Interesting Things about Elephants

There are 2 categories of elephants in the world, Asian and African elephants. The Thai elephant is in the category of Asian elephants, elegant in feature and smart. The skin colour is usually grey mixed with light yellowish brown. The skin wrinkles are smoother than those of the African elephant. Its tail has many short-haired tassels. From the front, the head is in triangular shape with 2 hemispherical bulges on the forehead. The trunk is beautifully round and not too pointy. They eat approximately 250-kilogramme of food. Thai elephants walk slower and shier than African elephants. Their average lifespan is around 80-90 years. In Thailand, there are wild elephants in most regions with abundant forests with creeks and streams as they like to often take a bath and are good at swimming.

The Bible of Elephant Training

What makes Thai elephant riding unique is the ancient wisdom of elephant training, which has been passed on from generation to generation for over a century. This ancient wisdom is an important manual for elephant training, communication, and care. It starts from how to get on the elephant’s back, how to take an elephant for a bath, how to feed, control and live with them, and how to be a good mahout. The close relationship between elephants and mahouts are impressively admirable. Thai mahouts’ ability in controlling this world’s biggest animal is internationally accepted. Westerners see elephants as a dangerous animal, especially musk elephants which can be extremely dangerous. Therefore, it is amazing and rare for foreigners to see big wild animals like elephants being domesticated and trained to interact with humans.