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Thai Elephant Conservation Center

A highlight of our trip to Thailand was a day trip to Thai Elephant Conservation Center outside of Lampang. Kids will have a chance to ride and feed elephants, visit the elephant nursery and paper dung factory, and see elephants paint pictures!

video thai elephant conservation center
  Elephant shows – During the elephant show, elephants are remarkably kid-like. They toss rubber balls, roll over and sleep, play bamboo chimes and xylophones, catch sticks, and paint colorful pictures with their trunks. We watched three different elephants painting on easels. The trainer (mahout) hands the elephant different pots of colors the elephants painted a flower, an elephant outline and a landscape. After the show, you can buy the paintings.
mom and baby elephant
  Elephant baths – Come earlier, before each show, to watch the elephants getting bathed by the mahouts. When they come out of the water, the elephants might spray you with water from their trunks, and kids can feed the elephants bananas.
  Elephant nursery – From the show area, walk over to the other side to see the elephant nursery, with adorable baby elephants and their moms. Just makes you want to get out and hug them.
  Go on an elephant ride – Go for half hour or one hour rides on an elephant. Kids will enjoy being so high up, but hold onto the howdah, it's a somewhat tippy ride. On the ride, the elephant walks through the water, then up into a lush jungle with huge bamboo and vines, where you'll see other elephants in the forest as you go by.
Video making elephant dung paper
  Elephant dung paper factory – Walk up the hill to the dung paper factory to see the process of turning elephant poop into paper. First the dung, yellow poop (doesn't smell), is washed to kill bacteria, mild bleach is added, then it's spun for three hours to break down the fiber. The fiber balls are rolled out, put into frames, and then the frames are set to dry in the sun. No two sheets of paper are identical, as the paper texture depends on what the elephant ate. Kids will have fun buying notebooks and souvenirs made of out elephant dung paper.
    The Conservation Center has a cafe with cold drinks, restaurant, and gift shop with carved wooden elephants, elephant puzzles and stuffed elephants and elephant dung paper.
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