I visited Elephant nature park in Chiang Mai as a volunteer this year, and everything I had experienced was totally out of my expectations. This amazing place is mainly an elephant sanctuary with other animals such as buffaloes, dogs, cats, goats and even baby monkeys rescued by the staffs. This park salvages Asian elephants which are endangered but most of them living on this planet are still either slaved or tortured to work incessantly until they fall down and never stand up again.
The elephants rescued to this sanctuary were all at first severely ill or suffered from mental problems, but finally restore themselves again with lots of love and supports given from the staffs. They were all unsympathetically hurt by humans but still willing to trust us again, so as I worked in here, I had so strong feelings that nature are always generous yet fragile that everyone should understand and care about it at one’s utmost.
Generally elephants don’t like creatures smaller than them, facing small creatures like dogs could make them insane and turn to be really dangerous; but in this sanctuary, you could barely see any fences. Every animals coexist with each other peacefully……Okay honestly, not all the time, sometimes we could still ran into some chases between dogs and cats or sometimes the elephants could barely endure fights between dogs and then roar with anger. But most of the time, it still quiet peaceful in this nice place, and I enjoyed staying here and being one of the members in the sanctuary like I eventually get the chance to know Mother Nature thoroughly. Mother Nature is not about force or alienation, it’s about love, giving and equal rights between creatures in this beautiful land.
In order to uphold the idea of every animals to survive equally in this planet, this sanctuary only provides vegetarian food. I love this thoughts so much, because although this place is called as the Elephant Nature Park, but it not only saves elephants but also other animals; it not only loves elephants but also every animals.
We had lots of works to do everyday, such as cleaning elephants’ poo, cleaning water tank, transplanting, socializing with dogs etc. Although I felt exhausted every night as I went to sleep, my mind and soul was filled with content thoroughly. Excitingly, every morning I was woken up by the elephants’ brays and as I walked to the cafeteria, there were dogs playing around and cats stretching on the ground. Sometimes you may even see cows standing beside the kitchen door waiting for the staffs give them breads as treats.
Everything happens in here is like miracle, I call it miracle because I had never had a chance to get that close to Mother Nature before I joined this sanctuary.Everything happens in here proves that humans could have no barriers with animals on condition that we respect them first of course and yet we can all live in our own will in this blessed land.
I felt like I’m complete after visiting this astonishing place, and I totally long to share this precious experience with everyone of you.
- Mina Ni
- : I'm a speech pathologist working at hospital and generally I deal with patients suffering from speaking or swallowing problems. I live as a passionate, affirmative, enthusiastic person and I love to challenge myself, including physically like free diving and mentally like reading various of books. Besides, I love traveling around and share my experience with others, and I love animals so much that I adopted a dog and I sometimes volunteer to join conservation projects such as dog shelters and elephant sanctuary.
- : https://www.facebook.com/Wheres-Mina-447180155794335/?modal=admin_todo_tour
- : https://www.facebook.com/mina.ni.9
- : https://www.instagram.com/mina830715/?hl=zh-tw
- : I love traveling around and experience unique cultures all around the world, and you can feel as what I felt in every adventures I've been through while reading my articles.
- : adult_(19_and_over_as_of_31st_december_2019)
- : This is the first time this story has been published.