A first-person YouTube vlog by Nate Buchanan (with Kara Buchanan and another speaker) documenting a visit to the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary near Chiang Mai, Thailand. The hosts are picked up early, driven two hours into the jungle, participate in feeding elephants (bananas and a mixed sticky-rice/grain/tamarind food), give the animals a mud bath and wash, and describe the sanctuary as a rescue that does not allow riding — encouraging viewers to support sanctuaries rather than elephant riding. The video closes with a short blooper reel.
Questions this video answers
About 7:59 (picked up at like 7:59).
Two hours.
About 45 years old ("like 45 years old").
Sticky rice, some kind of grain, bananas, and tamarind.
Chapters
Today we are playing with elephant.
The elephant jungle sanctuary was super punctual. They picked us up at like 7:59. We got to grab some last minute coffee from the 7 11. And now we have a two hour drive into the jungle.
I'm so excited.
Kara's been wanting one of these all week at the night market.
We just climbed two hours up the mountain and got to the elephant sanctuary. We got our debriefing and our bananas and we're about to go feed the elephants.
They're right there.
You want the banana?
That's amazing. Look.
Hi.
He's just.
Hi there, baby. Hi. Oh, no.
This is amazing.
There you go. That's amazing. It's like a hand or something.
It is.
Oh, he sucks you in your face.
That was so awesome.
Putting it work.
They are hungry.
Switching the something a little bigger than bananas. Not exactly sure what we're carrying right now. Some other type of elephant food.
Hey, don't steal your mom's food.
You're gonna need a bath.
Okay, everybody, we're going back to have fun.
We fed the elephants their lunch and now it's time for us to eat ours. I'm loving this so far. They are so cute and the baby is so playful. They're just one big happy family of elephants.
One of them, I think they said, is like 45 years old and she's the grandma and then she has a daughter and a son and the daughter has a baby of her own. So it's like three generations of elephants that we're getting to hang out with today.
So we mix sticky rice, some kind of grain, bananas, tamarind. We smashed it all up. I think it's nutrition for the elephants. And now we're gonna go feed it to them. Special little snowman.
Good job.
We're going to take a mud bath.
What's up, buddy?
How you feeling?
Nate, brace yourself. Some elephant poop in my mouth and you can't see anything out of this.
This is good exfoliation, right? They were having so much fun.
They were.
They were getting so rowdy.
That was a blast.
Now we get to go wash them off.
Oh.
Sam.
Super fun day with elephants. Time to ride. Two hours back down the mountain.
We meant to tell you why we were going to the elephant jungle sanctuary this morning before we left, but everybody has been late to pick us up and they were promptly on time. Actually five minutes early.
Last time we came to Thailand, I really wanted to ride an elephant.
But when we started doing research about where we wanted to ride elephants, we learned that they are treated extremely poorly.
They take the babies away from their mom when they're born and put them in a hole or tie them up and they starve them and just totally break their spirits until they just give in and rely on humans.
This time. When we came to Thailand, we learned about the elephant jungle sanctuary.
They rescue these elephants that were treated so poorly and bring them to this beautiful place where they can roam freely. And they feed them good food and nobody rides them.
Instead, you get to hang out with them all day, feed them, give them a mud bath, clean them off in the water. Way better than riding them.
So if you come to Thailand, don't.
Support elephant riding, go to a sanctuary instead.
It's way better.
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Roll of bloopers.
All that work and they go get back in the mud.
So much for giving them a bath.
Oh, no.
I want him back.
I think you're balding. Pretty sure I got some elephant poop in my mouth. Saw him peeing in the water before he started that.
