Description
ITINERARY: This half day tour is highly recommended by our customers. The family run camp is in the borders of the National Park at Phanom Bencha, and treats their animals comparatively very well. Note however, it is NOT an elephant sanctuary, nor does it advertise itself as such. The animals are ridden every day, and we have reports that there is now a baby elephant show on some days. It should not be expected that they conform to, and should not be judged by, the same standards as an elephant sanctuary.
You will start the tour with a trek through the forest, following the river for part of the way. Then you will stop and learn about the elephants and be given instruction on their bathing habits. Then it’s time to go into the river with them! The water is shallow and you can be as “hands on” as you like. The mahouts will help you to climb on their back if desired; the elephants are very gentle and relaxed, as they look forward to their daily shower time and enjoy a good scrub. Note: there is a 40 – 50 min (approx.) transfer time each way for this trip.
Expected group size: 2 – 12 pax, depending on the day and time of year.
FURTHER READING:
– More info on elephant trekking in Krabi.
– Detailed trip report
Jess –
I would like to give some feedback on the particular company you have selected to use… They are kind to their animals, in a beautiful place, the hook was not used once and they seemed to love their elephants. Your website and the selection of tours was actually the reason we decided to spend a lot of extra $$ and travel to ao nang as we did not want to support what seemed to be cruel and unnatural habitat that the trekking company in Phuket had.
Your service has been A+ and will be telling all my friends that are coming over soon to book through you. My only regret is that we are not here longer to book more tours, however I will be returning in the next 12 months and intend to stay here again.
Heidi –
A small 4 Elephant camp. Very nice trek through the very beautiful forest. My daughter even got to sit behind the Mahout. The Elephants are very nice kept. Overnight they are in the Forest in the daytime the swim and eat. We got to feed them with bananas and bathed with them. I can only recommend. very small and very nice and they are very kind to their Elephants.
Clare Jensen –
I did a lot of research into a trip to visit elephants, due to ethical concerns, and believe I found one of the best going. This camp offered us the opportunity to interact with these amazing creatures and allowed me to fulfil a lifetime dream of bathing with an elephant and giving it a scrub.
There was not a chain in sight, and the only use of the mahoot’s hook was to give the elephant a little scratch or knock off an annoying bug.
Your Krabi offered the best price that I could find for this sort of experience – B900 per person and I would thoroughly recommend.
Charlene –
After a lot of research into the elephant camps in Krabi, I came across [this camp] through yourkrabi.com and found them to be an excellent and ethical tour operator.
The elephants are treated very well, with no visible scars or mistreatment. We chose the Elephant Bathing program which we had a lot of fun scrubbing down our elephant after the trek.
Highly recommended this tour, as its the same price offered for other elephant treks run by not so ethical companies. Thank you Seema and your wonderful recommendation, this was by far the best day we spent in Krabi!
Md Nor –
Like everyone else, I searched through the internet and TripAdvisor for non abusive elephant trekking camps and I came across [this one]. There are about 5-6 elephants there and the camp looks very clean and well shaded. The elephants looks healthy and there are no visible signs of abuse. I was told by the mahouts and those who run the camp that the elephants do not do more than 4 rides per day. The ride itself was very exciting as I love elephants and I nearly broke down when I went up the elephant. It was like a dream come true! The ride took us through the jungle and across some streams. Most of the time it was quite shady and at times the elephant stopped to feed on the leaves and grasses. However I saw the mahout carrying a bullhook but I did not see him using it on the elephant. After the ride which lasted about an hour, we had the chance to bathe the elephants. This was the best part of the activity as elephants love water. You could see how happy she was. I was elated as I got to ride on top of the elephant while bathing her. Once the bathing was done, we were treated to bottled mineral water and fresh pineapples at the tourist rest area. Overall, it was an amazing experience.
