Thailand is overflowing with elephants. Everywhere you turn, you can find a sanctuary promising that once-in-a-lifetime, bucket-list-worthy experience. But I’m here to tell you that most of those sanctuaries are bullshit liars.

Before we visited Thailand, I knew I wanted to spend time with my spirit animal. After seeing them on safari in Tanzania, I was in love with elephants. Sorry, Craig. So, like any good traveler, I did my research. So many sanctuaries, so little time. The word ‘sanctuary’ is like the word ‘natural’ in the food industry. You can slap it on marketing and people will believe it’s that very thing. But that’s not always the case.

After much research, I found Elephant Nature Park, a true sanctuary. This park follows a strict no-ride policy which I was all for. Because let’s face it, if you’re riding an elephant, you’re not at a sanctuary. More on that in a bit. ENP was everything I was looking for, and it had a week-long volunteer program. Warning for those wanting to visit, book in advance. They book out months and months ahead. Seems everyone wants to roam with the elephants. Can you blame them?

I booked our volunteering back in January when we were in Vietnam and was giddy like a goddamn school girl every single time I thought of it. So when the time FINALLY came to be with the elephants, I couldn’t contain my excitement. Just ask Craig how many times I said…

Our first day of volunteering, we were picked up in Chiang Mai and driven north to the park, which is about an hour outside the city. Even just pulling into the park, I felt a tear in my eye. Elephants! Let me love you!

Once we arrived, we dropped off our bags (with the 70 other week-long volunteers) and had some delicious lunch. Besides being around elephants for a week, another great thing about ENP is that all their meals are vegetarian. Phew.

After filling our bellies with food, we had a brief orientation about elephant interaction, the dos and don’ts. Don’t stand behind an elephant. Duh. Don’t tease them with food. Noted. We also got to see the same video (with graphic footage of elephant abuse) that we just saw in the van on the way up, so we totally left the orientation early. Badasses.

Next it was time to “check in” to our room. I was super pumped that we were given our own room with a double bed, ok, two twin beds pushed together.

The accommodation for the volunteers was average, at best. Especially when you look at the accommodation of the overnight visitors. Swanky. I think with a little bit of work, they could make the rooms much better. Like for starters, have a sealed room so the giant bugs can’t fly in through the gaps in the roof…and you can’t hear your next door neighbors sneeze. And perhaps, maybe every room could have their own bathroom? So you don’t have to walk outside, under giant insects, and right by the sleeping elephants.

Our first day had no work, but we did get to watch some elephants and then I made this face.

The next day, the fun started. All the volunteers are broken up into groups (A, B, C, D). You are with your group the entire week and rotate what type of work you are doing. Our first task was shit. Literally. We shoveled shit. Which, truth be told, I ended up loving because it got you out into the park, roaming with the elephants.

But I shit you not, elephants shit a lot. It was a great arm workout lifting their solid masses of excrement. Then we would take a break because we wanted to stare at the elephants. Obvi.

This is Kabu. She’s the cutest. And was always there to greet us in the morning while we shoveled shit.

You’ll notice her front left foot is a bit awkward. That’s because it was broken when a log rolled into her while she was working in the logging industry. It never healed properly. The purple you see on both feet is antiseptic treatment. Poor Kabu.

We didn’t just shovel shit. We cleaned up after elephant ragers (aka cleaning up scraps of food they didn’t eat and replacing it with fresh corn stalks)

Every day was broken into two volunteering shifts. The morning shift started at 8am and lasted a few hours, depending on the task. The afternoon shift started at 1pm. After the shit-shoveling morning, we got to go on an elephant walk. We walked around the park and our volunteer coordinator told us about the 70 elephants that call this park home, and we learned about their lives before coming to ENP.

Every elephant has a mahout. A mahout is paired with an elephant for life. They are inseparable besties. Where the elephant goes, the mahout is closely behind (or in front of) it…

We got to witness elephants just being elephants. They love their play time, even when they are stuck in a tiring situation.

We learned that many of the elephants had extremely dark pasts. Many have stepped on landmines that left them with mangled feet. Many are blind or deaf because their previous mahouts used slingshots as a form of punishment for disobedience. Which brings me to my epic rant. You knew it was going to happen. If you don’t want to feel bad about your past elephant ride or your future desire to do so…scroll on by. Ignorance is bliss. I guess. But I’m totally judging you if you do.

Elephant tourism is massive in Thailand and all over Southeast Asia. Many claim to be sanctuaries for the elephants, but what you don’t see is what happens out of sight or for years before you got there to check off that item on your bucket list. Elephant riding has always been popular. I mean how cool would that be to ride on the back of these gentle giants? I used to want to do it. After all, they are so big and you are like so small thanks to that diet of yours. Right? Wrong.

Elephants aren’t born to carry humans. They are wild animals and therefore, in order to calmly carry a human, they are broken down through the practice of phajaan. Translation: the crush. This practice happens when the elephants are quite young. Babies, even. They are separated from their mother and tied up with chains and ropes in a tiny pen. There they are kept for days while trainers beat them with sticks that have sharp hooks on the ends. The end hope is to break their spirit and submit to their human trainer. Don’t believe it? Google it. Or watch this video (it even spotlights ENP and all the work they are doing to stop elephant riding).

But it’s not just the riding. Even simple and cute things like elephant painting are bad. The trainer standing next to the elephant as it paints is actually pushing a nail into the elephant’s ear. The movement of the trunk isn’t the result of some inner Picasso, it’s the result of the nail. Puts a whole new spin on the concept of the “tortured artist” doesn’t it? You may think elephant riding is safe because it’s offered. But meth is also offered out in the world for purchase. Does that make it safe? Did you know tourists have died from riding elephants? Even one just last year. The elephant freaked out from years of abuse. It was exhausted because it carried humans around all day without rest. And it bucked the tourists off its back and crushed them.

All I ask is that you think before you ride. Do your research. Ask questions. If you want to help the elephants, riding them isn’t the way. Donate or volunteer. Visit a place that advertises ‘no ride’ or ‘saddle off’ experiences. Trust me, it’s so worth seeing these beauties up close and personal. And, most importantly, seeing them free to do what they want.

Rant, semi-done.

Ok, so we did doody duty and an elephant walk our first day. After both volunteering shifts, we got the chance to bathe the elephants. Which was fun and all, until the elephants start shitting in the water that you’re standing in, barefoot. But, nonetheless, a cool experience.

Day 2 brought us into the kitchen. Another great place for cardio and weightlifting. In the kitchen you would do a range of things. But mostly it involved unloading trucks of bananas, watermelons, and squash for the elephants. In one day, we unloaded 7,000 pounds of watermelon and 7,000 pounds of pumpkins. Who needs the gym?

This shit was bananas. So much food.

Kitchen duty was actually a lot of fun. Tossing watermelons down the line, working those biceps. But if you were on kitchen duty, that usually meant you would get to go and feed the elephants. Which was one of my favorite things. It’s amazing how the elephant would take the bundle of bananas from you with his or her trunk and down them, just like that. Some elephants would even spit out the really green ones. Picky eaters.

Our other days at ENP were a mixture of shoveling shit, kitchen duty, preparing the elephant pens for nighty-night time and corn cutting. The dreaded volunteering shift among all the groups was the corn cutting. All groups have to do it once. But from what we heard from others, it sucked. So when our day finally arrived, we were a bit nervous.

Our truck picked us up and we got in the back. Coming from the US, I was thinking about safety the entire time. Because there were zero seat belts in the back of this badboy. But on we went. We drove for over an hour in the back of this truck that would be used to transport the corn we cut. Once we arrived at the field, I was so happy to get off that damn truck. And start cutting corn, by hand, with a sickle. We worked for an hour. Taking breaks from the sun and downing water like it was our job. I’ll tell you one thing, I always avoided cornfields when I was a kid. It’s pretty much a Midwesterner’s right of passage to shuck corn, but I said ‘no thank you’ my entire childhood. Overall, corn cutting as an adult wasn’t too bad. I think all the shit-talking beforehand helped me managed my expectations.

If anything, corn cutting helped release any frustration. WHACK! WHACK! While the volunteers cut all the corn, some local workers were busy bundling it up so we could load onto truck a bit more easily. After lunch, we were ready to do the damn thing and get the shuck out of the field.

So much corn. The truck was like Mary Poppin’s magical handbag. It just kept fitting bundles and bundles of corn. Until it could hold no more. For real.

And then before you knew it, the field looked like this.

The day you have corn duty, you get the afternoon off. Probably because you are gone most of the day. So when we finally arrived back to ENP, we were all ready for a shower…and to be lazy.

And yes, this is the truck we all crammed into on the way back. In the hot, hot sun we drove like this for an hour. But don’t worry, our volunteer guide was not hanging off the truck like in the above pic. Safety first.

During our week-long stay we also got to help celebrate an elephant’s first birthday! A first for us as well. All the volunteers got to go out into the park where a special birthday cake was delivered.

We all sang Happy Birthday as baby Dok Rak (and family) hustled towards the delicious cake. The little one definitely had some competition in the cake-eating department. I guess sharing equals caring.

The baby elephant is typically surrounded by his or her overprotective mother and nanny. Don’t fuck with the baby. Unless you want to answer to an elephant.

After the party, Uber came and picked some people up to take them back to the main building.

The time seemed to fly on by and just like that, we only had a few days left. Days filled with friends (and elephants). We even created a hip new bar we dubbed SkyBar. By day it’s a viewing platform. At night, we drank mixed concoctions and laughed. And since we are all in our 30s, spent the next day battling hangovers.

We watched our dear friend (who just so happens to be an amazing stylist) give out free haircuts to the staff and volunteers at ENP.

And then bam. Our last day. Time for class pictures. High-five to all of the volunteers that helped make shoveling shit fun.

And a double high-five and chest-bump to our volunteer group. We were small and mighty but got shit done.

And to our new friends that weren’t in our group. But helped make the SkyBar a fly bar.

And to Craig’s beard brother.

Our stay at ENP was everything I hoped for. Yes, the rooms could’ve been better. Yes, we could’ve had more one-on-one time with the elephants. But we busted our butts helping these beautiful animals, met some amazing friends during it all, and left feeling like we actually helped do some good out in the world. It will forever be one of my top favorite experiences on this adventure.

So if you ever find yourself in Northern Thailand, stop by ENP. Even if it’s just for the day. See the great work they are doing…and help show the elephants some love, by not riding them. They truly are amazing animals that I just want to cuddle all day long. Except I didn’t, because they would totally crush me.

Our year-long adventure is coming to an end. [Insert Dawson ugly cry face here.] Up next, a quick stop in Hong Kong before….we surprise my family by coming home to the states two whole weeks early. Squeal.