One of the fun activities we did during our trip to Thailand was feeding the elephants. As you can imagine, they eat a lot of food every day. In the morning we rinse off all the fruit that they will eat during the day.  They eat a lot of bananas, watermelons, and pineapples. We fed them “banana balls” once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Banana balls are made from mashed bananas, rice powder, and elephant pellets.  I did not know there were such a thing as elephant pellets before. Feeding the banana balls were fun and the elephants really enjoyed them. Some of the elephants chewed slower than others so it was important to try to time it out so that all of the elephants finished at the same time to avoid food aggression. Some of the elephants tend to be more dominant than others, just like in the wild. It was really great to get a chance to see these beautiful giants up close. In the afternoon we chopped more fruit and did some walks and hand feeding. On days that tourists came, however, they got to do the walking and feeding so the volunteers just prepared everything. They offered day tours to people who wanted to see the facility and the animals so they could get some elephant experience too. I was happy when there were no tourists though, because that meant that the volunteers could actually interact with the elephants instead of just preparing everything and cleaning the enclosures. The elephants are very food motivated and will follow you anywhere as long as you have food to give them. Sometimes even when you don’t have food they will come up to the fence just to make sure. Feeding the elephants was one of the coolest things we did while we were there.

Want to take part in a similar program while earning college credits? Click here to find out how you can study abroad through the available programs at SPC.