Afternote: I wrote this review as I feel that this is a good elephant trekking camp that cares for it’s elephants. This is a personal observation. However after reading up and watching videos on “why you shouldn’t ride an elephant” I think this will be my last elephant ride. Don’t get me wrong, the elephants there were not abused at all, this is just a personal opinion
Kayla P –
Like all previous reviewers, I was very concerned with the ethical treatment of the animals. This camp does a lovely job with their pachyderms. There were no visible scars, the elephants looked healthy, the mahouts were kind. I did a lot of research and these guys are the only certified sanctuary in Southern Thailand. I don’t know that I’ll ever ride another elephant, just because of the nastiness in the industry, but all in all these guys do a top notch job and I wish them well. This was one of 3 tours we booked with yourkrabi and all were excellent and went off without a hitch.
Simon –
I would just like to thank everyone at YOUR KRABI for such an amazing excursion yesterday on the elephants. It was fantastic.
Jasmine –
After reading all of the great reviews my friends and I decided to book this trip. All the reviews are wrong!!! We felt so guilty about paying for this and did not even enjoy our experience because our how poorly the elephants were treated. They carried a bull hook and every time the elephant did not do as told they were stabbed with the hook. Some of the elephants had chains on them and they even chained a baby out in the forest. If I could include pictures for proof I would. The staff were friendly though. Also, for the bathing, you only bathe one baby elephants which is not what is shown in the picture.
Your Krabi –
This is very worrying, as normally we have nothing but positive feedback from this tour. Please do send us any evidence you have of mistreatment (by email) and we will investigate.
Rick –
The elephant trek was Amazing! the animals looked really healthy, and although our elephant was being a little uncooperative the mahout tried his hardest not to use the hook and when he did it was just a little tap, which was great to see his patience and test his other methods of training the elephant.
Leanne –
This was our third visit & the experience gets better each time!
The mahouts do carry bullhooks, this is a given for safety, but not once on all three visits have we seen this used. The elephants respond to vocal instructions, we even had an elephant reverse by voice command.
The elephant bathing is the real jewel to this experience & seeing how much they enjoy it themselves was amazing.
Living within 2 hours of Thailand, each time relatives visit us we bring them here.
I highly recommend this experience, as do all our visitors who have been with us!
Mrs Donna Dunn –
Fantastic service provided, well organised. Witnessed no cruelty to the animals we are so glad we booked with that company.
We have already recommended the tour to other holiday makers.
We also heard some horror stories from holiday makers about other elephant treks, so were so glad we booked with whom we did.
Absolutely recommend this company.
Tiago Santiago –
Fantastic!!
We were in doubt to do it or not, due to all the fame around elephant camps, but it definitely worth it!
1 time life experience.
Regarding the camp, the elephants seemed well treated and happy. Haven’t seen a single poke on an elephant. The staff were very friendly!
Just hope it remains like this for the future, and don’t come greedy.
Thanks
Jie Wang –
Compared to my pervious trekking experience, this tour is more ethical. However, I hope the trainer does not demand elephants to over-perform when they are bathing with the tourists. It is a more ethical tour but it is still highly commercial.
Natalia –
It`s amazing that there`s so much positive feedback…As a lot of people here, I had a moral dilemma associated with elephant trekking, but after reading so may good reviews about this place I decided to go in the end.
Worse mistake ever.
True, I haven`t seen any actual wounds on any of the elephants, but during the trek the hook was CONSTANTLY in use.
Talking about animal bathing habits, mentioned in the trip description was entirely skipped, and during the bathing only one elephant was present – the baby one, and again, the hook was constantly in use wherever it was trying to get on the shore, because obviously it had enough. People, not much lighter than it, were climbing on it`s back one by one, screaming and laughing aloud. I actually had tears in the eyes and didn`t even get into the water in the end.
But the worst of all – the thing I was trying to avoid most – baby elephant show, which is not mentioned in the description, took place in the end. I really don`t think that taking the baby animal away from it`s mother and teaching it to play some instruments ect could be called humanity…
Also, all the elephants were wearing couple of chains on the necks, which is not showed on the pictures on this website, and few of them were tied to the tries with really short chains.
I had the worst moral hangover in my life after visiting the place. I don`t have any pictures because I wasn`t using camera at all, but it`s not difficult to spot, as no one is even trying to hide them in there, it`s all happening openly as if there was nothing wrong with it.
Indiana Lees –
Hello all, I am an avid animal lover and I have been aware of the ethical concerns regarding elephant camps. I did not have the money or time to visit chang mai (which is where you should go if you truly want to see elephants in a sanctuary) so I did hours of research trying to find a place where I could see elephants in a sanctuary here in Krabi. I did not want to go elephant trekking, I simply wanted to feed or maybe bathe an elephant and have a nice one on one experience with these beautiful creatures but it proved impossible to do this without booking a tour that involved ‘elephant trekking’. When I came across this website and read the very detailed review of their experience of this camp and how small and friendly this place was – I felt positive about booking. I also believed it was important for me to go and see for myself if it was all it was said to be – a peaceful happy elephant camp. On arrival, it is amazing to see elephants up close and personal and the elephants did seem happy to me as we bang our trek. The elephant I was on, was free to graze and it stopped when it wanted without the guide forcing it to move again which was a comfort to me. However I can’t say the same for the other guides and their elephants. At one point one of the elephants began protesting by banging her trunk on the ground and not wanting to walk, so the guide hit its head with the hook, but not the sharp end. This did upset me and I thought it was wrong, but I understand its the demand from the tourists that also encourage the guides to ensure the trek goes perfectly. I personally don’t think like this and if at any point my elephant did not want to walk I would immediately of got off and said to the guide it is fine, please let the elephant do as it wishes. They take photos of you twice throughout the trek, I did say no but they take one anyway. I am not there to prove I sat on an elephant – I was simply there to enjoy the experience of being with an elephant. Taking photos makes it very commercialised and I was not comfortable with that. When you arrive back at the camp, the lady prints out the photo and puts it in a nice frame and I think it was 100 TB, I kindly declined to buy which I feel may of offended them but I have my reasons as outlined above. I was the only one who got to bathe with the younger elephant and my experience of this was in fact a very positive one, she was 7 years old and was happy. Her eyes were bright, ears flapping and very social and loving to me whilst we splashed around in the water. She kept approaching me with her trunk and clearly loved being in the water. There was no use of a hook, the guide did not even have one and he just sat at the side whilst we were there, which made me feel comfortable in the fact that the elephant wasn’t told to do anything until the very end where I think he requested her to splash water through her trunk at the end but its hard to tell when you don’t speak the language! The heart breaking moment for me was when I saw the elephant do a bow and play an instrument to the other tourists whilst we were drying off from the water, we were expected to join but I didn’t want anything to do with that and I was extremely dissapponted to see this and especially because it was not mentioned on this website and the review! I know some people will say ‘well what do you expect’ but I truly believed that this camp was different from others purely based on what I had read so I feel like I’ve been totally misinformed. If the review of this camp was outdated, then it should of been updated to reflect the current practices and I am annoyed and feel I’ve been mislead because I was not expecting this and my decision to come here would have been changed if I knew about what they made the elephant do. However, I still do want to point out that at not one point was the sharp end of the hook used and I did inspect every elephant for hook marks and there wasn’t a single one. I saw no chains but I’m aware that they could have out of sight. I do believe the elephants physically were unharmed, and for the expection of one of the females protesting for a few minuets during the trek, they never used their trumpet, their ears were flapping, tails moving side to side, eyes were not alert but relaxed, they appeared calm, never aggressive and generally happy. So overall, I would chose not go back based on my experince and the unfortunate demand tourists place on wanting to see elephants play an instrument and perform unnecessary tricks – is it not enough to just see an elephant in front of you and get to feed it? Anyway, I’m sure there are far worse camps out there and I actually dread to think of places where elephants do get physcially injured and I hope this camp puts the elephants first rather than the tourists. Im sad to hear that the last review saw chains but I cannot confirm this as I did not see this and the elephant I went in the water with was not a baby and was very happy during my experince. Would I recomend you go? Definatly not, save up your money, come back and go visit an elephant sanctuary in chang mai. Trust me!