually shocked, because the party really does go all hours of the day. 

Check out some more photos from Pamplona below!

Running of the Bulls - Part 1

One of the top items on my bucket list since I was a child was to see the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Even though several cities throughout Spain host their version of the Running of the Bulls, the most famous is held during a nine-day festival in Pamplona in honor of Saint Fermin, called Sanfermines. 

Pamplona, Spain on Google Maps

My two friends, Charles and Alex, joined me on this adventure.  We rented an amazing Airbnb right downtown in Pamplona. If you decide to ever travel for the festival, I HIGHLY recommend staying downtown.  The festival goes during all hours of the night and staying downtown allows for easy walking to all the events. 

In the Arena after the run with Charles and Alex

The Running of the Bulls actually takes place early in the morning, around 8am. I assumed it would be later in the day. The early morning rising can take some effort to make (especially when the festival goes all hours of the night), we actually missed the first two morning because we slept in! 

The early hours are because the tradition of the running of the bulls started for transporting cattle from one place to the other to sell them at the market. After a while, adults started to turn it into a competition to see who could race in front of the bulls and make it safely. The tradition today is used to move the bulls from their holding area to the arena for the bull fights later that day.

Once you get into the street to run with the bulls your nerves start to hit you immediately.  Suddenly a giant TV screen lights up and begins to show "rules" with running.  The first thing that came to mind was that I was in the "Hunger Games."  They have all these rules, such as 1) you must have shoes on.... 2) you MUST run.... 3) I stopped paying attention because I was scared that the bulls would be let out any minute. 

Hunger Games in real life

One of the pieces of advice I was given, was to NOT run with the bulls near the arena.  This is because the route "bottlenecks" and can create some dangerous situations.  Alex and Charles, using peer pressure, got me right in front of the arena.  Our goal was to run into the arena with the bulls, which we succeeded. 

As we ran into the stadium, we started to take photos of the experience.... until we realized they started letting bulls out with runners inside the stadium!  I'll save that for part 2... See the video below for a preview: