My last week

So,

I have entered my last week in Chiang Mai.
Thursday I will be leaving the country to Mianmar or Laos ( no idea which one yet), I'll be booking the ticket later today. The fruits of my labour are really starting to show, the students are doing very good, even though they are a bit cheeky sometimes. I built up the classes to the point where they were able to write down short sentences in single present, present continues, past and present tense. a few of the pictures will show the end result. I've got 2 more days of teaching left before leaving, and will probably only be doing fun activities to say goodbye to them all.

Yesterday I went to an elephant sanctuary.
An elephant sanctuary differs from the well known elephant camps, because they are built for the elephants in stead of the tourists.

The elephants there were all ex-working elephants and were bought or freed from hard elephant - labour camps, tourist traps or vicious owners.
In the sanctuary they are more or less free. They do not have fences, the elephants can walk wherever they want, and no one will stop them if they want to leave. Most dont though, because they get spoiled quite a bit, as much food as needed, extra snacks and frequent bathing are just a few of the perks of being in the elephant camps.

Most camps are built for riding, and the conditions of those camps are very poor. The elephants get trained by using hooks (crooked knives basically) the elephants get poked or hit by it if they do something the owners do not want or like, which actually leaves them bleeding occasionally.

The elephant sanctuary I went to do no such thing, You are only allowed to ride the elephant if the elephant actually "picks" you for a ride.
You go out, walk to the elephant and let them "snuff you out". if they decide they like you, they will sort of "pet you" with their trunks.
if they do that, you are allowed to ride them, but only bareback which is much better than the usual seats(due to the way their bonestructure is)
they are being trained by positive reinforcement in stead of punishment, if they do something right, they get some sugar cane. if they do something bad, they get a tap( by hand) which does not hurt them at all.

It was scary as f*ck to ride the elephants bareback, because I was sitting on her neck (her name was Amy), and she kept trying to eat along the way, and by doing that she was turning her neck a bit, making me almost fall off many times.

They were not being forced to walk as in the normal camps either, if they wanted to eat, we would just sit on them waiting, until the elephants felt like walking again.

All in all it was a very animal friendly way to interact with them and I was so incredibly happy to have seen it. My view on the elephant camps was very limited I only knew the "bad" version of the camps which are really horrible. My faith in ( a tiny part) of humanity has been restored again, by doing this trip!

Thats it for now!

Rob