Elephant Safari

I'm almost done blogging about our trip, but I have a couple more to go. On the last evening that we were there, we went to a Elephant Safari park. It is a place on the island where they have transported 27 Sumatran elephants. These elephants are native to Indonesia- to Sumatra, but not to Bali. They have created a "refuge" for them on Bali and they have even started to breed them, and have 3 baby elephants. Being that it wasn't the US and the legal restrictions are not the same, we got to get more close and personal with the elephants that we encountered. They let us feed them- we fed the baby elephants and they came up and ate right out of our hands. As you can tell from the expression on my face, it was a strange feeling.

Then they let us feed the big elephants and they even had them taught to do a few tricks. This elephant lassoed me with a wreath of flowers.

They would pose for pictures. You can see from the top picture on this page that the elephant took its trunk and cosied right up to my legs. It was funny.

Or they would hug us...

After we pet the big elephants, they had a short show. The elephants shot basketballs at a hoop, kicked soccer balls into goals and even did a math problem. It was cute. At the end, we got to go on an elephant ride. Sumatran elephants are not as big as African elephants, but they are still quite large. Each elephant would carry two people and was led by a trainer. Our trainer had been with this elephant since they got him from the wild 12 years before. He was originally from Sumatra, but had moved over to Bali with his elephant. He said that he rented rooms in the neighboring town because the houses were too expensive. He was preparing to go back home to Sumatra in 6 months to farm on his family's farm.

It was quite a fun adventure, and after all that, they fed us a meal. It was probably the best meal we had on our whole trip.